Reawaken your creativity with art, dance, kriyas, Ayurveda and intuition at beautiful locations in Olhao & surrounding nature on a 5 day journey to connect with your creative JOY!
Located in a beautiful luxury 5* building in the heart of Olhão in the South of Portugal, we are are offering an opportunity to experience their PathForJoy series of workshops.
Partnering with Ayurvedic expert Alexandre Paulain, artist Rhian Kempadoo Millar, Dance practitioner Ofelia Balogun & Ella Mesma.
The five days will include morning & afternoon sessions in movement, meditation, manifestation & creativity, as well as great ayurvedic food, massages & exploring the beautiful sites of the local area including waterfall, nature & art excursions.
This is a journey back home to our authentic selves with a beautiful sequence of workshops whilst surrounded by nature & beauty.
Cost Includes
All the Workshops led by Ella Mesma aka Maya Gandaia, Alexandre Paulin & Rhian Kempadoo Millar
All Transportations including Airport transfers (from Faro, Portugal to the house)
5* twin rooms sharing with one other person
Vegan ayurvedic food and drinks on site (no alcohol included)
A beautiful rooftop pool
1 two hour ayurvedic massage
Early fresh juices & shots before Yoga
All meals except one when visiting the city of Tavira
Tourist sites:
Pega Do Inferno Waterfall
Tavira
*Not included: Flights & Insurance (You are responsible for your own travel to Portugal & any Covid measures to allow travel)
Join in as much or as little, connect to nature, open your heart. There is no pressure to join in everything: this retreat is a journey back home to your authentic self and what you would love! We will help you to connect to that genius (goddxx) version of yourself and set you up for a transformational year living your TRUTH!
Ella Mesma
Ella will be offering a series of two hour workshops which combine the principles of alchemy with elements of yoga, movement and meditation to manifest powerful transformation.
Each day participants will journey with themes from one chakra to create deeper clarity, balance and creative inspiration in life. Each chakra is linked to emotions, elements, colours, mantras, and mudras, and by studying them every day we can learn to heal imbalances and open up to our truth and connect to our true potential. These sessions will offer a practical experiential system to work through the stuff and blockages and transmute that energy to manifest powerful transformation.
Day 2: HOME (Root Chakra) Grounding into foundation and abundance
Day 3: SACRED (Sacral Chakra) The PathFor Pleasure
Day 4: CREATE (Solar Plexus Chakra) The PathFor Creative Fire
Day 5: HEART (Heart Chakra) The PathFor Union
Ofelia Omoyele Balogun
Ofelia will be offering a series of two hours workshops through an experimental somatic approach called Dance Your Roots, it explores the movement as a tool to rediscover the body as a messenger of intuition. The dance principles of grounding,vibration, undulation and isolation of the body are used as a medium to deconstruct the narrative within and on our body, the possible rigidities developed as a consequence of this narrative.
It can become a key to stimulate the awakening of a deep awareness and sense of acceptance. Recognizing what has been given to us becomes a starting point for transformation, growth and sense of direction to our path.
Day 1: DYR Grounding
Day 2: DYR Undulation
Day 3: DYR Vibration
Day 4: DYR Isolation
Alexandre Paulain
Alexandre Paulain will be offering workshops about the importance of some ayurvedic routines, massages and treatments to help us to clean our senses: Jnana Indryas, that are like a bridge between the enviroment and our mind and intellect (they are important tools to “kryaTivity”). Alexandre Paulain will also offering his culinary knowledge and ayurvedic food as chef. He considers himself an “ayurvegan” and he will prepare the meals in a way to nourish our body and soul with sattvic food, with lots of prana!
Ella (Maya Gandaia) is an established professional artist with over 20 years of experience in dance, yoga and movement, and the founding Artistic Director of Ella Mesma Company & Maya Gandaia Ltd.
She is an accredited Natural Success coach & Wheel of Consent teacher, and offers a year long coaching platform for creatives and professionals called the Goddxx Path. She has been practising yoga since 2004, and been teaching since 2011. She studied Kundalini with the Karam Kriya School in 2018
As a choreographer, a coach and a human, she is interested in unlearning to get back to our authentic selves, in transformation and wellbeing and in story telling; in particular putting the stories she would love to have seen growing up on stage. She is the published author of Journal to Joy
Ella Mesma is trained in Afro-Latin, breaking & contemporary dance and has performed for Breakin’ Convention, Russell Maliphant, The Chomondeleys, and choreographed commissions for Dada Fest, Black Gold Arts, Manchester International Festival, Little Amal, Rural Arts, Bristol Old Vic and more.
“The Being becomes a bridge between two realities. Dance as a tool to discover yourself as infinite possibilities.”
Ofelia is an Educator, Movement Artist and Choreographer, whose practice focuses on the intersection between the vocabulary originating from the African Diaspora in the Caribbean to the world and its connection with dance theatre and contemporary techniques. From the consequences of history in contemporary society to interdisciplinary connections that explore the concept of intersectional identity, ancestry and rituality.
With a Diploma in Social Sciences with a focus in Anthropology, Psychology, Sociology and Theatre, Ofelia also earned a First Class Honours degree from Roehampton University of London via Irie! Dance Theater in Diverse Dance Styles.
Alexandre is our resident chef!
Alexandre prepares delicious detox programs based on the premise that our creativity grows when we take care of our physical, energetic, spiritual and emotional health.
Born in Brazil, Alexandre was baptised in to dance in his early years. After experimentation in performance, theatre and dance, he came into contact with ashtanga yoga in 2003, and has since been on a path of no return.
In 2006, he began his career as an Ayurvedic masseuse and in 2009, improved the technique of this massage in Mysore, India, with his master Madhu Premananda.
From 2012 to 2014, he graduated as an Ayurvedic therapist at Yoga Brahma Vydyalaya School and since then has been offering Ayurvedic diagnostic procedures, cooking and treatments. As part of this enhancement, he attended several courses such as Ayurvedic Gynecology with Dr. Gaurave Davee, India, Marmatherapy, Dr Avinash Lele, India and other teachers and courses.
Currently Alexandre also practices Gokul yoga, a style of yoga based on marmas (energetic points) and bandhas (places in the body where awareness springs for better performing asanas). In addition to massage of strong physical and energetic detoxification power, Alexandre offers other procedures like garshana (a coarse salt scrub with herbs), shirodara (using oils or other substances such as coconut milk etc to flow over the forehead and balance the chakras) and swedana (an ayurvedic sauna).
Rhian trained as a costume designer at Central St Martins, London and Milliner. She has worked as a designer for film, carnival, dance and creative arts for 25 years in UK, The Caribbean and the US.
In Jan 2020 she received a grant from Arts Council England to explore her drawing, painting and 2D work during the lockdown and has since relocated to the Algarve to pursue a career as an artist, and where she offers creative workshops in nature and on location of her studio Burokeet. Her work often draws on her Indo Caribbean/British heritage as well as elements from nature.
Alexandre: IG alexandre_paulain
Ella: IG ellamesma Website: www.mayagandaia.com & www.ellamesma.co.uk
Ofelia: IG @moremipath www.ofeliabalogun.com & www.moremipath.com
Rhian: IG: @rhiankempadoomillar_arte www.burokeet.com
Learn how to shift out the emotions, unlearn the blocks, take a look at your bias & master intuitive tools to live a life of creativity, abundance & JOY