Michelle Dortignac

For as long as I can remember, my personal mantra has been, “I wonder what would happen if…”

I moved to New York City in 1991 where I enrolled in an experimental dance training program led by several professors from NYU Tisch School of the Arts. The program included all kinds of movement and dance studies, including yoga. So from the very beginning, Yoga, Dance, Creativity and Experimentation became intertwined in my mind.

Diving more into my Yoga practice in 1998, I graduated from Vinyasa Yoga teacher training before the Yoga Alliance existed! And even though teaching yoga became my career, I never completely stopped dancing. In 2002, I discovered aerial dance. My passion and drive for creating movement-based art was reignited, and practice eventually turned into performance, both amateur and professional. Along the way, I realized what a lovely complement aerial training is to yoga asana practice, and in 2005 (before Aerial Yoga was anything!) developed a class that combined the two, called “Unnata Aerial Yoga.”

I taught the first Unnata classes in 2006, and while developing the method, kept pursuing classic yoga training (500 hour YTT, Meditation TT, Restorative Yoga TT) to ensure the development of the Unnata method remains rooted in authentic yoga techniques. I've always used the aerial yoga equipment to help students understand proper skeletal alignment and to hold the asana longer, much in the same way the Iyengar system uses yoga props. The feedback I hear most often from Yoga teachers who study with me is, "My floor practice has completely changed."

These days, I’m also exploring themes of: discipline, playful joy, self-discovery, inner silence and non-attachment.

I offer classes and workshops in aerial yoga, low-hammock yoga, bed/sofa yoga (the furniture is used to support body weight in much the same way a yoga hammock can support body weight), and yoga without any equipment. 

The word “unnata” means “elevated” both literally and metaphorically, and through my yoga instruction, I hope to inspire others to rise above whatever assumptions they’ve made about themself and the world around them - to wonder, and not pre-decide, “what would happen if…”

unnatayoga.com/unnata-classes-with-Michelle