Above: Photos by Joerg Maxzin of the production “Le Ceur Battant” with Anina von Molnar and Jochen Heckmann in the leading roles.
Anina von Molnar
For years Anina has been expanding on her work as a professional dancer and passionately devoting herself to yoga and the Gyrotonic® Expansion System. She completed her training at “OM Yoga” in New York and is a registered yoga teacher with the International Yoga Alliance, RYT. She is also a certified Gyrotonic® Level I and Level II instructor.
Anina has lived in Europe since 1991 where she has had a wide variety of professional engagements in several opera houses and theatres. Most recently, she was engaged as a soloist and assistant choreographer for 8 years at the Augsburg Ballet Theatre.
Through her background as a dancer, she has aquired vast knowledge of how the body moves and the internal physiological processes that occur. This exceptional insight flows naturally into her work as a yoga teacher and Gyrotonic® instructor and is of optimum benefit to her class participants.
YOGA...
Anina has always been fascinated by the body's forms of expression – her broad experience of various yoga styles has given her perception greater depth and complexity over the years. She is grateful to have been trained directly by self-realised masters and pioneers of yoga in the West in the traditions of Iyengar Yoga, Kripalu Yoga, Sivananda Yoga, Anusara Yoga and Hatha Vinyasa Yoga (Ashtanga, OM und Jivamukti Yoga).
They hold her respect for their teachings which have helped her along her individual yogic path and in her personal development as both teacher and student.
Anina's yoga classes are informed by her direct contact with these teachers of these different branches of yoga. She devotes herself to deep yoga experience in her practice daily and shares this with the students who come to her from all walks of life. Concentration is at all times on the precise execution of the individual yoga postures (asanas), the vinyasa of the breath (the flow of the breath when entering a posture, during and coming out of the posture), and individual, manual corrections of each student during the class. For Anina asanas are perfection in form - the body and the metaphysical self join together in an expression of pure aesthetics.
GYROTONIC...
In 1998 Anina came to know the genius mind and body visionary Juliu Horvath. He is the founder of the unique, three-dimensional movement expansion system called Gyrotonic Expansion System®. Working with him personally at his “White Cloud Studio” in New York, Anina studied and completed the two Trainer Levels I and II.
PHILOSOPHY...
She has been guided and inspired by the following masters and philosophies:
Thich Nhat Hanh - Vietnamese Zen master with a monastery in France (Plum Village);
Sharon Salzberg - known for her practising of the Metta-Loving Kindness meditation;
Pema Chödrön - Buddhist nun who has been instrumental in bringing the teachings of Tibetan Buddhism to the West;
Ethan Nichtern - teacher of meditation in the Shambala tradition;
Ram Dass - teacher of mindfulness and author of the seminal book “Be Here Now”, which played a major role in the spiritual awakening of the West in the early 70s;
Carolyn Myss - pioneer in the field of energy medicine and human consciousness.
Curriculum Vitae – Dance
Born in Winnetka, Illinois, Anina von Molnar moved to New York at the age of 17 to start her professional dance career as a performing artist. At 18 she received her first engagement at the New York City Opera Ballet (New York State Theater at Lincoln Center), where she worked for 6 years. During this time full of rich, new experiences, Anina had the opportunity to take up additional engagements with, among others, Twyla Tharp (Apprenticeship), The Rebecca Kelly Dance Company (New York, NY) and the Rod Rodgers Dance Company (New York, NY). She was also appearing on stage regularly in numerous classical ballets (Giselle, The Nutcracker Suite, Les Sylphides, Coppelia).
From 1991 to 1994, she danced solo roles under contract with Richard Wherlock at the Ballet Theatre Hagen and from 1994 to 1996 at the Zurich Ballet before beginning her collaboration with Jochen Heckmann in 1996 as a dancer with the LOOPING Contemporary Dance Company (Zurich, Switzerland).
Guest performances have led her to the Prague National Ballet as well as the Bolshoi Theatre.
From the 1999/2000 season until 2007, Anina was engaged as Assistant Choreographer and coach together with ballet director Jochen Heckmann at the Augsburg Theatre. Here she collaborated on special dance productions such as “Im Wandel der Lüste”, the dance duet “Le Coeur Battant” (pictures above) and the hugely successful ballets “La Pasion”, “Cumulus” and “Stravinsky and More” also as a solo artist.
A selection of videos from Anina's professional dance career:
Ausführlicher tabellarischer Lebenslauf: juli2010cvcorrect.doc
