Empowerment Self Defense is a feminist, gender-inclusive self defense system that foregrounds consent and personal autonomy. It is based in games and theater exercises as well as physical skill training. All are welcome regardless of prior movement experience.

In addition to a self-defense training workshop, Jay will talk about her recent book Risk, Failure, Play: What Dance Reveals about Martial Arts Training. 

Contact/RSVP: dancetheater.clma@gmail.com 

Janet (Jay) O’Shea is a practitioner of Empowerment Self Defense as well as a Professor of World Arts and Cultures/Dance at UCLA. Author of Risk, Failure, Play: What Dance Reveals about Martial Arts Training, At Home in the World: Bharata Natyam on the Global Stage, and the co-editor of the Routledge Dance Studies Reader, 2nd edition, her research focuses on corporeality, interdisciplinary exchange, and the politics of everyday life.