In this episode, our host Megan, is joined by Megan Castro, a freelance dancer originally from South Carolina and currently based in Utah.

Megan shares an intimate reflection on improvisation as both a creative practice and a way of listening to the body through sharing insight into a daily movement journal practice that she began during the COVID-19 pandemic. Together they explore how the practice has evolved into a personal archive that continues to shape her relationship to dance, documentation, and self-trust.

The conversation explores authenticity in movement, navigating time constraints in choreographic processes, and using improvisation as a tool for stripping away habit and expectation. They also explore the difference between letting the people involved shape the work and adhering to strict choreographic structures that may reduce individual expression.

Megan discusses how sharing her personal movement journal practice on social media has informed her approach to the platform as a reflective space, and how this connects to cultivating a more sustainable relationship with the body as an artist.

In this episode, Megan is joined by dear friend Emma Poyer, a Réunionese multidisciplinary dance performer and choreographer based in the UK. Emma’s practice weaves contemporary dance, ballet, global forms, improvisation, ritual, and storytelling, drawing from her multicultural roots and a deep commitment to co-creation, collective rhythm, and embodied leadership.

Together, they explore what it means to freelance sustainably while navigating constant shifts in work and location, and what Emma is learning along the way. The conversation also unpacks identity in and out of the studio, the value of leaving things open to be discovered, and reflections on teaching practice—touching on seasons of learning, unlearning, and ongoing transformation.

In this episode, Megan is joined by contemporary dance artist and choreographer JJ for a reflective conversation on queerness, care, and making work within systems that often resist softness. Beginning with a gentle catch-up, they speak about daily rituals, studio time, and the small structures that help sustain a freelance artistic life.
JJ shares the ideas behind Copters and Hearses, a work that sits inside the tension between self-care and capitalism. Together, they explore how care becomes commodified, how movement and cultural practices are taken up and discarded, and how artists are asked to continually optimize themselves in the name of wellness.
The conversation turns toward the studio, where JJ reflects on trust, honesty, and genuine connection in collaboration — leading without certainty, caring without performance, and creating spaces that feel both held and open. The episode closes with JJ sharing their upcoming performance at the Resolution Festival, grounding these questions in embodied, lived practice.

In this episode, Megan is joined by Irish theatre maker Kevin Keough for a thoughtful conversation on movement, sustainability, and care across an artist’s career. Speaking from a period of creative dormancy after completing a three-year project, Kevin reflects on rest as an active and necessary part of artistic practice, sharing how slowing down and engaging in quieter, hands-on projects has helped him recover from burnout.
Together, they trace Kevin’s journey into theatre — from a formative early experience of live performance to training as an actor and evolving into a theatre maker and director. Kevin discusses his commitment to making theatre more accessible, questioning traditional hierarchies while also acknowledging the role of structure, leadership, and discipline in collaborative creative processes.
The conversation expands into the realities of freelance artistic life: funding pressures, collaboration, emotional labor, and the often unseen movement involved in planning, administration, and sustaining a body and mind under long-term creative stress. Megan and Kevin explore how care, listening, and adaptability are essential tools for maintaining longevity and integrity in creative work.

Episode 11 Summary — Season One Reflection

In this solo reflection episode, Megan takes a moment to pause and look back on the conversations, themes, and questions that shaped Season One of CMS.

She reflects on what emerged across the ten episodes — love as a creative practice, the value of presence and listening, and the courage it takes to stay connected to why we create.

Megan shares how hosting these conversations has influenced her own relationship to movement, collaboration, and artistic integrity.

The episode serves as a gentle closing to Season One and an invitation to carry these reflections forward into future practice.

In Episode 10, Megan speaks with Jiwon Oh, a Korean dance and multidisciplinary artist based in London, about how love, care, and human connection shape her creative practice, from self-filming in the studio to collaborating tenderly with her grandmother.

They explore how Gaga opened a new sense of freedom for both of them, shifting their relationship with movement from discipline and expectation toward curiosity, joy, and self-permission.

Jiwon shares about her choreographic and creation process, touching on how working across Korean and English helps her create atmospheres rooted in feeling, and how prioritizing people over product has become central to her choreography.

Together, they trace her journey into dance and the ways love — for movement, for collaborators, and for the process itself — continues to guide her artistic path.

In this episode of Conversations for the Moving Self, Megan is joined by Laura, a dance artist, teacher, and Pilates instructor whose movement journey has stretched across dance, gymnastics, football, netball, running, and more.
Together they trace how those early, wide-ranging experiences have shaped the way Laura moves and teaches today — a practice now rooted in dance, Pilates, and cross-training, guided by curiosity and sustainability. She shares her transition from performer to teacher, and how her work with both children and adults with disabilities continues to shape her inclusive approach to movement spaces.
Megan and Laura explore the balance between structure and creativity in teaching, the evolution of language in dance education, and how returning to familiar practices can reconnect us to joy. Laura also introduces her current “jeffing” running practice — a rhythm of running and resting that invites a kinder, more embodied relationship with endurance.
Throughout, they reflect on how teaching movement can be both creative and healing — a space to meet the body, and each other, with care.

In this episode of Conversations for the Moving Self, Megan and Summer Jupp - yoga teacher, yoga teacher trainer, cycle-conscious coach, and co-founder of Arkspace Wellbeing - explore the tenderness and honesty of practicing through injury, and how slowing down can deepen self-compassion.

Together, they reflect on the quiet pressure to “perform wellness,” and the relief that comes when movement becomes about care instead of perfection. They also speak about the emotional steadiness movement can offer in difficult seasons and the many valid entry points into practice, no matter someone’s age, history, or ability.

Through Summer’s story, the episode touches on healing old narratives around body image and learning to inhabit the body with warmth instead of judgment. This conversation is a gentle reminder that softness, adaptation, and kindness toward ourselves are forms of strength worth honoring.