ABOUT
MOVEMENT, ART & CULTURE
Yamina Lyara (b. 1995) is a multidisciplinary artist, choreographer and practitioner currently based in Alentejo, Portugal, whilst collaborating worldwide. Born in Switzerland, she spent formative years training in New York, Paris and London, and later on in Brazil. With over a decade of experience, engaging across the creative field, she has worked and taught internationally.
As the founder of "House of Synergy” (2024- present) she is extending her creative praxis to bring together a wide range of artists. She is committed to cultivating experimental spaces that nurture relational and emergent forms of praxis as well as reciprocal approaches that extend beyond conventional structures. Alongside her artistic work, Yamina is an experienced facilitator, studying birth-worker and ceremonialist, supporting women and families through life’s thresholds, holding space for the intelligence of the body and the integrity of ritual in moments of birth and transformation. Furthermore, she leads workshops and facilitates larger group experiences internationally, often situated in natural environments and in dialogue with the surrounding landscape.
Drawing from her diverse background and continuous study in dance and movement disciplines; informed by hip hop culture, contemporary dance, and martial arts. The training of being a dancer from a young age instilled in her a profound awareness of the body’s expressive potential. She works with the technology of movement as both functional practice and artistic expression; every move asks for intention and every rhythm carries a story.
Her practice is anchored in the relationship with the elemental, the erotic and the unseen. She cultivates space for the intimate, the multitude, the paradox, and that which is suppressed/ what wants to emerge. She works with thresholds; between the personal and the collective, between what is known and what is still forming and is particularly drawn to processes that unfold over time. Much of her practice takes place outside conventional studio settings, often in natural or transitional environments, where the body is in direct relationship with the elemental forces. Rather than offering answers, her practice ignites devotion and invites questions; belonging, becoming, and making; to create spaces where these inquiries can unfold and where mystery and creativity converge.
”Through the craft of story-telling and world-building, my work expands into a creative tapestry. I am inspired by the interconnectivity of it all, and the mystery of life itself. I acknowledge that this work goes beyond my individual self, and I honor all the teachers, guides and companions past, present and future, in the seen and unseen. I acknowledge, being the summation of countless experiences; the dreams that made me jump into the unknown, the failures and losses I’ve endured, the spaces I’ve entered and cared for, making home and finding belonging in distant lands, the teachings I have studied, and the love that keeps asking me to lean in. I bring years of formal training and experiential practice as a dancer, choreographer, facilitator, somatic coach, and more recently as a doula. It’s in the lived and elemental experiences that I draw most of my practices from and the spaces I put myself in to deepen, grow and evolve; dancing with the wild atlantic coastlines, sitting in silent meditation for ten days, walking through the dark forests in the night, pilgrimage through the sahara, witnessing birth, singing to and learning through plants, becoming an aunt, being a daughter, a sister, a lover, a friend.
Everything I have been and continue to be gifted to experience is rippling within me, guiding the way I listen, envision, and shape my work.”