Funda’s work grows out of a long conversation between movement, inquiry, and lived experience. Her path began in 2005 with Aikido, where an early fascination with the body’s intelligence started to take shape. That curiosity eventually led her into Systema, a practice that influenced not only how she moves, but also how she teaches: with adaptability, sensitivity, and a direct connection to experience. She later deepened her studies through yoga philosophy, completing a 500-hour teacher training in the Krishnamacharya lineage. There she encountered an approach that honors each person’s uniqueness, offering practices that respond to the individual rather than imposing a fixed form. Across these studies, her path reflects an ongoing unfolding where structure and freedom meet, and where learning is guided as much by listening as by doing.
Since 2016, Funda has been deeply engaged in Contact Improvisation as a student, teacher, and facilitator. She has worked alongside respected dancers to organize workshops and events, including two memorable workshops with Nita Little in the heart of New York City.
Her teaching is enriched by a wide range of practices: yoga, Aikido, Qigong, and Systema, together with ongoing research in the Axis Syllabus, Butoh, AMBR (Adaptive Mind-Body Resilience), and Tango. From these influences, she creates classes that welcome the diversity of bodies, curiosities, and lived experiences in the room, while drawing attention to counterbalancing forces in movement, the presence of the emotional body, and the intelligence of nature.
Funda’s intention is to create an inclusive space where movement can emerge through listening, curiosity, and play. Guided by the principle that “Function Creates the Form,” she invites dancers to explore how alignment with the body, and with the forces moving through and around it, can allow dance to arise organically.