Alta Starr

A teacher of teachers, Alta Starr is currently the Director of Training for BOLD (Black Organizing for Leadership and Dignity) which centers embodied transformation in its programs for Black social movement leaders. Alta has also taught embodied leadership and somatic approaches to trauma healing at Strozzi Institute and Generative Somatics. Her twenty-five-year career as a grant maker included a position at the Ford Foundation and focused on building political power in underserved and marginalized U.S. communities by strengthening social movements.

Alta’s framing chapter, “Cultivating the Self; Embodied Transformation for Artists,” in the book Making and Being (Johoda and Woolard, 2020) explores how somatics brings focused attention to the dynamic and often-overlooked
connections between society and self that we all embody. Encouraging transformation by focusing on these connections for the sake of individual and collective healing is Alta’s gift as a coach, trainer and consultant.