Our Facilitators

Gaia Mae - Music, Art, Academics

Gaia Mae comes to us all the way from South Africa where she grew up and achieved her undergraduate degree in English and Theatre. After being awarded a William J. Fulbright Academic Scholarship, she came to New York and completed her Masters of Fine Arts in Theatre. Following this, she spent three years back in South Africa teaching theater at a private elementary school and then returned to America and discovered Waldorf Education. The methods and philosophies of Rudolf Steiner spoke to her so deeply that she immediately enrolled in the training program at Antioch New England University and achieved her Masters of Education with full Early Childhood and Grades Waldorf Certification. Since then she has taught in Private Waldorf Schools and Teacher Training Centers for fourteen years, and spent three years homeschooling her own children from third through sixth grade, before becoming the mentor to the Rowan Berry Homeschool Pod, teaching a sixth through ninth grade curriculum. She is a singer song writer, gardener and animal enthusiast, and enjoys a simple life with her husband, Jason, nurturing her family, her land, her four dogs, three cats, two goats, ten chickens, fourteen ducks and one bunny! 

Emily Burton- Yoga, Theater Arts

Emily Burton grew up acting and singing professionally and semi-professionally. She graduated with a theatre degree from UCI and spent years acting, singing, and dancing in NYC and on international tours. She relocated to LA to focus more on TV/FILM and this is where she stumbled into love with yoga. Her daily practice quickly led to a teacher training which changed her life and became her new passion and life's work.  Emily has been teaching yoga for almost 20 years now and is the owner of The Yoga Dive in Grass Valley. She leads teacher trainings, retreats, and workshops as well as weekly public classes. She is the mama of two amazing boys; Alden (10) and Lake (6) and feels very lucky to have been able to share yoga and theatre with so many kids in our community. Emily believes strongly that yoga and theatre have many crossover benefits for young people; confidence, presence, embodiment, connection, deep listening, and self-expression. She is honored to share the gifts of both of these practices and loves witnessing the spark of joy they can ignite inside of each child.

Andrew Juntunen- Movement Mentor

Andrew Juntunen (32), is a lifelong student and mentor of the movement arts. Starting with karate when he was 11, Andrew became fascinated with the acrobatic abilities of the human body. He went on to become a professional parkour athlete and cliff diver, as well as avid partner dancer and bboy (breakdancer). He has a bachelors degree in exercise science and has worked as a posture therapist, personal trainer for pre-collegiate sports teams, gymnastics coach, and was a co-owner of The Haven parkour gym in Sacramento. Currently he is launching his first product, Bola Flow, a flowstate movement training method for all ages. He lives in Nevada City and teaches movement classes locally year round.