Today we’d like to introduce you to Navaji David.
Hi Navaji David, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
Dance has been at the center of my life since I was 12 years old, but over time my path grew into something much larger than performance alone. It expanded into guidance, healing, and expression. I’m originally from the Rio Grande Valley in South Texas, from a town called McAllen, and it was there that dance became one of the deepest ways I could express myself and, honestly, a way for me to imagine and grow into a life beyond the world I first knew. I began my professional career in 2008 at the age of 16, and those early years were shaped by rigorous ballet training, performance, and the privilege of learning from extraordinary artists and teachers. As I grew, I became interested not only in technique and choreography, but in what movement could hold beyond form: consciousness, healing, perception, transformation, and the relationship between spirit and body.
My journey was also shaped by profound challenges. Major injuries, including breaking both ankles and undergoing reconstructive foot surgery, forced me to confront the body in a very different way. I went through periods where I could no longer relate to my body only as an instrument of performance, but instead as something vulnerable, intelligent, and deeply in need of care and listening. Then, in 2012, I had a near-death experience that changed the direction of my life entirely. It deepened my senses, shifted my priorities, and awakened in me the understanding that I was here for something more. Those experiences brought a new level of humility, urgency, and spiritual seriousness to the way I live and create today.
Alongside dance, I’ve now spent the past 13 years studying, practicing, and working as a Pranic Healer under the guidance of my mentor. This healing path has deeply shaped the way I understand energy, presence, and the inner life of the human being. During that same period, my creative life was also expanding through writing, illustration, painting, costume design, and visual world-building. Each of those forms became another language for exploring the same aspirations in my heart: how to live with reverence, how spirit moves through form, and how art can help people remember something deeper and more essential in themselves.
Over time, all of those paths began to converge. Dance, healing, philosophy, writing, and visual art stopped feeling like separate disciplines and became expressions of one larger mission and dharma. That convergence became ATMA Moves, a synthesis of Pranic Healing and my background in dance that I call Pranic Dance. I founded ATMA Moves in 2017 as both a movement methodology and an artistic practice rooted in technical rigor, embodied awareness, energetic sensitivity, and spiritual depth. It is the clearest expression of what my life has been asking of me: to create work that inspires, awakens, heals, and brings people back into a more conscious relationship with themselves.
Since then, I’ve continued developing that work through teaching, choreography, performance, writing, and visual creation. In Austin, that has included my work as an educator in AISD, my continued performance career, my choreographic work with local dance companies, and the creation of original productions like KOMOREBI, where I was able to bring together choreography, costuming, set design, visual symbolism, and spiritual atmosphere into one interdisciplinary experience. More recently, that same thread has continued into my children’s book series, A Soul’s Life, which extends my artistic and spiritual work into literature and illustration.
Where I am today feels like a continuation of that unfolding. I’m building ATMA Moves in Austin through classes, ensemble work, choreography, healing practice, and a growing body of interdisciplinary art. More than anything, my story is about allowing the work to become what it was always asking to be: not just a career in dance, but a fuller path of service, artistry, and conscious development.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
It has not been a smooth road at all. In many ways, the path has been shaped as much by challenge as by inspiration. Like many artists, I’ve had to navigate injuries, financial limitations, and the reality of trying to build something original without always having a clear model or strong systems of support around me. Major injuries, including breaking both ankles and later reconstructive foot surgery, changed my relationship to my body and forced me to rebuild not only physically, but inwardly.
One of the biggest ongoing challenges has been finding space, both literally and figuratively, for the work to live. It has not been easy to find stable, affordable places with enough space to teach, rehearse, and grow ATMA Moves. When you’re building a movement practice and ensemble, space is not just a convenience, it’s essential. Space is the container that allows the work to deepen, the community to gather, and the vision to become real. I’ve often had to keep the work moving through borrowed spaces, temporary arrangements, and constant adaptation, which can be difficult when what you’re really trying to build is consistency, trust, and a true home for transformation.
There have also been challenges in creating work that doesn’t fit neatly into one category. ATMA Moves brings together dance, healing, philosophy, and spiritual practice, so it asks people to meet it a little differently. It may not fit inside the usual boxes, but the people who do resonate with it often recognize it deeply. They understand that it is not just a class or a performance, but part of a larger path of development, healing, and reverence.
At the same time, those struggles have shaped me and the work in important ways. They’ve taught me resilience, clarified my purpose, and made me even more committed to building something rooted in integrity, service, and soul. So no, it hasn’t been a smooth road, but every challenge has helped refine what I’m here to do and the kind of support and community this work is truly asking for.
As you know, we’re big fans of ATMA Moves. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about the brand?
ATMA Moves is a movement methodology, artistic practice, and growing repertory ensemble rooted in the meeting point between dance, healing, philosophy, and spiritual development. The practice is informed by my background as a professional dancer, choreographer, visual artist, author, and Pranic Healer, and from that convergence I developed what I call Pranic Dance. At its core, the work is about restoring reverence to everyday awareness and letting that reverence shape our movement, the movement of our body, and our soul. The work of ATMA Moves is not just about offering inspirational performances, but cultivating a path of perception, transformation, and conscious development that unfolds uniquely for each and every person who comes in contact with this work earnestly.
What sets ATMA Moves apart is that it does not approach movement only from a technical or aesthetic perspective. It brings together technical rigor, energetic awareness, embodiment, and spiritual depth in a way that is both disciplined and experiential. It draws on the container of Western classical dance, blended with other world movement traditions, to tell new stories and explore what feels most essential: our connection to ourselves, to one another, to the earth, and to our place within the greater whole. The work asks not only how we move, but how we inhabit movement, how we relate to energy, and how art can become a vehicle for healing, refinement, and deeper awareness.
Through ATMA Moves, I teach classes, create choreography, guide energetic practices and workshops in energetic healing, develop ATMA Movers into ATMA Ensemble Artists, and build interdisciplinary worlds through performance, costuming, visual symbolism, writing, and design. Whether it is in a class, a rehearsal, a healing session, or a stage work like KOMOREBI, the intention is the same: to create experiences that awaken presence, cultivate reverence, and help people reconnect with something meaningful in themselves.
What I’m most proud of is that the work is truly original and deeply lived. It was not created to follow trends or fit into an existing category. It grew out of lived experience, injury, healing, spiritual study, artistic discipline, and a real devotion to service. I’m also proud that the people who encounter the work often feel that it meets them in a meaningful way, not just as dancers or audience members, but as whole human beings.
More than anything, I want readers to know that ATMA Moves is both an offering and a vision. It is for dancers, movers, and seekers who are hungry for greater depth, integrity, artistry, and transformation. As it continues to grow in Austin, what it most needs is the kind of community, support, and space that allows meaningful work to truly take root.
You can learn more by visiting www.AtmaMoves.com
Do you have any advice for those just starting out?
One of the biggest things I would say is: do not rush your becoming. Wherever you are starting, it takes time to grow roots. Stay curious, let yourself have good days and bad ones, pout if you have to, and then keep going anyway. Do not measure your worth only by how quickly things happen.
Also understand that setbacks are not always a sign that you are off the path. Sometimes failures, confusion, and delays are the very things that refine you, deepen you, and help forge the tools you will need for your future. Just as important as developing your talent is developing your character: your discipline, your humility, your honesty, your ability to stay steady, keep your word, lead with kindness, and continue becoming someone others can trust.
And more than anything, keep good people by your side. That means people who are honest, grounded, and genuinely want to see you grow. People who can tell you the truth with genuine care, who do not disappear when you are struggling, who do not grow quiet when you are succeeding, and who speak well of you in rooms you are not in. The people around you shape your path more than you realize, so take the time to discern who truly nourishes your spirit, strengthens your character, and reminds you of who you are when life gets hard.
Pricing:
- ATMA Moves Classes: $15 drop-in
- Healing Session: $100 a session
- Healing Workshops: starting at $250
- Commissioned work: custom pricing upon inquiry
- ATMA Ensemble Artist: inquire
Contact Info:
- Website: www.Navaji.com and www.ATMAmoves.com
- Instagram: @Navaji_ and @atmamoves
