About Marita

She resides in the unceded homelands of the Wabanaki peoples, in what is known today as the state of Maine. Marita is an embodied movement artivist, dance educator, intercultural bridge-builder, earth-lover and ordained Justice of the Peace. She is passionate about contributing to cultural preservation, building awareness of our interconnection and illuminating avenues to individual and collective healing through the power of movement.

Marita shares from a lifetime of dance exploration and training, a background in Reiki, Healing through Empowerment, and over twenty years of study in traditional dances of West Africa. She completed her thesis in Dance and Performance Art for Healing and Social Change at Goddard College, founded Embody the Rhythm, co-founded New Moon Ensemble West African Dance & Drum, and is an adjunct professor of dance at Bates College. She is a Lead Trainer and the Outreach and Program Coordinator with Prevention Action Change.

Marita Kennedy-Castro (she/her/hers) is a fan of rhythms in their many forms. Heartbeats, breath, moon cycles, tides, seasons, the cadence of language, the drum… Vision and knowledge seeking, she is always heartfelt and often heartbroken about this world. Movement is her medicine.

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Marita has two long braids and is dancing in a field with a view of an ocean cove in the background. She is wearing a bright green tanktop, patterned orange skirt and purple leggings and is gesturing towards the sky, which she's also looking up at.

  • 2025, Panelist Speaker, What is Regenerative Art?
    Hogfish Regenerative Arts Summit | Portland, ME

  • 2018, Maine Artist Fellowship recipient in Performing Arts
    Maine Arts Commission

  • 2016, Keynote Speaker & Dancer, Northern New England Collegiate Symposium on Music Education
    USM School of Music | Gorham, ME

Keynotes + Fellowships

Selected Features