chelsea Franz (SHE/HER)
Yoga Outreach Core training for trauma-informed teaching
Certified Barre Instructor
Chelsea, a.k.a Franz (the poet), is a writer, performer, arts community advocate/ organizer, and yoga instructor residing on the unceded and traditional Coast-Salish lands of the Kwantlen, sq̓əc̓iy̓aɁɬ təməxʷ (Katzie), sc̓əwaθenaɁɬ təməxʷ (Tsawwassen), kʷikʷəƛ̓əm (Kwikwetlem), S’ólh Téméxw (Stó:lō), W̱SÁNEĆ, Stz’uminus, and šxʷməθkʷəy̓əmaɁɬ təməxʷ (Musqueam) nations. She is dedicated to decolonizing all her practices by educating herself and honouring the land she's on, as well as understanding the traditional roots of Yoga. She believes art makes living bearable and is doing her best to put more colour into the world. She means this both in the sense of brightening up the mundane with creation, as well as in her mission to uplift the truths of bodies of colour. Franz is a graduate of KPU with a B.A. in Creative Writing, as well as the Executive Director and founder of Enable: Arts Society, a non-profit dedicated to creating collaborative and community-based art projects. Franz is in the process of writing her first collection of poetry and autofiction, centred around the coming-of-age of a brown Surrey femme, thanks to the B.C. Arts Council. She hopes you dream often; she hopes you find reasons to stay.
Have you ever won anything? If so, what?
One of my musical loves is Twenty One Pilots; twice I manifested winning radio contests that involved them. Once for a meet and greet with Tyler Joeseph and the other was Sasquatch Festival tickets to see them headline. It just goes to show that sometimes the universe is willing to send gifts to you, if you ask.
What lesson took you the longest to unlearn?
I am continually in a state of unlearning as a settler on these unceded Coast Salish lands. I am in a process of understanding what it means to decolonize my life, to let go of the internalized racism and to fully understand what it means to exist in a female brown body. For a long time, I couldn't understand the systematic trauma at play in my life and how it affected me moving through this world. I think this will be a constant state of unlearning, learning and healing, as the journey to reclaim parts of myself is never-ending.