WHAT IS ANIMA?

Anima : “the feminine aspect of the soul”

Anima is a women-centric ritual theater performance collaborative. Our intention is to inspire individual and collective transformation through creative expression, and to amplify the voice of the feminine spirit in all beings.

The collaborative was founded by Lisa Citore in 2017, and since then, Anima has been transporting artists and audiences alike with pieces that are shared as individual rituals. In 2025, the collaborative expanded to include labs, ritual performances at new venues, commissioned pieces, and more artist involvement than ever before.

Each show is a ritual for all, and each woman’s performance is her own space for healing.

THE ANIMA CORE

  • Lisa Citore is a women’s transformational guide, a couple’s intimacy coach, a plant medicine facilitator, and author. She is trained through the Center for Conscious Medicine and in somatic psychotherapy through the Hakomi Institute of California. She has studied shamanic energy medicine through the Four Winds Society and has immersed herself in indigenous practices from sweat lodges to vision quest to plant medicine journeys.  She has certifications in Hatha yoga, Tantra yoga, breathwork, Reiki and Lomilomi Hawaiian massage. She has extensive knowledge of women’s rites of passage through the 13 Moon Mystery School. She is the visionary of Anima-Theater of the Feminine Underground, an ongoing women’s ritual theater collective and has worn the hats of writer, director, producer and performer in various productions. Her first book, Dark Night of the Mother, releases October 23, 2026 For more information:  www.LisaCitore.com and www.Darknightofthemother.com

  • Aurora Rose is an artist, yoga teacher, and writer. Introverted by nature with a deeply feeling nature, in her finest moments she lives in-between worlds and walks a unique and fine line between the expansive essence of the soul and the darkest crevices of shadows and shame. Aurora grew up singing, dancing and performing as a child, and has been a performer in Anima for the last 8 years. She has also stepped into stage management for the past 2 and a half years. She is an active part of the core team working with all the beautiful souls to expand Anima, develop the shows, and grow our reach and meaningful impact as a collective.

  • FOUNDING MEMBER

    Elaine Gale is a sixth-generation Nebraskan, a forever gypsy, an ink pen fanatic, and a border collie enthusiast. She currently does not twerk but is open to it. She loves possibility, protein bars, instant coffee, and matching with Zach Braff on Raya. She has an anxious attachment style and dislikes both sudoku and crossword puzzles. She believes in magic, Dolly Parton, Roth IRA’s, underwire bras, the currency of joy, and the vibration of love. A former religion reporter at the Los Angeles Times, she’s now a Full Professor in Communication Studies at California State University. Her new solo show, TRASH CLUB, debuted last year at Center Stage Theater. Her first solo show, ONE GOOD EGG, had a sold-out run in New York City at the United Solo Theater Festival. She's performed for the Moth, RISK, and in over 100 storytelling shows. Elaine’s published in many literary and mainstream publications, including Entertainment Weekly, Cosmopolitan, and Good Housekeeping, despite the irony. www.onegoodeggshow.com

  • FOUNDING MEMBER

    Cybil is a mother of two amazing humans, an LMFT, a multidisciplinary artist with over three decades onstage, a facilitator of soul-centered somatic practices, and a proud and grateful Founding Member of Anima. She has called Santa Barbara her primary home since 1993, founding and acting as Artistic Director of NECTAR Arts Forum (2009-2024). For her work with NECTAR, a community-centered initiative highlighting relevant social themes through the arts and education, she has received multiple awards and grants. Recently, Cybil launched NECTAR Integrative Therapeutic Arts, an integrative private practice offering licensed psychotherapy services, advanced massage and bodywork, relationship coaching, and soul-centered somatic, movement and meditation classes. www.nectar-therapy.comwww.nectarhealingarts.com

  • Teagan is a Multidisciplinary Performer, Director, Artist, Experience Creator, and a Somatic Practitioner with a specialty in movement and vocal empowerment. She got her BFA in Theater Performance from the University of Michigan, and has acted in both intimate and large scale theatrical productions, as well as film and tv. She has been a professional performing artist for over 20 years, and a teacher and facilitator for over a decade.

    She works with organizations, retreats, studios and schools bringing workshops, immersive theatrical events, and classes to groups of all ages. She has worked with the Community Environmental Council, Rock Tree Sky, AHA!, The Thriving Initiative, Amplify Arts Project, Power of Your Om, GenRocket, and more. She has been in a part of Anima since 2017, has shared four of her own ritual theater pieces, and directed seven Anima productions.

    Teagan is a student of life, and considers Curiosity to be one of our most valuable resources.

    You can learn more at www.teaganrose.co

  • KiaOra Fox is a Spirit Dancer, a single Mother of 3 dynamic humans and a Specialist in Embodiment Integration with over 22 years of experience in Healing Arts. Rooted in spiritual teachings—including Lakota Sioux ceremonies, Gurdjieff tools, Pagan Rituals, and Egyptian mythology—her work bridges ancient practices with modern embodiment. Certified in 5Rhythms®️ movement meditation, Reset Meditation for neural plasticity, and Holistic PT practices, KiaOra uses consciousness and movement as a path to self-discovery, purification and authentic expression. Her greatest teachers continue to be her children, inspiring and catalyzing KiaOra’s personal growth and her alignment to choosing love, curiosity and creativity.

  • FOUNDING MEMBER

    Samantha Bonavia is a performer, Vivation coach, and creative adventurer celebrating more than five decades in the performing arts. A longtime collaborator with Anima – Theatre of the Feminine Underground, Samantha has grown, explored, and performed with the company since its inception in 2017, creating work at the intersection of theatre, transformation, ritual, breath, and embodied truth.

    Samantha’s artistic process draws upon acting, improvisation, movement, voice, storytelling, archetypal exploration, and her work in the healing arts. She approaches theatre as a form of alchemy—a place where the deeply personal can become universal, where vulnerability becomes creative power, and where the unexplored self can find expression. She is delighted to continue creating alongside Anima’s extraordinary community of women.

  • Jax Nora is a hands-on womb continuum practitioner, and is devoted to the care of women's pelvises and the stories held inside them. Her bodywork focuses on the uterus, ovaries, vulva, vagina, and breasts; the sacred and often least tended to centers of the female body. She believes in ritual and the ripple it creates for both participants and witnesses. She is a hiker, a big feeler, and someone who can't help but sound out every felt emotion, just like her dog Chispa.

  • Jean (Jeanie) Stultz, PhD is a licensed somatic psychotherapist with over 35 years in mental health services, specializing in early childhood development, attachment, and the embodied experience of motherhood. Her doctoral research explored nonverbal, felt language of attachment and the wisdom held in mothers' bodies- the nonverbal, felt language of attachment between mother and infant. Her experience in this work continues to inform both her clinical practice and her comedy.

    Jean is also an up-and-coming comedy writer and performer. She co-wrote and performed in Magical Thinking Mark with Jamie Skinner for Anima (2022), and followed it with Gods of Love for Fishbon's Broken Hearts Review (2026). She is currently writing a full-length screenplay for Gizelle, telling the story of how she became the Spirit of Sperm Future. 

  • Selena Rockwell is an artist, psychotherapist, and trainer whose work explores creativity, embodiment, and human connection. She joined Anima in 2023 and contributes as a creator, ensemble member, stage manager, and core team member.

    Her artistic practice includes personal storytelling, painting, dance, and singing, drawing inspiration from the human experience, the natural world, and community. Selena holds a Master’s degree in Depth Psychology from Pacifica Graduate Institute, with a focus on developmental trauma, somatics, and Jungian shadow work. Her background in psychology, the arts, and embodied practices informs her approach to Anima’s collaborative process.

    Selena also provides psychotherapy for individuals, couples, and families in private practice. Across her creative and therapeutic work, she is interested in how emotional experience and embodied expression can foster self-awareness, authentic connection, and meaningful change.

    Learn more at www.selenarockwell.com

  • FOUNDING MEMBER

    Melissa Lowenstein is a therapist, mother, stepmother, writer, creative/movement artist, dancer, yoga teacher & practitioner, and perpetual student. Since Anima’s inception, she has contributed and performed in solo and group movement and spoken word works of her own making and in ensemble works created by others. She is grateful for the opportunity to make work so regularly over the years while mothering, working, and attending grad school. 

    Melissa believes in the power of creativity and performance to awaken, nourish, & heal, and is proud to have taken part in the evolution of Anima as a founding member. 

  • Gillian Heald. Yes, Heald, as in healed. I married into five generations of English dairy farmers who went from rags to riches, and I've claimed the name as my own. I started out as a busker at 11, performing my own material on the street. I made my own money and fell hard for the autonomy. At 12 I was a professional actor in Hollywood, which, against the odds, was good for me. Around then my dad took me to Othello at the Old Globe, and I fell for the theater instead.

    BFA, UCSB. MFA, American Conservatory Theater. Initiated priestess in the lineage of RITUAL 13 Moon Mystery School.

    I believe in emergence, in making room for what hasn't been imagined yet. I go to the theater and church to be entertained, and I'd like to cry, please.

    As for A Day in the Life, I hope you laugh. Then I hope you take it seriously enough to act on it.

    "Yet sit and see, minding true things by what their mockeries be." (Henry V)