Kishori Gopi Sandal

Movement Teacher

Kishori Gopi experienced an alternative upbringing, with Anthroposophy as a living culture in her home. She is the third generation of women in her family to teach at Waldorf Schools. Her mother attended the Rudolf Steiner School in NYC, where her grandmother taught. Kishori attended East Bay Waldorf, Green Wood School, and San Francisco Waldorf High School. During her 4 year high school education she traveled to 7 foreign countries and drove across the US twice.

She was raised in Massachusetts on a small island for the first nine years of her life. Kishori Gopi and her friends would boat, surf, explore, farm, wild harvest, get lost for hours in the woods, make art, light beach fires, make music, and dance. Her parents are artists and craftspeople. When she was nine her family began to live bi-coastal. Her mother’s education and love for authentic arts and culture lead them to the San Francisco Bay Area. Being raised in the Bay and its more inclusive politics have been an influence on Kishori Gopi’s worldview.

She began her BFA at California College of the Arts in Oakland as a printmaking and Jewelry major. She left the school to help found Session Space Collective, with her now husband and father to her two children Keshava (in EC) and Yamuna. Session Space is still active and is know for having some of the most affordable art spaces in the entire East Bay.

She studied permaculture design at RDI (the Regenerative Design Institute), and Peacemaking through DQU (a First Nation University that has closed since). 2012 was the first time she moved to Kansas, where she studied Yoga philosophy, asana, ayurveda, and marma therapy. At this time she also returned to school at KU for textiles, and studied through the Satvatove School of Transformative Communication where she was trained as a life coach. She believes that the harmony of body, mind, and soul will lead us to sustainable authenticity. She sees therapeutic play and story as catalysts for positive transformation. She will invite our Prairie community to join her in workshops she is offering throughout the year.