First, Breathe: Healing Arts Series is a 4-month movement and arts-based program rooted in creativity, community care, and embodied storytelling. Hosted by Arts + Public Life and led by certified yoga instructor Rhya Moffitt, the project combines culturally grounded bodywork with artmaking practices including poetry, movement, collage, and storytelling.

First, Breathe creates space to release stress, reclaim personal and collective narratives, and rebuild a sense of wholeness and connection. Each session begins with community yoga, followed by an artist-led activity that transforms what the body holds into story, imagination, and possibility.

Offered monthly from February - May, the program is anchored in four phases—RELEASE, RECLAIM, REIMAGINE, REBUILD—a healing arc that moves from letting go of harmful narratives, to recovering suppressed histories and wisdom, to re-imagining possibilities for self and community, to co-creating new visions for the future. 

April’s theme is REIMAGINE – dreaming new possibilities and breathing them into word. Yoga will be followed by a poetry session for participants of all backgrounds.