Mariane Karou is the founder of Dance Alive.®
Ms. Karou is a powerful master teacher with refined sensitivity and exquisite adaptability. She is a catalytic and calming force and inspires movement and change with anyone she touches. Her innate genius coupled with an ever-surging vitality gives her the ability to harness and generate volumes of energy. Her laser sharp intuitive skills are used with precision, grace, and fluidity.  Those who have witnessed her in action commonly refer to her as “an energy vortex of enthusiasm and inspiration.”

She walks her talk. Everything she teaches, she lives. She breathes long and deep, lives in a calm state while maintaining consistent momentum. Mariane Karou is a force of nature. She is grounded in the physical body and the world the way it is.  Inspiration is her birthright and her wisdom and genuine love of life exude continually.  Her life is entirely dedicated to living, breathing and sharing her work in all that she does, from the personal to the professional level.

For the last 40 years, she has researched and developed the most cutting edge methods of delivering her knowledge to others.  Through teaching and training thousands of people in all fields of life, she designed many effective and efficient systems. She is a pioneer in “Life Fitness,” a term that integrates somatic education, health, fitness, recreation, psychology, spirituality, relationship and business success all in one.   Each one of the following is a complete system she has uniquely designed and implemented:

Dance Alive Vital Energy Training System incorporates:

• Dance Alive Sensation Tracking System
• Dance Alive Fluid Body Work System
• Dance Alive Fluid Stretching System
• Dance Alive Resistance Training System
• Dance Alive Interval Training System
• Dance Alive Partner Training System
• Dance Alive Community Training System

Dance Alive Take Charge Now   A Leadership Training System incorporates:

• Dance Alive Intention, Goals, Action Steps System
• Dance Alive Team Coach & Team Player System
• Dance Alive Balance of Life System
• Dance Alive Communication System
• Dance Alive Timing -Nature meets Man- System
• Dance Alive Life in Action Game

In addition, she holds a B.A. in Movement and Psychology, has created, directed and taught programs for adults, teens, and children, and was the co-creator of Movement Expression, founded in 1975. She trained many teachers, therapists, fitness professionals and health practitioners; implemented movement programs in schools; co-led workshops with numerous facilitators in many different disciplines; co-authored curriculum development and appeared on numerous radio and television shows; She wrote a manual of the Dance Alive System for teachers in 1999, which has been updated.  She developed and taught When Women Love, relationship training for women with men which assisted many women in developing healthy, enduring and fulfilling relationships.

Her personal life reflects her dedication to her work as she regularly studies in her own internal laboratory and in her family life. Married now for 30 years and having raised 3 children, she uses all her experience as a wife and mother to create systems that can also benefit family life. She sees the family as the basis for global harmony.

Maude Cleven is at the hub of all Dance Alive operations.  She is sharp, articulate, determined, cheerful, and has a tremendous dedication for delivering Dance Alive to the world.  She is the Program Director and is in charge of all Communications and all the teams that keep Dance Alive running.  She has the mental agility, emotional flow and physical stamina to assist Mariane Karou across board.  She knows how to generate movement and create harmony in personal relationships and business.

Ms. Cleven has always excelled in whatever she has taken on and has left each world at the top, constantly seeking the next cutting edge step where she could learn and contribute.  A rigorous academic, she graduated high school at 16 at the top of her class, and went on to study at Cornell University, Smith College and Sarah Lawrence College, where she concentrated in Literature and Dance.

She became a professional dancer and performer in New York and an advanced practitioner of Modern Dance, Ballet, African Dance, Capoeira, Butoh, Yoga, Improvisation, Choreography, Singing and Theatre.  After being offered placements and performing in several New York dance and theatre companies, she left the world of performance to follow a deeper calling.

In 2000, with a high intention to find a comprehensive system of Life Direction that included all aspects of being human – the body, emotions, mind, relationship and work – Maude discovered Dance Alive.  Having found nothing else that came close to its level of effectiveness and integration anywhere, at 20 Maude moved out to Los Angeles from New York directly from college to study Dance Alive in depth.

In Dance Alive, Maude has found a system that meets her desire for constant, dynamic and abundant education.  In the 9 years she has been a student of Dance Alive, during which time she has taken every class, workshop and intensive as well as received intensive private training from the founder of the work, she has never hit the edge of what Dance Alive has to offer.  In fact, the deeper she goes into the study of life through the Dance Alive system, the more there is to learn, and the more thriving, healthy and happy her entire life becomes!

From this powerful experience of personal success through being a student of Dance Alive, Maude moved organically into working for Dance Alive, where she has been on the team continuously for the last seven years and earned the position she now fills.  She is an extraordinary human being that was born to do what she does now.

In her personal life, she practices all the principles and tools she has learned in Dance Alive with her husband and son. They live and breathe a healthy, vibrant lifestyle.

Melissa Finlan has been in charge of the Financial Department for Dance Alive for 12 years.  She is cheerful, efficient and handles details with care.  She works superbly as a team with everyone, and brings sweetness into what she does and whomever she relates to.

Additional Dance Alive Team Players

Many others assist in a multiple of ways.  Everyone works together with earnest effort, gratitude, and flexibility and are extremely responsive to each other.  This is what makes the team run so efficiently and effectively and makes it so much fun.  The Dance Alive team players are all happy to contribute, have great attitudes and fabulous energy so the atmosphere of the entire company is one of vibrant energy and co-operation.