“Dance is a language. It's
the way that humans speak Spirit,
or if we're lucky, that Spirit speaks
Us"
Arisika Razak, RN (Registered Nurse), CNM
(Certified Nurse Midwife), MPH (Masters
in Public Health) is Director of the Women's Spirituality M.A. and PhD. programs in Philosophy and Religion at CIIS. She has worked for over thirty
years in the fields of Women's Spirituality/Women's
Studies/Women's Health, Spiritual Dance,
and Nurse-Midwifery. She has achieved local,
national and international recognition in
these fields as an educator, artist, practitioner,
and author.
As an educator in the field of Women's
Studies/Women's Spirituality, Ms Razak has
been interviewed in the publications: New
Age Journal; Women of Power; Snake Power;
and Goddessing Regenerated. She is
one of 18 extraordinary women featured in
Cathleen Rountree's book of interviews and
photographs: On Women Turning Forty,
which includes Susan Griffin, Barbara Boxer,
and Maxine Hong Kingston. She has articles
in three books: Children of the Dawn:
Visions of the New Family; Reweaving the
World: the Emergence of Eco-feminism,
and the introduction to Childbirth Wisdom.
She has been interviewed and featured for
her work in Women's Health and Women's Studies
both in film and on radio. In Fire Eyes,
the full-length feature film by an African
woman to discuss the issue of female genital
mutilation/female circumcision, Arisika
discusses her work with women and their
bodies, as a midwife, healer, and workshop
leader. She is interviewed in Abortion:
From Danger to Dignity, by Academy Award
nominee, Dorothy Fadiman, on the issues
poor women face when seeking, abortion,
and in the nationally distributed PBS documentary
Who Lives, Who Dies? , which focuses
on issues of health care for the indigent.
Arisika's work integrates the disciplines
of Women's Studies/ Women's Spirituality,
and Women's Health and Spiritual Dance,
through the incorporation of the teachings
of earth based spiritual traditions, women's
spirituality, and women's health into the
language of movement and dance. She has
been filmed as a ritualist, dancer and panel
presenter in the CIIS Women's Spirituality
Program promotional videotape; in the internationally
distributed film, Goddess Remembered, by
Donna Read of the National Film Board of
Canada, and in the nationally distributed
video, Spiritdancer. Arisika has lectured
extensively and led experiential and didactic
workshops in the overlapping fields of Women's
Studies/Women's Spirituality, and Women's
Health at San Francisco State University,
University of California at Davis, University
of California at San Francisco, University
of California at Santa Cruz, California
State University of Sonoma, the California
Institute of Integral Studies, New College
of California, JFK University in Orinda,
and Educational Programs Associates of Campbell
California. She is the featured dancer in
A Place of Rage by Prahtibha Parma. which
showcases the work and struggles of African
American women activists Alice Walker, June
Jordan and Angela Davis.
As an artist performer, Arisika's work
is dedicated to the reclamation of the power
and sacredness of the female body, and reflects
her belief that we are all embodiments of
the sacred Arisika. has performed professionally
since 1987, appearing at over 75 venues.
These include international venues such
as the Fourth UN Conference on the Status
of Women in Beijing, China, the Women of
Wisdom, Women of Power Conference in Bern
Switzerland; and the Michigan Women's Music
Festival in Michigan. Other national and
local venues include: the National Women's
Music Festival, the San Francisco Lesbian
and Gay Dance festival, Stanford University,
and Theatre Arteaud, La Pena Community Center
in Berkeley, the Dancing Poetry Festival
in San Francisco and the University of Southern
California Ecofeminist Conference in Los
Angeles. She has been a core member of the
Purple Moon Dance Project for over four
years.
Arisika received her MPH in Health Care
Administration from UC Berkeley in 1978.
She is a Registered Nurse, receiving her
BS in Nursing from UC San Francisco in 1976.
She is a Certified Nurse-Midwife, received
her Certificate in Nurse-Midwifery from
UC San Francisco, in 1980. She has worked
as a nurse midwife, health care provider,
and health care administrator for over 25
years, serving as staff nurse-midwife and
director of the Nurse-Midwife Service at
Highland Hospital in Oakland; director of
the Alameda County Pre-term Delivery Prevention
Project, and Assistant Administrator for
Ancillary services at Cowell Hospital, UC
Berkeley.
Women's
Spirituality Program • Integrative
Health Studies
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