Jonathan Willcocks, Head Facilitator - “Village Chief”
‘Jono’ is the President, Founder, and Chief Voice & Visionary of Pinnacle Pursuits, a Vancouver-based international award-winning experiential learning, leadership, and adventure team-building company that works with various groups in Canada and around the world.
Jono has joined Teen Journey in the capacity as ‘Head Facilitator’ or ‘Village Chief’. He will be overseeing the vision of the project and helping to guide the overall flow and intentionally of camp as the experience unfolds during the week.
Jono brings a depth of experience and wisdom to Teen Journey. He is a powerful experiential educator, team-building facilitator, transformational coach, athlete-adventurer, speaker, author, consultant, philosopher, naturalist, learning theorist, visionary, and award-winning entrepreneur.
He has the wisdom and expertise to coach individuals and groups to reach their personal potential in life, leadership, learning, creativity, business, wellness and play! For over 20 years, he has engaged, inspired, and empowered thousands of organizations and leaders - young and old - around the world, to help them better achieve their truest selves and fullest potential with purpose, passion, clarity, courage, commitment, authenticity, and a sense of adventure!
Jonathan is a Certified Executive Leadership, Team, and Life Coach, holds a University Educational degree in Kinesiology and Human Potential, is a qualified Recreational Therapist, and is highly certified in various outdoor expedition and adventure skills.
Jonathan is an active member of the business community, an advocate for sustainable living, and the recipient of various renowned national and international leadership awards. His commitment to life-long learning and his passion and enthusiasm for using group dynamics, nature and adventure as a metaphor for self-inquiry, self-discovery and embracing challenge and personal transformation, is inspiring and contagious!
By placing faith in current circumstances, whether good or bad, Ela believes that solutions confidently arise and deliver the best possible outcome. She is very energetic, fun-loving, and loves to work with teens. Ela wants to improve people's lives and guide them toward joy, meaning and purpose.
As an Interior Architect, Ela’s most passionate desire is to create a unique, personalized environment that delights the eye, invigorates the senses, inspires minds, entices imagination, heals and refreshes the soul. Further illustrating her dedication to artistic expression, she enjoys creating playful and engaging projects. Recently she designed a bench for a public sitting design competition for the 2010 Olympic Winter Games. When Ela enlisted help of her teenage children David and Daniel, they designed a bench named “Friends” that mimics two people with open arms.
Ela has a wide variety of education in the design field & she graduated with a Masters Degree in Interior Architecture at the Faculty of Architecture & Industrial Design of Academy of Fine Arts in Europe. Influenced by European design, her natural style is simple and elegant, incorporating contemporary architectural features.
During Summer Camp for Teens Ela will be leading the sculpturing workshop.
Pepe is an electrifying percussionist and multi- instrumentalist. A native of Montevideo, Uruguay, he began classical guitar studies at age eight, and started his professional career at thirteen. He continued his studies in guitar as well as in piano, composition, music history and the physics of sound at the National Conservatory. All along he was naturally immersed in his native Candombe rhythms, the national groove of Uruguay and a fundamental element in the identity of all Uruguayans.
Pepe developed an early keen interest in world music and different expressions of spirituality which eventually led him to spend three years in Japan studying Shakuhachi and Buddhism , another two years in India and Sri Lanka for Indian music, Yoga and Tibetan Buddhism, Brazil for studies in Afro-Brazilian practices, Samba and Bossa Nova music, and shorter periods in Indonesia (studying gamelan), Korea and the Philippines. He also has lived several years in Europe and the USA, performing and recording Latin , Jazz and Contemporary music with a number of local ensembles, and studying systems such as Sufism and the Gurdjieff Work.
Moving to Canada in 1989 he specialized in the study of world percussion while quickly establishing himself as one of the foremost drummers and band leaders on the West Coast. His credits include performances with South Indian master drummer Trichy Shankaran, singers Ann Mortifee and Christine Ducan, the Vancouver Symphony Orchestra and Chamber Choir, and concert tours throughout Europe, Asia and New Zealand. In his extensive touring he has shared the stage with the likes of Ani DiFranco, Oscar Lopez, the Dalai Lama and David Lindley. Pepe is the leader of his own groups: Drum Prayers, a multi-cultural drumming ensemble, and the recently formed Roots/Blues group The Blues Poets. He also tours as a solo artist.
As a teacher Pepe has been working with Vancouver's School Board, teaching Samba music to children of all ages and workshops for music teachers. He is presently working with the youth Marimba group Kunaka. He also conducts group and private percussion lessons for adults at home, and travels across British Columbia giving two or three day intensive workshops. He has received countless award nominations including Musician of the Year in 1999 (West Coast Music Awards), Juno for his work with Asza, Leo awards for his work in film music, and Jessie awards for his theater scores.
Tziporah
Tziporah facilitates a person’s awakening, guiding one to access their highest state of being. Transformational Breath guides traditional Tantra to a new level of presence and joy. The journey merges Self - Spirit and Sexual healing energy. Allowing for Integration and clearing of the limiting patterns which block our highest expression of intimacy and love. Tziporah has a deep vision of sharing the most powerful way on the planet for vitality, optimal health, relational intimacy and clear higher connection.
Tziporah guides a journey gently, allowing clients to be more present and expressive to self, lovers, partners, family and all who they meet on the path. She intertwines the expansive expression of movement, breath, intimacy, coaching, intention and play in each gathering. Holding space in a graceful way, guiding each client and participant to his or her own inner knowing, manifestation power and realization.
Tziporah expresses self as a grounded transformational guide, sacred space holder, teacher, intimate coach, yogini, a former competitive bodybuilding and health/fitness professional, and spirit being who is honored and grateful to be a guide/vessel for this transformational journey. Her heart desire is to connect in loving service to the world.
Tziporah has experiences years of international travel and experience in the arts of Breath work, yoga, tantra ,intimacy and conscious relation-ship. She has trained with various yoga masters, breath work masters, lived and studied in Switzerland at the International school of Cranial Sacral and Shiatsu Massage, along with several leaders in the health and well-being industry. Tziporah's playful nature is expressed in her presence as she dances in the moment with Grace and merges this grace with All.
Currently she leads and co-facilitates her own ecstatic re-awakening and sensual weekends and week long seminars nationally. Tziporah also shares her vision in her travels and co-trains events with Founder of Transformational Breathwork, Dr. Judith Kravitz. She plays as a Dakini, and guide in Sedona, Arizona where she expands into Being Love, living in community and collectively shares in a higher vision of living as Spirit.
Tziporah facilitates a person’s awakening, guiding one to access their highest state of being. Transformational Breath guides traditional Tantra to a new level of presence and joy. The journey merges Self - Spirit and Sexual healing energy. Allowing for Integration and clearing of the limiting patterns which block our highest expression of intimacy and love. Tziporah has a deep vision of sharing the most powerful way on the planet for vitality, optimal health, relational intimacy and clear higher connection.
Tziporah guides a journey gently, allowing clients to be more present and expressive to self, lovers, partners, family and all who they meet on the path. She intertwines the expansive expression of movement, breath, intimacy, coaching, intention and play in each gathering. Holding space in a graceful way, guiding each client and participant to his or her own inner knowing, manifestation power and realization.
Tziporah expresses self as a grounded transformational guide, sacred space holder, teacher, intimate coach, yogini, a former competitive bodybuilding and health/fitness professional, and spirit being who is honored and grateful to be a guide/vessel for this transformational journey. Her heart desire is to connect in loving service to the world.
Tziporah has experiences years of international travel and experience in the arts of Breath work, yoga, tantra ,intimacy and conscious relation-ship. She has trained with various yoga masters, breath work masters, lived and studied in Switzerland at the International school of Cranial Sacral and Shiatsu Massage, along with several leaders in the health and well-being industry. Tziporah's playful nature is expressed in her presence as she dances in the moment with Grace and merges this grace with All. More
Jacky Essombe
Originally from Cameroon, she grew up in Paris and now lives in Vancouver. She has toured in Canada, the United States and Europe with major recording artists and has appeared on television and radio in Canada and France. From 2006 to 2007 she was the host of a weekly television show on the French CBC TV channel called "A la Carte".
A true ambassador of the African culture, Jacky's passion for her culture inspired her to become a professional dancer, dance teacher, storyteller, trainer and speaker and a TV and radio show host. She uses dance as a medium to express life to its fullest and also as a journey to a higher level of consciousness.
As a dance instructor and workshop presenter, she gives more than just a dance lesson; she offers the experience of openness to the self through movement and body awareness, and a true cultural experience. Over the last five years, Jacky has been presenting the African Healing Dance Workshop for Women throughout BC, as well as helping people with all body shapes and fitness experience reach their fitness goals with her increasingly popular Afro'Robics classes.
She loves to share the traditions, history and culture of Africa, and the wisdom of her ancestors, and she truly believes that the Western world can benefit from the ancient wisdom of indigeneous people.
Tony is an established producer, director and editor has always placed creativity in the forefront of his life and his career. He spent 7 years in New York studying music, dance, acting, film production and photography and combined his knowledge to create music videos. His talents soon caught the eye of Dire Straits front man Mark Knopfler, who hired Papa to direct the music video for their #1 hit 'Private Investigations'. Followed soon, thereafter, with another music video for Huey Lewis and the News (Heart of Rock and Roll).
Papa soon found himself in Los Angeles making short films. Refining his skills in Vancouver, He developed a form of storytelling he called the "Musimentary&quo
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Jonathan Willcocks, Head Facilitator - “Village Chief”
Ela Rezmer, Founder, - "Mother of the Village".gif)
Tziporah
Jacky Essombe
Tony Papa, Director of Film Program