My Story
Hila Levite
Choreographer · Dancer · Creator of the Healing Movement Method
01
For As Long As I Remember
At age 8, I asked my parents to sign me up for ballet. I was always the most serious kid in class. My teacher saw it — and one day she gave me her own pointe shoes. That was the moment. I knew this is what I want to do with my life.
I studied everything — ballet, pointe, modern, jazz, belly dance, hip-hop, improvisation. Always wanted more. But even then I learned something important: there's a difference between striving for perfection — which only brings frustration, because it doesn't really exist — and striving for excellence. I carry that distinction with me everywhere.
02
When My Body Screamed
In high school my body stopped me. Stress fractures in both shins, my period disappeared for a year and a half. I went to doctors who wanted to give me pills. But then I found an acupuncturist who instead of pills — asked questions. "Why are you afraid to gain weight? Why are you afraid to be a woman?"
That's where I first understood what became the foundation of everything I do: to change something in the body, you first need to change something in your mind. And the other way around. Body and mind — always together.
"Body and mind — always together. That's the foundation of everything."
03
Dance Is Joy
After the army — I served as a drill sergeant and discovered how much I love teaching — I went out into the world. Dance instructor at a summer camp in the US, salsa in the streets of Mexico, and then — Colombia.
In Cartagena I spent two months. Two private teachers, four hours a day each. I joined a company called "Afro Erotica." And something happened there: I saw people dancing — every age, every body, zero judgment. Just joy. I realized the Western world turned dance into competition, criticism, technique — and forgot the essence. Dance is joy. Period.
04
Companies, Creation, Stage
I came back to Israel and entered Vertigo Dance Company's program — almost two years of intense training that gave me incredible tools. Every injury there taught me more about the body-mind connection. My recoveries were fast — because I knew the mind is part of the healing.
From there I went back out — to Millennium studio in LA, to the American Dance Festival at Duke where I created a piece with five American dancers in three weeks, and to New York. I danced, created, absorbed.
I danced with Yaniv Hofman Dance Company, created a solo shown at festivals, and a duet with Royi Katz at Beit Yael in Jerusalem. All my works are about one thing: connections between people. Transitions between emotions. Life processes. I want anyone watching — not just dance people — to feel it speaks to them.
05
Both Medicine And Disease
My mom got cancer. 80% of the cells in her body were malignant. I told her I'm coming back, she said: "No. Keep dancing. I have one request — dance a dance for me."
So I did. Every time I heard difficult news, I went down to the studio, danced, filmed. Mom watched the videos and said something I'll never forget: "I feel like you're expressing exactly what my body is going through, through your body."
Mom recovered. Zero malignant cells. And I understood there's something powerful here — in the ability to express pain through movement, and heal.
"Dance is both my medicine and my disease. The disease of 'not enough.' And the medicine that heals everything."
06
How Healing Movement Was Born
October 2023. Everyone around me froze. Bodies frozen, unable to move. And I discovered that I could — through dance. I could cry, laugh, lose myself emotionally, and still get up in the morning and function.
I realized the tool that lives in me — it's not just mine. People need it. I started running free workshops for kibbutzim in the north, for evacuees, for girls in shelters. People said "when's the next one?" People with trauma told me "what took two years with a psychologist happened in your one workshop."
That's how Healing Movement was born. From the most basic need there is: to move, to feel, to heal.
Dance is a tool that exists in every culture. In Israel we forgot to move, to let our bodies process, to listen. I'm here to remind — not to dance "beautifully," but to feel, process, connect.