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Maybe you've run yourself thin. Maybe your nervous system needs a reset. Maybe you're at a crossroads and need to come back to yourself first.

UpyaEsence is your space for embodied somatic practices to feel your way back to yourself .  Reconnect with ease, resilience and freedom from within.

 

Upya means "renewal" in Swahili. The essence of Renewal is where yours begins

MEET DUNYA

 

I am a multidimensional being — Educator, Practitioner, and Creator of the Somapresence Method. A mother and a woman shaped by my Congolese roots, my upbringing in France, and London, my home for the past two decades.

My journey has been one of crossing cultures, navigating transitions, and moving through thresholds of self-discovery. It taught me early that no single map could guide a woman's unfolding — that each of us carries a truth too layered, too alive, to fit a borrowed mould.

This is the ground from which my work grows. A deep trust in the sovereignty of every woman's story, body, and rhythm. A reverence for the intelligence that lives within cycles, in the quiet signals the body never stops sending. And a belief that real change is not thought into being — it is felt, moved through, and woven into the texture of everyday life.

Here, there is no model to follow. Only an invitation to come back to yourself.

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EMBODIED MOVEMENT

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SOMAPRESENCE MOVEMENT METHOD

The Somapresence Movement is a somatic and energetic movement practice that invites you to rediscover, through the body, that feeling of being fully alive, aligned, fluid, free.

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SOMATIC YOGA FLOW

A creative, Hatha-based practice that uses rhythmic alternation between intensity and rest to help regulate the nervous system and leaving you nourished and grounded

LONGO RITUAL DANCE 

A dance practice designed to harmonise the body’s energies, embody African ancestral wisdom, and deepen connection to lineage—leaving you feeling grounded, open, and with a profound sense of belonging.

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EMBODIED TREATMENTS

SOMAPRESENCE TOUCH THERAPY

AVAILABLE ON-SITE AT DOWN-TO-EARTH STUDIO  - TUFNELL PARK

This is a 90min treatment to awaken the creative energy your body already holds to restore, rebalance, and harmonise itself. This is a transformative treatment that moves through the three phases of the Somapresence method to gently guide you back to embodied wholeness.

 MASSAGE THERAPY

AVAILABLE ON-SITE IN NORTH LONDON

With 14 years of experience in movement and highly attuned touch, each session is shaped around what your body needs on the day—no two sessions are ever the same.

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SUPPORTING COMMUNITIES

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At the heart of Upya Essence is a commitment to supporting women, groups, and communities through teaching and offering body-based practices that nurture wellbeing and self-empowerment.

Organisations We Work With Year-Round​

  • MamaSuze

  • Minority matters

  • Holloway Neighbourhood Group

  • The Stress Project

  • Bere Architecture

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