Suncokret Dream
Your Holistic YogaRetreat on Hvar
Meet the Team
Evening Marie
Suncokret Co-Founder, Certified Yoga Therapist, Energy Healer & Holistic Lifestyle Coach
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Evening Marie is a native New Yorker with 20-years of experience teaching holistic lifestyle tools through her visionary project called "Suncokret."
Prior to realizing her life's purpose through Suncokret, she held two dynamic and successful careers in Entertainment (as a writer & performer in music, theater & film) and EFL Education for adults and children.
Evening has trained in various yoga styles and traditions, in both Europe and India, including Suryasakti Yoga (an Ashtanga-Vinyasa-based practice), Kundalini Yoga as taught by Yogi Bhajan, and the Integrated Approach to Yoga Therapy, as taught by Yogacharya Saji at the International Vasishta Yoga Research Foundation in India.
As a certified Yoga Therapist, Reiki Master, Bioenergy Therapist, and Quantum-Touch Healer, Evening is passionate about sharing the more subtle, healing powers of yoga and complementary holistic practices, as the means to conducting a balanced and blissful life.
Since experiencing her own deep soul awakening that lead to her complete lifestyle makeover, Evening feels a great calling to guide and assist others on their pathway to self-discovery, self-healing, and self-empowerment. As a yoga teacher, healer, and coach, she is best known for her ability to blend her extensive knowledge of holistic traditions with intuition to render a transcendental holistic lifestyle experience for both new and seasoned path-walkers alike.
Evening is the Program Manager and Primary Events Host at Suncokret and is responsible for overseeing the smooth and blissful running of the retreat experience for both team and guests alike.
Stipe
Suncokret Co-Founder, Certified Agro-Tourism Manager, Head Chef, and Events Co-Host
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Stipe is a Hvar Island native with a lifetime of hands-on experience in the local customs, culture, and cuisine.
He is a certified Agro-Tourism manager and a trained and gifted Chef who has worked in some of the most renowned restaurants on the island. He has trained aspiring chefs and restaurant owners in the art of creating authentic Dalmatian cuisine and prepares delicious, nourishing "Dalma-Veg" meals for our retreat guests, sourced from local ingredients, often those found in his gardens and fields.
Growing up on the family stead in Dol (the Suncokret base) with organic veggie gardens and fruit trees, as well as an olive grove and vineyard in the UNESCO-protected Ager Plain, Stipe is an experienced organic farmer, olive-oil producer, and wine-maker.
Stipe's role at Suncokret as a head chef, local guide, logistics manager, and all-around good guy is a natural extension of the skills, interests, and natural talents he was born with and values.
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Stipe is dedicated to the Dalmatian way of life that places family, home, community, and the honoring of local traditions as top priorities. He is a man of service who wears a smile naturally and is always there to lend a helping hand.
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At the encouragement of his wife, Evening Marie, Stipe opened his family's home, heart, and mind to foreign yet equally holistic and wholesome lifestyle pathways and people, and therefore helped co-create the first holistic lifestyle center in Croatia to blend yoga and energy healing modalities with the Dalmatian way of life.
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Stipe co-hosts all Suncokret events together with Evening, but plays an especially active role in leading the "Nature Explorer" and "Taste of Hvar" programs.
Summer Events Team
Tanja Novojevska
Certified Yoga & Meditation Teacher
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Tanja is a traveling international yoga teacher with a background in the fitness and wellness industry. She completed her 200-hour Yoga Teacher Training in Ashtanga Vinyasa & Yin Yoga studies at "Bend it Like Buddha Yoga Algarve" in Portugal; and her 500-hour Advanced Yoga Teacher Training in Hatha Yoga at "Yoga Skyros Academy" in Athens, Greece.
Born on the coast of the Baltic Sea, she speaks 4 languages fluently (English, Swedish, Russian, and Latvian) and has a degree in International Diplomacy.
Tanja started practicing yoga as a part of her fitness routine, and this is when she discovered that yoga is so much more than just a slow stretching class.
Yoga proved itself to be a magical space where she could be herself again and where she learned she was enough. The stillness and clarity of mind achieved by the end of each practice was a happy place where all the dreams she deeply believed in seemed to be possible again.
Tanja's Teaching Style
Tanja teaches multiple styles of yoga such as Hatha, Vinyasa, Power, Yin, and Yoga Nidra.
After experiencing a personal evolution through her yoga practice, and as a certified Yoga & Meditation teacher, Tanja is passionate about sharing the power of yoga with others.
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She believes that the heart is the most powerful element in the human body and she invites her students to take a journey into the heart-opening practice of yoga, a science that teaches love; the love of every moment of your life and of every breath you take.
In her classes, she emphasizes how to make your amazing body a more physically comfortable place to live in. She teaches how to hear that little heart voice in the midst of the overwhelming hustle of modern reality.
The main message she wishes to share while teaching yoga is, “a great love exists and is waiting for you.”
Bethany Demelza
Certified Yoga, Meditation, and Flow Dance Meditation Instructor
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Bethany started practicing yoga nearly 7 years ago when she had just had a baby and needed something to feel restored after sleepless nights. But it was when she began to experience a difficult time in her life through loss and trauma that the true benefits of yoga really shone through. Yoga became a channel to connect to herself, to come home to her body, and to set herself free. She knew then that she needed to share this healing technology with others and this is when she enrolled in a yoga teacher training course in the UK at the end of 2019.
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Since then, she has had amazing opportunities to attend numerous retreats around the world, including at the beautiful Suncokret Dream in Croatia in 2022, where she has experienced firsthand the true magic that can happen in the safety and tranquility of a retreat experience, providing a chance to heal, release, and let go in liberating and beautiful way.
Bethany has gone on to achieve a foundation diploma in NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming), which is a method that enables the mind to work in a more positive thinking pattern, and she recently completed a certification as a Flow Dance Meditation Facilitator with experience in Trauma Release Exercises (TRE).
Bethany's Inspirations
In conjunction with her yoga teaching, Bethany has had a 12-year background in providing social services for vulnerable parents and children, advocating on their behalf, and creating a heart-centered space for them to have a voice and work through unresolved trauma, often while in crisis situations.
This work and her own life experiences have inspired her to develop a trauma-informed yoga teaching style, making sure each individual feels seen, heard, and feels safe to release, let go, and find that magic.
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In addition to yoga, Bethany is inspired by music, dance, and movement, and she enjoys bringing an embodied flow into her Vinyasa Flow classes, encouraging others to find the freedom to move the body in a way that feels right, to release any expectations, and to explore new movement patterns and fluidity.
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Another passion is being outdoors. When not on the mat, you can find her exploring mountains, cycling, dancing on a beach, or spending time by the water on a stand up paddle board.
Mona Bektesi
Certified Vinyasa Yoga Teacher
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Yoga has been an integral part of Mona's life for more than a decade.
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Ever since her first Vinyasa yoga class, yoga has fascinated her with its unique blend of breath and movement.
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It doesn't matter whether she wants to relax or needs more energy, she feels completely in good hands when she practices.
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Yoga is now an integral part of her life and is always an exciting path to her center, which gives her strength and peace at the same time.
Mona's Inspirations
As a yoga teacher, Mona aims to accompany her students to be loving and careful with themselves and to get to know and expand their own limits again and again.
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She is a certified Vinyasa yoga teacher (Inside Yoga Frankfurt), teaches at Vinyaloft Bremen, and works as a teacher of German and history at a school.
In Bremen, she trains Highschool teachers and gives health training courses for teachers there.
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It is her heart's desire to integrate the beneficial effects of yoga into the demanding everyday school life as simply and easily as possible. That is why she has written several books about integrating yoga in the school environment.
Marija Velichkova
Certified +500h Hatha and Ashtanga Advanced Yoga Teacher
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Marija is an experienced senior teacher from IndeaYoga in Mysore, India, trained under the guidance of Yogacharya Bharat Shetty. She teaches Mysore Style classes, Pranayama, beginner as well as advanced Hatha and Ashtanga Vinyasa Yoga. Marija is partially based in her prestigious school in India, where she assists her teacher, as part of the Karma Yoga program.
Originating from Macedonia and Serbia, Marija’s dynamic lifestyle and eagerness to explore the world took her on a journey many years ago. She has engaged and been involved in various paths such as event organisation, photography, marketing, sailing, modelling, hostessing, hostel work and working as head chef at a vegan/vegetarian restaurant. Some of the countries she has lived and learned in include England, Scotland, Greece, Portugal and Thailand.
Whilst enriching, none of her chosen paths had truly fed Marija’s soul until her very first encounter with yoga in 2016, on the rooftop of a hotel in Sri Lanka. She instantly fell in love with yoga and strived, with determination, to complete her teacher training with the aim to guide others to discover their own love for yoga.
Marija's Inspirations
Marija believes each body is individual and devotes attention to not only designing a personalized practice that encourages overall health and prevention of disease but also considers the safest approach towards it. Yoga is a practice for prevention, with which Marija’s individualized approach, is truly welcoming for everyone.
Being in nature and surrounding herself with like-minded people, Marija enjoys taking photos and has a keen passion for nature photography. Her favorite pastime is swimming and she loves sunset walks, especially near water.
Marija holds a special place in her heart for the Balkans and is grateful for this opportunity to share her knowledge and skills, on home ground, on the naturally stunning location of Hvar Island in Croatia.