Body Mind Centering® in Italy
Tuesday February 07, 2012
Body-Mind Centering®
There is something in nature that forms patterns.
We, as part of nature, also form patterns.
The mind is like the wind and the body like the sand:
if you want to know how the wind is blowing, you can look at the sand.
Bonnie Bainridge Cohen
We, as part of nature, also form patterns.
The mind is like the wind and the body like the sand:
if you want to know how the wind is blowing, you can look at the sand.
Bonnie Bainridge Cohen
Body-Mind Centering® is an integrated approach to transformative experience through movement re-education and hands-on repatterning. Developed by Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen in the last 40 years, BMC® is an experiential study that leads to an understanding of how the mind is expressed through the body and the body through the mind.
The work is based on the rich and varied sources of anatomy, physiology, kinesiology and developmental principles. At the core of our courses are detailed approaches to access and explore each body-system and their integration in the patterning of our movement. We do this in a range of dynamic and physically active ways, and learn through our personal processes. Our experiences are the ground from which we work with others. This revolutionary approach is founded in the fullness of our very own sensory experience. The journey we take leads to greater awareness and deeper understanding of ourselves as human beings. It helps to understand how the mind is expressed through the body, and the body through the mind.
The programs and courses present detailed and specific approaches to the personal embodiment of our cells, our body systems and our developmental patterns. The principles and techniques learned in our courses can be used for personal development and for professional enhancement. This work is currently being used by people in movement, dance, yoga, bodywork, physical and occupational therapy, psychotherapy, child development, education, voice, music, art, meditation, athletics and other body-mind disciplines.
Body-Mind Centering® and BMC® are registered service marks of Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen, used with permission.
All courses of the IDME and SME programs in Italy, organized by LEBEN nuova srl, are directed by Gloria Desideri and accredited by Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen and The School for Body-Mind Centering®. Courses are also recognized by the licenced BMC® programs in Europe and United States.
Licenced BMC® programs
France:
Association SOMA
Germany:
Moveus GbR
Slovakia:
Association Babyfit
United Kingdom:
Association Embody Move
Brazil:
U.S./North Carolina:
Kinesthetic Learning Center
USA:
The School for Body-Mind Centering®
Professional Affiliations
Students and graduates of our programs can join the Body-Mind Centering Association (BMCA, www.bmcassoc.org), the professional organization of Body-Mind Centering. Graduates gain authorization to use the registered BMC name if they join BMCA as professional members. Our Somatic Movement Educator, Certified Practitioner, and Certified Teacher Body-Mind Centering programs are approved by the International Somatic Movement Education and Therapy Association (ISMETA, www.ismeta.org). Through ISMETA, our graduates are eligible to become Registered Movement Educators or Registered Movement Therapists.
Faculty in Italy
Since April 2006, several BMC® Certified Teachers coming from different countries have taught in the programs in Italy directed by Gloria Desideri:
Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen, Thomas Greil, Gale Turner, Jeanette Engler, Michal Shahak, Piera Teatini, Walburga Glatz, Friederike Tröscher, Bob Lehnberg, Janet Amato, Myra Avedon.
In the upcoming courses, the following faculty will join Gloria Desideri in teaching: Jeanette Engler (CH) , Mette Anne Bruhn (DK) , Katy Dymoke , Walburga Glatz (DE) , Thomas Greil (DE) , Bob Lehnberg (USA) , Saliq Savage (USA) , Carol Berenyi .
Biographies
Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen is the developer of Body-Mind Centering® and the founder and Educational Director of the School. For over thirty-five years she has been an innovator and leader in developing this embodied and integrated approach to movement, touch and repatterning, experiential anatomy, developmental principles, perceptions and psychophysical processes. She is the author of the book, Sensing, Feeling and Action.
Bonnie is a Registered Occupational Therapist and a Registered Movement Therapist and is also certified in Neurodevelopmental Therapy, Laban Movement Analysis, and Kestenberg Movement Profiling. She has practiced occupational therapy and taught in university hospitals; helped to establish a school for occupational and physical therapy for the Tokyo government; practiced bodywork and movement in psychiatric settings; taught in the masters program in Dance Therapy at Antioch New England College; taught dance at Hunter College and at the Erick Hawkins School of Dance in New York; and presented workshops throughout the U.S., Canada and Europe.
Gloria Desideri is a Registered Movement Therapist and Educator (ISMETA), BMC® Certified Teacher/Practitioner, Somatic Movement Educator and Infant Developmental Movement Educator. She is also Certified Teacher of Kinetic Awareness™ and practitioner of Somatic Experiencing® (Dr. Peter Levine’s approach to trauma and post-traumatic stress symptoms).
With a background of professional dancer and choreographer (1977 – 1992), she integrates in her work several movement practices and body-mind disciplines.
Upon returning to live in Italy in 1998, after 15 years in the U.S., she started to collaborate with the Public Health System (ASL-Viterbo) directing BMC-based projects for children with severe disabilities and their families. She also directed training programs for the educators of the public day care centers of Viterbo.
In 2004, she has founded the cultural association Leben. In 2006 she organized an international conference featuring Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen and launching the first BMC® training in Italy. This activity is today organized by the company Leben nuova srl constituted by Desideri in February 2009. Gloria has a private practice as therapist and cunsultant for adults and children with their parents.
Jeanette Engler was trained in dance and movement, including modern and postmodern dance, releasing, improvisation, as well as tai hi chuan, aikido, qi gong. While she lived and danced in NYC, she studied BMC® with Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen. She is certified as movement and dance teacher, BMC® Practitioner and Teacher, craniosacral therapist, Somatic Experiencing® practitioner and she currently studies osteopathy. She has received an award for her work as a choreographer from her native town Solothurn (CH). She lives in Zürich, teaching experiental anatomy, dance improvisation in a professional educational program and she maintains a private practice. She has been teaching BMC® since 1994, since 1998 in European certification programs. She loves Italy and has been teaching in Tuscania for 3 years, appreciating and deeping the collaboration with Gloria Desideri and her teacher collegues.
Mette Anne Bruhn, from Danmark and educated as visual artist, has mostly been working with pottery, and has her own studio in Copenhagen. Trained as BMC Practitioner in 1994 and Teacher in 1997. She has done intensive studies in Grotowski methods and Butoh, and participated in several performance projects. She in the faculty of the BMC® licenced origram in UK and Germany.
Katy Dymoke, is certified Body-Mind Centering teacher and practitioner from Manchester. She has been teaching BMC in England since 1997 and integrated this approach into her job as Movement Psychotherapist. As a professional dancer and director of Touchdown Dance, Katy creates for dance theatre and film. Touchdown Dance is unique for integrating blind and sighted dancers in a professional touring and workshop company. Katy has presented at conferences, been a guest lecturer and has published her writing on touch based working methodology and integrated dance. Currently doing a PHD on the impact of touch in Movement Psychotherapy, Katy directs the Body-Mind Centering® certification programs in the UK. She also runs a practice from home. A lover of the outdoors and physical activity she has a 3rd Dan in Jujitsu.
Walburga Glatz, Registered Movement Therapist and Educator (ISMETA), Certified Practitioner and Teacher of Body-Mind Centering®, Somatic Movement Educator (SME) and Infant Developmental Movement Educator (IDME). She also hs further trainings in Cranio-Sacral-Therapy and Lymphatic Drainage, in different techniques of New Dance, Action Theatre, Butoh, T’ai Chi, Tango Argentino and Hawaiian Hula.
Before becoming fully dedicated to BMC® studies and applications, she was a judge holding a PhD in Law.
She has been teaching BMC® classes and workshops for years and in the last years added working with infants and children individually, in kindergardens and parent-child groups. In her work both with children and adults, the concrete freedom of non-judgemental exploration and the philosophy and poetry of the body have become her main focus.
She lives in Berlin (Germany) and teaches internationally.
She 2008 she is the educational director of the IDME program in Bratislava, Slovakia, organized by the association Babyfit.
Thomas Greil is Practitioner and Teacher of Body-Mind Centering®. Started together with Myra Avedon, Jens Johannsen and Friederike Tröscher the Chiemsee Program 2003-2007. He is currently the adminstrative director of the Association SOMA which is offering the BMC Cert. Program in France and Brussels since 2006. Together with Jens Johannsen and Friederike Tröscher he has also founded Moveus GrB that now organizes training programs in Germany. He is offering private session, group classes and parent-baby groups. He works with babies, children and adults especially with neurolological and muscular/skeletal challenges.
Bob Lehnberg has been studying Body-Mind Centering® since 1984 and is a Certified Practitioner and Teacher of BMC. He has been teaching in schools of massage therapy and somatic practices for over 18 years. His interest and practice of yoga has led him to receive teaching certification in Integral Yoga®, Embodied Anatomy and Yoga, and Embodied Developmental Movement and Yoga taught principally by Bonnie Cohen. He also has been studying and practicing qigong since 1992 with certification to teach Qigong Healing Level 1. Bob is a nationally certified bodyworker by NCBTMB (U.S.), has served in committee and board roles for NCBTMB for 15 years and maintains a private practice in movement integration.
Bob brings a diverse background to the classroom. A degree in Biology (1980) and studies in science support his clarity of understanding and communication of the anatomy and physiology of the body. Combined with an improvisational theater background, including 13 years as a professional, he brings lightness and fun to the experiential learning process.
In 2007, he and Maryska Bigos founded the Kinesthetic Learning Center (KLC) in North Carolina. Bob is the Education Coordinator of KLC, the sponsor of Body Mind Centering® Somatic Movement Education and Infant Development Movement Education Certificate Programs in the U.S.
Saliq Savage is a BMC Certified Practitioner '94, and teacher '98. He is a developmental movement therapist, teaches Contact Improvisation and maintains a bodywork practice working with infants, children and adults. Since 2000, he directs and performs with Wire Monkey Dance Company, creating highly physical multimedia dance installations on three-dimensional sets of scaffolding. He is a father of two children age three and four and a half and he loves the developmental process.
Carol Berenyi was born in Akron, Ohio U.S.A., of Hungarian origin, has lived in Italy since 1971. A painter by profession, she has exhibited in galleries throughout Italy, Germany and Switzerland. A linguist by nature, she has degrees in modern language and literature at the Universities of Pittsburgh and Aix-en-Provence.
A strong interest in body-oriented psychotherapy and primal infant research, and a long friendship with Gloria Desideri brought her into contact with BMC and its applications. Since 2006 she works as simultaneous translator for the BMC® courses organized in Italy by Leben. For 5 years, she was also the simultaneous translator for a training in Emotional First Aid, a Reichian method for helping mothers and newborns in crisis.