Dance/Movement Therapy Faculty

BA, Sarah Lawrence College, MFA, Vermont College, MFA, Warren Wilson College, MSW and MS, Hunter College. Board Certified Dance/Movement Therapist (BC-DMT), Licensed Creative Arts Therapist (LCAT), Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW-R). A former ballet dancer, Cathy trained at the American Ballet Theatre School and then with Leon Fokine as a trainee of the Harkness Ballet Company, before performing with the Pennsylvania Ballet Company. She had the opportunity to dance in ballets such as Sleeping Beauty and Symphony in C. She later attended Sarah Lawrence College, where she was introduced to modern dance and formed her own company. She performed original work and in a reconstruction of Doris Humphrey's Day on Earth with Dance Junction and with her own modern dance company until the mid 80s. Influenced by the work of Meredith Monk '64 to explore interdisciplinary performance that resonates within the body as it reflects and interacts with the imaginal, external and archetypal world, she went on to study Body-Mind Centering and Authentic Movement. As part of her exploration of verbal and nonverbal expression, and to broaden her creative work, she earned MFAs in Writing from Vermont College and Warren Wilson College, culminating in her thesis, Recognizing the Dance. She has published poems in journals, textbooks and anthologies. As her focus shifted to the relationship between dance and healing, she pursued an MSW and an MS in dance/movement therapy from Hunter College. During her final social work internship year at the International Center for the Disabled (1991-1992), she was asked to start a creative arts psychotherapy program. She has worked at ICD in the Behavioral Medicine Department since graduating from Hunter, developing and serving as clinical coordinator of the Creative and Movement Arts Psychotherapy Program. During her tenure at ICD, she provided thousands of clinical service hours in a comprehensive care outpatient facility offering long- and short-term mental health treatment.

Cathy has taught workshops and classes at the School of Visual Arts, Goddard College, NYU and SLC, and for organizations such as the Red Cross, the MS Society and Montefiore Hospital. She was Senior Editor and author of two chapters in the Second Revised Edition (2005) of the dance therapy textbook, Dance Movement Therapy: A Healing Art (F. Levy Ed.), co-editor of the American Journal of Dance Therapy (2003-2007), a member of the Credentials Committee for the American Dance Therapy Association  (2007-2009) and of the Dance/Movement Therapy Certification Board (2009-2010).

BA, Trinity College, MS, Hunter College, MA, PhD, Long Island University. Licensed Clinical Psychologist, Registered Dance/Movement Therapist, studied modern dance improvisation and Asian dance/drama with Judy Dworin and was an inaugural participant in the Trinity/La Mama program. She has 20 years clinical experience treating various populations including children, infants with mothers with chronic mental illness, eating disorders, and geriatrics. She has taught at Mercy College, Westchester Community College, Long Island University, and The New School. She is a Staff Psychologist at Aging Matters Psychological Services in White Plains, New York. Her research interests include time perception in children with ADHD and the integration of Eastern philosophy in Western mental health practices.

BFA, University of Missouri-Kansas City, Conservatory of Music, MS, Dance/Movement Therapy, Hunter College, City University of New York. She is a Licensed Creative Arts Therapist (LCAT), a Board Certified Dance Movement Therapist (BC-DMT), and a Certified Movement Analyst (CMA). She completed her Certification in Movement Analysis from the Laban/Bartenieff & Somatic Studies Program (affiliated with LIMS) under the direction of Janet Kaylo (2009). She also completed her teaching certificate in Isadora Duncan Studies from the Isadora Duncan International Institute, Inc. directed by Jeanne Bresciani (1999). Marie has worked in direct care with underserved populations since 1995 in a variety of settings including acute adult psychiatry, drug addiction rehabilitation, continuing day treatment for adults with mental illness and drug addiction, and adjunctly in emergency shelters for men and women with mental illness as well as an Intensive Psychiatric Rehabilitation Program (1995-2002) and maintains a private practice in Long Island City, NY. Administratively, Marie has worked as the director of Psychiatric Rehabilitation at Interfaith Medical Center in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, NY (2002-2008) and the Director of Integrative Therapies in Psychiatry at Bronx Lebanon Hospital Center, Morrisania section of the Bronx, NY (2008-present). 

BA, Queens College, MA, SUNY at Buffalo, MSW, Hunter College, Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW-R). Deborah Kelly has 23 years clinical experience treating adults with physical disabilities, chronic illness, traumatic brain injury, mental illness, and addiction disorders. She has presented at community-based conferences on topics such as Chemical Dependency and Disability; Emotional and Psychological Effects of Sarcoidosis on Family and Friends; Ethnicity and Rehabilitation; and Cultural Diversity in Healthcare and Rehabilitation. She also has taught numerous in-service staff trainings on Disability Rights History; Short Term Solution Focused Treatment Planning; and Client Centered Treatment and the Well-Written Treatment Plan. She is a Senior Social Worker at the International Center for the Disabled in New York City. Special interests include medical and psychiatric clinical assessment; chronic pain conditions and neurodegenerative diseases; and mindfulness-based stress reduction.

BA, Harpur College of Arts and Sciences at Binghamton State University of New York, MPS, Dance/Movement Therapy, Pratt Institute, Licensed Creative Arts Therapist (LCAT), Board Certified Dance/Movement Therapist (BC-DMT). Ms. Lewis studied dance with Valerie Bettis and June Lewis and has 25 years of clinical experience working collaboratively with a diverse team of professionals as a creative arts therapist treating adults with chronic mental and physical illness, physical disabilities, and traumatic brain injury. She works at the International Center for the Disabled in New York City, where she oversees the Creative and Movement Arts Psychotherapy Program.  Additional areas of study include yoga, mindfulness-based stress reduction, and playing piano as a meditative practice.

BA, Macalester College, St. Paul, MN, in Theater and Philosophy. She has been teaching movement since 1994 and is a Certified Laban Movement Analyst (CMA), Infant Development Movement Educator (IDME), a Body-Mind Centering® (BMC®) Teacher and registered with ISMETA as a Somatic Movement Therapist and Educator (RSMT/RSME) and with IAYT (International Association of Yoga Therapists) and with Yoga Alliance as an E-500 RYT (Experienced Registered Yoga Teacher).

Amy leads the Embodied Developmental Movement and Yoga and the Embodied Anatomy and Yoga BMC® programs in the United States. She co-taught with Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen in Berkeley, CA for five years and was on the faculty of the Laban/Bartenieff Institute of Movement Studies for ten years. She has taught embodied anatomy and movement workshops for programs in New York, Philadelphia, Berkeley, and Nebraska, and internationally in Canada, Switzerland, Ireland, England, Israel, Slovakia and Japan.

Amy co-authored with Leslie Kaminoff the best-selling book Yoga Anatomy, and together Amy and Leslie lead The Breathing Project's Advanced Studies Program. Amy also works privately as a movement therapist and yoga teacher, integrating Laban Movement Analysis, Bartenieff Fundamentals, yoga, Body-Mind Centering® and Proprioceptive Neuromuscular Facilitation (PNF).

Amy has studied with a range of inspiring teachers: dissection workshops with Gil Hedley, neuro-muscular reeducation with Irene Dowd, Body-Mind Centering with Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen, full-contact karate with Michelle Gay, and yoga with Alison West, Mark Whitwell, Genny Kapular and Kevin Gardiner.

BA, Point Park College, MA, Hunter College, Board Certified Dance/Movement Therapist (BC-DMT), Licensed Creative Arts Therapist (LCAT).  Jean choreographed and danced with the Pittsburgh Dance Alloy, ’79 and helped to shape the company in its early years.  Through her experience dancing and choreographing she became interested in the power of movement to express what words cannot.  Jean went on to receive her MA in Dance Therapy at Hunter College ’85, and has been working in the field ever since.   Her clinical work includes a wide variety of populations and age groups.  She has served on the credentialing committee for the American Dance Therapy Association, co-coordinated a national conference, was Vice President and Program Director of the New York State Chapter of the American Dance Therapy Association, and developed the first dance therapy program for Catholic Charities for people with develpmental disabilities. Jean has two articles published in the American Journal of Dance Therapy.  Her article “Behind the Gates:  Dance/Movement Therapy in a Women’s Prison”, was highly praised. She has taught at Mercy College, Westchester Community College, Pratt Institute, and College of New Rochelle.  Additional training and interests include family therapy and authentic movement.  Jean has been on staff at Jacobi Medical Center since 1990, supervises staff and interns, teaches and holds a private practice in Westchester County, New York.