LIMS Faculty

Meet the LIMS Faculty! Scroll through to find faculty members listed in alphabetic order by surname. Additional faculty will be added soon, as we continue to work on the page. As the faculty often teach in different programs, please check out the courses pages under Education where faculty are listed, along with other information regarding the particular course and/or program.

Alexandra has been Choreographer for “Sense and Sensibility” (Sheen Center, Judson Gym, Folger Shakespeare Library, American Repertory Theatre, Portland Center Stage), (Helen Hayes Award, Lortel Nomination, IRNE Best Choreography). She choreographed the Off Broadway musical, “The Mad Ones” (59E59), Bedlam’s “Peter Pan” (Duke Theatre), “Two Gentlemen of Verona” (Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival), “As You Like It” (Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival, Folger Shakespeare Library), “How to transcend a happy marriage” by Sarah Ruhl (Lincoln Center Theatre), “The Young Ladies of…” (Taylor Mac), “Chang(e)” (HERE), and others. Current projects include “Antonio’s Song” by Dael Orlandersmith/Antonio Suarez (CATF, Milwaukee Rep), “Fandango for Butterflies (and Coyotes)” (La MaMa and touring), and Directing and Choreographing “Macbxth,” a two-person adaptation opening Off-Broadway February 2021.

Her international performance career includes 7 years with the Bill. T. Jones/Arnie Zane Dance Company, projects with Martha Clarke, John Turturro, and others. Alexandra Beller/Dances formed in 2001 and she has created over 40 original Dance Theatre works, for her own and other companies. Her choreography has been presented at theatres throughout the US and in Korea, Hong Kong, Oslo, Cyprus, St. Petersburg, and Poland.

Alexandra holds a BFA/Dance, MFA/Dance and CMA (Certified Movement Analyst) in Laban Movement Analysis/Bartenieff Fundamentals. She is on faculty at Princeton University, Rutgers University, and The Laban/Bartenieff Institute for Movement Studies, and guest teaches nationally and internationally. She also has a private Somatic Therapy practice and provides multiple forms of private mentorship. She has consulted with numerous institutions about curriculum planning, syllabus development, and pedagogy including the 92nd St Y, LIMS, and Dancio.com. More info at: www.alexandrabellerdances.org and alexandrabeller.com.

Karen Bradley is President of LIMS and Emerita Associate Professor of Dance, University of Maryland. She is the author of Rudolf Laban, a volume in Routledge’s series on 20th Century performance practitioners, and has taught and lectured internationally on LBMS, dance therapy, and neuroscience. Bradley is also a dance/movement therapist, working with children and seniors. She is part of the Steering Committee for the Global Water Dances project and works with LIMS and the Association for Cultural Equity on the Reimagining Choreometrics project. Bradley lives and works from Musquodoboit Harbour, Nova Scotia.

Joanna Brotman is a dance artist, educator, lecturer, and writer based in New York City. As Chair of Dance and a dance educator at the Dalton School, she has been developing and implementing innovative curriculum and programing for over 30 years. She also teaches dance pedagogy at Rutgers University in the Ed.M Dance Education graduate program. Brotman is on the faculty of the Laban/Bartenieff Institute of Movement Studies certification program in Israel and the EMOVE (Embodied Movement Institute) certification program in the Netherlands. She has also taught on the faculty of the LIMS certification programs in Scotland.

Brotman offers dance workshops, movement intensives, and lectures for artists, educators, therapists, and researchers in Scotland, Poland, Russia, Germany, Israel, the Netherlands, Spain and throughout the U.S. In New York, she has presented at the Laban Institute of Movement Studies, the 92nd St. Y’s Dance Education Laboratory (DEL), Gibney Dance, Lucid Body, New York University, Nazareth University, and Brockport University. Her writing has been published in Creative Arts in Education and Therapy: Eastern and Western Perspectives, Inspirees Institute, China; Beyond Frontiers: Movement Analysis and Related Fields, Logos Verlag Berlin; and PAJ: A Journal of Performance and Art, MIT Press.

Brotman has performed internationally as a dancer and in film. Her choreography has been commissioned by modern, ballet, and theater companies. She is the recipient of numerous New York State Council for the Arts grants for her work integrating professional and community dancers in underserved communities. Brotman is a Certified Movement Analyst, Certified Evans Teacher, and a Registered Somatic Movement Educator and Therapist.

Tomi Casciero is a former professor in the Theatre Department at Towson University (USA) where he trained under-graduate actors in Laban-based Movement for 28 years. He also taught Acting, Voice, Voice/Movement Integration, Movement Impulse Improvisation, Comedy, and Devised Theatre. For the graduate students in the Experimental Theatre MFA program, he taught Ensemble and Solo Performance.

He is a Certified Laban Movement Analyst (CMA) and a Research Associate for the Laban/Bartenieff Institute of Movement Studies (LIMS). He served on the LIMS Education Committee and the editorial board of the Journal of Laban Movement Studies.

Tomi is a co-author of The Laban Workbook for Actors (Methuen Press 2017) He also authored Laban Movement Studies and Actor Training (Ph.D. thesis), a widely distributed teaching manual for training actors in physical awareness and expressivity.

He has been a master teacher at International and National Laban Conferences in Rio de Janeiro, Bratislava (Slovakia), Amherst, Minneapolis, and Baltimore. He was awarded an Overseas Fellowship at the University of Pretoria and and a Visiting Scholarship at Pretoria Technikon University, both in South Africa. Tomi was also a Visiting Professor at University of Costa Rica, and Nationale Universidad de Costa Rica. And he has been a guest artist and teacher at dozens of conferences, colleges, theaters, and festivals.

Tomi served as movement director for over 40 University main stage and studio productions and directed regional and university theatre. He wrote, devised, and directed 13 Clowns, Ill Cavadente, Post Marks, Dancing of the Edge of Dawn and Domestic Snakes. As a performer, prior to his academic work, he toured his solo performances of comedy and physical theatre nationally and internationally.

Tomi lives with his family in East Calais, Vermont, where he kayaks, hikes, and snowshoes every chance he gets.

John Chanik, BFA, CMA, CTT, RSMT/ RSME.
John has taught and worked in the fields of Movement Analysis extensively since 1989. John has been on the faculty of the Yearlong, Intensive and Modular Certificate Programs in Laban Movement Analysis since 1991. He has coordinated the Yearlong Program in New York City for over 20 years. He is also co-coordinating and teaching in a Certification Program in Laban Movement Analysis in Taiwan. Currently John also maintains a private practice in therapeutic fitness, movement coaching and Connective Tissue Therapy. John has worked with many different client populations from the elderly to dancers; on issues ranging from maintaining a high level of function to managing chronic injuries and body conditions. John has taught workshops in LMA and Bartenieff Fundamentals in mainland China for Apollo China and he has taught for Moving on Center’s Somatic Movement Therapy Training program in NYC. John worked for seven years at Dr. Richard Bachrach’s Center for Osteopathic Medicine. John has taught in Connective Tissue Therapy training programs given by Theresa Lamb, has been a movement specialist at the Sports Training Institute, taught dance in NYC public schools and was a guest instructor in movement for actors at Boston University. John has an extensive background in modern dance and ballet and holds a BFA from the University of Utah. John is an ardent environmentalist who enjoys hiking, gardening and biking. John is certified in Permaculture Design and has a great interest in investigating and adopting methods for sustainable living.

Cecilia is a dancer and choreographer, improvisation and movement analysis teacher, researcher, and dance therapist.

As a dance artist, she has been practicing improvisation, modern, contemporary and aerial dance for 30 years, both in Europe and USA. She is the co-founder of a new dance modality, Parcon NYC, a collective of dancers and movers dedicated to challenging our connection to the environment and social relationships through movement, play, touch and reflection.

Fontanesi taught partnering, modern dance, and contact improvisation both in Italy and New York. In 2011, she became a CMA (Certified Movement Analyst) at the Laban/Bartenieff Institute of Movement Studies (LIMS®, NY). She was a registered yoga teacher at The Yoga Trail in Central Park, a teaching assistant in Movement Observation at Sarah Lawrence College, as well as an adjunct Anatomy instructor at Marymount Manhattan college, Dance Department. She is currently part of LIMS Core Faculty, teaching for Introductory courses, Yearlong and New Pathways certification programs.

Fontanesi holds a Ph.D. and M.Phil. in Biology Neuroscience from CUNY The Graduate Center, and a M.S. in Biology of Behavior from University of Florence, Italy. She is eager to apply her knowledge of neuroscience in the field of somatic education, movement, and dance, to foster awareness of and an appreciation for the art of dance and the benefits of accessible movement throughout the life cycle.

She is a Registered-Dance Movement Therapist (R-DMT) through both Sarah Lawrence College, Bronxville, NY and Lesley University, Cambridge, MA. She has extensive experience implementing dance movement therapy interventions to a range of individuals including those affected by Alzheimer’s Disease and Parkinson’s Disease. She is currently serving as Research and Practice Committee Chair of the American Dance Therapy Association (ADTA).

Anchen Froneman (PhD) is fascinated by the embodied complexities of musical performance and expressive human behavior. She holds an AISTD in Cecchetti Classical Ballet, PhD (Music) and graduated as a Certified Movement Analyst in 2018. Anchen is a lecturer at the Odeion School of Music (University of the Free State) where she teaches Music Theory as well as Embodied practices. Since 2019, she also taught movement theory and practice for the Department of Drama at the UFS. Anchen has presented numerous papers and has published locally and internationally on embodiment as related to aspects of musical performance.

Christy Funsch is a dance maker, educator, and performer. She holds an MFA in Dance and Performance from Arizona State University, a Pilates certification, and a Laban Movement Analysis certification from the Laban Bartenieff Institute for Movement Studies in New York. She is a Registered Somatic Movement Educator through ISMETA: the International Somatic Movement Education and Therapy Association. Christy completed her Pilates Certification at the Ellie Herman Studio in San Francisco, and was one of the contributing editors to Ellie’s certification programs. Christy has taught kinesiology, functional anatomy, comparative somatics, and all manner of dance technique classes and improvisation at Hamilton College (New York), James Madison University, University of Nebraska at Lincoln, Cabrillo College (Aptos), San Francisco State University, The San Francisco Dance Center, The Actor’s Studio (SF), Shawl Anderson Dane Center (Berkeley), Slippery Rock University (PA), the University of California at Berkeley, and Virginia Commonwealth University. Christy founded Funsch Dance Experience (www.funschdance.org) in 2002, and has had her work presented in New York, Lisbon, London, Amsterdam, Chicago, Richmond, VA, Phoenix, Toronto, and throughout California. In 2013, Christy was a participating member in CHIME Across Borders, the Margaret Jenkins Dance Company’s cross-national CHIME (Choreographers in Mentorship Exchange) program with mentor Tere O’Connor. In 2014, she was named one of Dance Magazine’s “25 to Watch.” In 2015, she became the first woman to be granted permission to learn and perform Daniel Nagrin’s iconic solo from 1965, Path. Most recently, she received a Fulbright Scholar Award to teach and choreograph at the Escola Superior de Dança in Portugal. In addition to her extensive background in movement studies, Christy has been a longtime student of the Alexander method, Skinner Releasing, and Body Mind Centering.

andrea haenggi (MFA,CMA,RSMT) is an artist, dancer and choreographer of Swiss alpine descent, living on occupied Lenapehoking land currently known as New York City. Calling on plants as guides, teachers, mentors and performers, her dance and somatic fieldwork practice creates a form of theater called Ethnochoreobotanography, which simultaneously explores issues regarding decolonization, ecology, feminism, power, labor and care. She teaches, performs and exhibits internationally. Her most recent movement practice, called “Moss in Pandemic Times,” was a regular Zoom study class to find relations to urban moss and their teachings and climaxed in the participatory socially distanced performance “from moss/love moss” in the East River Park in NYC (2020) and a collaborative online public project called “Moss Summer Camp” for eco-social justice. Her latest relational residencies as an “embodied scientist” were at Wave Hill, Bronx, NY (2020) and at the Botanical Garden of the University of Zurich, Switzerland (2019). Alongside her work as a choreographer, she gives workshops, including at Ecosomatic Symposium, University of Michigan (2020) and Body IQ Somatic Festival (2019) in Berlin, Germany. She has taught in the USA, China, Nigeria, and Switzerland and is since 2015 on the faculty of the Laban/Bartenieff Institute of Movement Studies in New York City. She holds an MFA in Creative Practice from Transart Institute/Plymouth University UK, is a Swiss Canton Solothurn Dance Prize recipient, and is the co-founder of the artist collective Environmental Performance Agency (EPA), whose primary goal is to shift thinking around the terms environment, performance, and agency. environmentalperformanceagency.com weedychoreography.com

Milca Leon, MA, CMA – an experienced dance and movement educator specializing in Laban/Bartenieff Movement Studies. She has an M.A in Dance Studies from The Laban Centre in London, and a CMA from LIMS, NY. She has taught at The Laban Centre, and several Acting Colleges in London, incorporating somatic-based work into Performance training. Upon returning to Israel she has taught extensively at dance and theatre institutions, and has been nurturing young dancers-choreographers for the last 28 years. Since 2006 she has expanded her somatic movement work to the therapeutic world, and is on the faculty of the Department of Creative Arts Therapy at Haifa University, Israel, and she also teaches movement studies to PE students and movement therapists at Wingate College, Israel. She is also on the LIMS faculty in Israel. She has studied group facilitation and is a personal coacher, and these skills are integrated into her LBMS based work. She has published several articles in books and professional magazines in the fields of Dance Education and of Movement Analysis in Israel and the UK, and has written parts of the National Curriculum in Dance for the Ministry of Education in Israel, including teaching units based on the application of Bloom’s taxonomy in dance education.

Catherine (Cat) Maguire is a movement educator, dance artist, Certified Movement Analyst and Registered Somatic Movement Educator, teaching in the Charlottesville, VA, area and at the University of Maryland and internationally for the Laban/Bartenieff Institute of Movement Studies (LIMS). After graduating Phi Beta Kappa from Wesleyan University with honors in dance and psychology, Maguire earned a Certified Movement Analyst (CMA) degree with LIMS in New York City. For the next eight years, she was the artistic director of Offspring Dance Company in New York City and the founder and head of the dance program at Drew University in Madison, NJ. While executive director of Piedmont Council of the Arts in Charlottesville, Maguire continued to teach, choreograph and perform throughout Central Virginia and internationally. From 2003 to 2010, Maguire was assistant professor of dance at Piedmont Virginia Community College (PVCC), where she was an integral part of the development and implementation of the associate’s degree in dance, the only one of its kind in the Virginia Community College System. Currently Maguire teaches group classes and individual sessions designed to foster self expression, body connectivity and transformation through movement.

Eli Marcos Furones has been a dancer, teacher and researcher seeking the body mind connection that exists per se in all human beings. This and other questions have been in the core of both her academic and professional experience. Following the thread of her interests she has moved from the dance field (Postgraduate in Contemporary Dance at London Contemporary Dance School), to the social field (BA in Social and Cultural Anthropology) and the linguistic field, (Translation and Interpretation studies). As an attempt to understand the human being as a whole she enrolled in the Dance Movement Therapy Masters Degree program at Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona.

The idea of using dance as the tool for communication has directed her journey through different work environments. She has worked as a dancer in New York, Spain and the UK touring internationally and nationally. She has also worked as a Contemporary Dance Teacher for dancers and Creative Dance Movement Teacher people with mental disabilities and children in schools. As a result of these experiences, improvisation has become an important part of her practice and is present in her classes.

Due to her belief that the body is the source from which personal histories can be revealed, she moved to New York to gain a better understanding of the mind through deepening her studies in the body knowledge. Laban/Bartenieff has become the framework that has pulled all her interest together. Nowadays she is teaching both Laban/Bartenieff and Kestenberg in different institutions such as Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona and in the Institute of the Theater in Barcelona and Vic, in Spain.

Eli Marcos Furones is a Certified Movement Analyst, BodyMind Dancing™ Teacher, DanceAbility Teacher and a Somatic Movement Educator and Therapist recognized by ISMETA.

Marth Munro, PhD, specializes in bodymind and voice in behavior and performance. She is a certified Laban/Bartenieff Movement Analyst™, Lessac Master Teacher®, certified NLP Life, Business and Executive coach, qualified Sound Therapist, qualified Hatha Yoga teacher, and a Bio-, Neurofeedback practitioner. She was one of the editors of Play with Purpose: Lessac Kinesensics in Action (2017) and of the Lessac Festschrift (2009). She was associate editor of several Voice and Speech Reviews (1999–2006). She has published extensively in the field of Embodied Performance Pedagogy. She has taught in South Africa, the United States of America, and Croatia. She is currently Professor Extraordinaire in the School of the Arts: Drama, University of Pretoria, primarily contributing to post-graduate research supervision in Embodied Performance. She facilitates workshops in Emotionally Competent Business Communication, Stress Resilience and Gender-in-Leadership through the University of Witwatersrand Business School. Marth is committed to facilitating human flourishing through play, adhering to an ethics of care.

Tarryn-Tanille Prinsloo is a part-time lecturer at the University of Pretoria in various courses ranging from Live and Digital Media Studies, Screenwriting and Experiential Anatomy and Physiology located specifically in the Laban Movement Analysis and Bartenieff pedagogies. She also lectures Movement Studies for the Further Education and Training Certificate in Performing Arts (first years) qualification and the second year Higher Certificate in Performing Arts qualification at Oakfields College Pretoria.

Apart from being a Certified Movement Analyst, she graduated with a Doctorate Degree in Drama and Film studies in 2018 at the University of Pretoria with her thesis on Perceiving Screendance through a Laban Movement analysis lens. She now provides academic supervision to post-graduate students.

Tarryn-Tanille has furthermore written the feature film screenplays for Treurgrond, Trouvoete, Mignon “Mossie” van Wyk, Skorokoro and the horror film Siembamba, which has been retitled to The Lullaby for U.S. distribution in Los Angeles. Her most recent screenplay, Vergeet My Nie, released in February 2020. She passionately seeks to find innovative ways in which movement, writing and digital media can interrelate.

Tsachor earned a B.F.A. in Dance (Juilliard), completed Labanotation Teacher training (DNB), and earned her MA in Dance/Movement Research (CCNY), with Advanced Notator and Reconstructor certification, staging the first blind reconstruction of Pavanne on the Death of an Infanta by Kurt Jooss. A graduate of LIMS UQAM Montreal program, she was trained by Peter Madden, Karen Studd, Janet Kaylo, Gurney Bolster and Valerie Dean. Dianne Woodruff and Martha Eddy trained her for ISMETA, then she certified in Alexander Technique, and Mind/Body Medicine (CMBM).

Senior LIMS faculty since 2006, and coordinator since 2012, Tsachor founded LIMS’ Israel program. In Israel, she was guest faculty for University of Haifa’s Creative Arts Therapies, and Wingate College, teaching Somatic Movement Therapy, and Somatic Movement Approaches to Trauma. She taught at the University of Iowa and Grinnell College. Tsachor is now Associate Professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

Tsachor investigates patterns in moving bodies on diverse projects.

In artistic practices, she wrote the chapter on BF for Actors in Movement for Actors, and uses LBMS to movement design for UIC productions such as Passing Strange, The Piano Lesson, Life is a Dream, Glenngary Glenross, Ivanov, El Nogalar, and Love’s Labour’s Lost. Likewise for period notations and styles in chapters in Courtly Dance of the Renaissance, and Dances for the Sun King: André Lorin’s Livre de Contredance.

Tsachor uses LBMS to inform scientific research, co-authoring Emotion Regulation Through Movement, A Somatic Movement Approach to Fostering Emotional Resiliency, How Do We Recognize Emotion From Movement, and …A Method for Quantifying the Qualitative Aspects of Unscripted Movement with LMA. Her current NSF-funded research investigates the impact of movement and drama on science learning with Chicago Public Schools students from diverse communities. Tsachor also contributes to papers on affective computing.