DMT Register

Annie is a Dance Movement Therapist and registered Arts Therapist. With a passion for working with children in various contexts over the past 15 plus years, Annie provides DMT for groups and individual clients, in both clinical and community contexts, as well as within schools. Her clinical experience spans a diverse range of populations including neurodiverse children, teens, and adults; children with high and complex needs; anxiety; autism; and older adults with dementia. She adopts a client-centered, relational, and trauma-informed approach, nestled in developmental psychology and polyvagal theory. Fundamentally, Annie seeks to promote a non-judgmental and compassionate space for clients to explore, facilitating support through embodiment, movement, breath, creative expression, presence, and play.

Barbara did her main dance movement therapy training in Munich Germany at CITA in Integral Dance, Expression Therapy and Authentic Movement in 1993 and later in Auckland New Zealand at DTNZ in 2015. She studied and experienced working with all ages and abilities in different settings, including childcare, schools, health centres and nursing homes. Alongside her teacher Wilfried Guertler ( CITA) she built up a training school in Vienna, Austria and Budapest, Hungary to introduce and teach the positive effects of dance movement therapy. Before she came to New Zealand she taught and studied in India, USA, and Europe. Barbara works mainly in high schools where she set up group work in creative arts therapy using dance, movement, storytelling, arts and music for students with learn difficulties, intellectual,physical and mental disabilities. She offers workshops to different organisations to learn how to integrate dance movement therapy in their everyday work.

Bex comes with over 12 years of experience working in the disability sector. She has extensive experience working with people of all abilities including complex needs. She has worked with Children, Teens and Adults, in both group and individual settings. Her key populations are Teens and Adults, with a preference for group work in either a face to face setting or online. Growing up in New Zealand she has a rich respect for indigenous culture, which she endeavours to bring into her practice and teaching, while mindfully navigating her role as Tangata Tiriti.

Bex operates from a Social Model of health, with a critical perspective that recognises intersectionality and social systems as factors to be aware of when working with groups of people. Bex has experience working with mixed ability groups and utilises movement, art and music in groups, as carrier activities to support connection, relationship, social, emotional and life skills. A key consideration of her work is always ‘how can I make this accessible and meaningful to everyone present.’ Her current research thesis endeavour involves compassion. Her special interest areas are ADHD, intersections between mental health & disability and Dance Movement Therapy adaptions for wheelchair users. Her practice is influenced by her background in circus and performance arts. She is one of the trainers on the DMT Diploma course through Dance and Arts therapy NZ.

"The body says what words cannot." - Martha Graham.
"Oh, the comfort, the inexpressible comfort of feeling safe with a person; having neither to weigh thoughts nor measure words, but to pour them all out, just as they are, chaff and grain together, knowing that a faithful hand will take and sift them, keeping what is worth keeping, and them with a breath of kindness, blow the rest away." - George Eliot.

I embrace a holistic, person-centered approach, drawing on creative arts, psychology, mindfulness, cross-cultural understanding, and principles from Laban and Chacian approaches. I trust that within each of us lies an inner wisdom that, when expressed in a safe and supportive space, can be deeply therapeutic and restorative. Over the past few years, I have supported people in mental health services, while nurturing dance and movement as pathways for growth, restoration, and prevention.

I use a variety of options in supervision. Case reporting is one. I use Physical Storytelling, Authentic Movement as well as a form called Intervision. In group supervision I encourage supervisees to really think through there bodies while moving and I ground this through the lenses of Laban, Bartenieff and Kestenberg movement systems. Improvisation strongly informs my supervision approach supported by a framework that synthesizes humanistic, developmental, and metaphoric (aesthetic) understanding.

Jenny has offered group and individual dance therapy to adults and young adults with disabilities including Down syndrome, intellectual disabilities, cerebral palsy, autism spectrum, depression, and more, and yoga to young women with mild schizophrenia. She regularly offers yoga, therapeutic dance, and community dance to neuro-typical kids and adults. She has experience guiding a therapeutic drum group, and enjoys integrating rhythm activities into her group DMT sessions. Jenny loves to support clients in a journey of self-discovery to facilitate pathways toward greater ease, flow, and joy and weaves her knowledge of yoga, mindfulness, and rhythm into her therapy practice. She has a personal interest in the use of gentle mobilisation and breath integration for healing chronic pain and anxiety.

A DMT practitioner since 2006, working across Taiwan, Aotearoa New Zealand, and internationally; I believe in the knowings from/within body, the power of authenticity, and the dynamic relationality in our body-mind-cultural-spiritual self and surrounding.
I work with the whole person and their community/whānau, rather than symptoms and diagnosis. Drawing from transcultural responsive practice to support clients' unique journey for their wellbeing. My work is relational, intuitive, and grounded with both psychology and creative processes. I work (and lived) with childhood relational trauma, different-abilities and/or neurodivergence, attachment issues, and complex trauma (C-PTSD). I practice mindful presence and mindfulness in movement as resources and regulation tools. A wide range of theories and practices informs my work. Some DMT specific approaches include Bartenieff Fundamentals, KMP, Moving Cycle, Ways of Seeing for family and young children, Trauma-informed Restorative Body psychotherapy, and The BodyMind Approach for medically non-explained symptoms; as well as psychodynamics and somatic psychotherapy.

Lesley has extensive experience as creative wellbeing practitioner with individuals and groups. She began her dance movement training when young in Christchurch then London. Her early experience included contemporary dance, improvisation, and Body-Mind Centering with teachers Patricia Bardi, Katya Bloom, Linda Hartley, and foundation DMT training with Helen Payne. Returning to NZ she collaborated with Amanda Levey learning the Halprin Life Art Process. An opportunity to study Dance Movement Therapy in Melbourne enabled her to both immerse herself in healing dance and formalise her dance movement therapy training. She initially applied her skills in aged care and women’s health with independent group work, then worked primarily in the public mental health field as a counsellor/social worker incorporating a body-centred, creative and integrative approach, and where possible offering DMT. In recent years she has begun her own private Dance to Life practice with a focus on supporting people with trauma and advanced her DMT skills in this area including training with Amber Gray. She’s also been based in a medical clinic as a Health Improvement Practitioner (HIP) supporting “patients” with holistic wellbeing. Her passion is developing Dance Movement Therapy as a life enhancing creative wellbeing modality. This year learning SpinPoi as a fresh movement modality that can be both a cultural and professional bridge between her HIP and Dance Movement Therapy worlds.

Sarah is a Dance Movement Therapist and certified multilingual Early Childhood Educator who completed her studies and training in Berlin, Germany. During her 10 years of experience in a German bilingual school she worked with the integration of students coming from different countries and backgrounds including children with ASD, ADHD and neurological behaviour issues. It was here that Sarah discovered the importance of other forms of communication including body, dance and movement. After completing her Dance Therapy qualification, she has managed to combine her lifelong passion of dance and education through her Flow Dance Your Life programmes, conducting workshops and offering individual and group sessions with children, teenagers, people with special needs (i.e. autism) and women. Sarah is also working with DTNZ in Auckland specialising in group sessions focussed on children in the Autism Spectrum.