The Healing Art of Somatic Movement Dance Therapy
In a world that often pulls us away from our bodies and inner wisdom, Somatic Movement Dance Therapy (SMDT) offers a way home — a return to embodied presence, creative expression, and compassionate connection. It is both a professional pathway and a personal journey; a movement towards wholeness, integration, and authentic expression through the living intelligence of the body.
At its heart, SMDT explores how movement, awareness, and relational attunement restore regulation in the nervous system. It invites us to experience the body not as an object to be fixed, but as a living field of communication and consciousness. Through somatic movement, we access the subtle rhythms of our physiology — breath, pulse, fluid, vibration — and rediscover the deep intelligence that underpins our wellbeing.
Through Vanessa Tucker’s three-level Somatic Movement Dance Therapy Training, developed alongside, and applied and adapted from the pioneering research and trainings of Dr. Amanda Williamson, and based on her book Somatic Movement Dance Therapy: The Healing Art of Self-Regulation & Co-Regulation, students are invited on a journey of both professional development and personal healing. The training explores the art and science of facilitation, embodied awareness, and regulation—blending creative practice, therapeutic depth, and spiritual inquiry. Amanda Williamson is a guest lecturer on Level 1 and level 2, and leads the Level 3 training with Vanessa Tucker guest lecturing. This unique pathway welcomes therapists, dance and theatre artists, movement facilitators, and creative freelancers seeking to deepen their somatic understanding and professional practice.
Each level builds progressively, deepening participants’ embodied knowledge and facilitation skills. Students learn how to guide others safely through somatic processes that foster regulation, expression, and integration — whether in therapeutic, creative, or educational settings. It is a living training that evolves through movement, dialogue, and relational experience.
Somatic Movement Dance Therapy is not just a professional discipline — it is a practice of living. It invites curiosity, creativity, and compassion into every cell of our being, reminding us that healing is not a destination but a rhythm of return.
