Bio

MA Somatic Dance & Wellbeing at the University of Central Lancashire

Mary Abrams, MA, RSME loves moving, learning, discovering, and creating.

With curiosity and enjoyment, Mary supports groups and individuals in environments that enhance consciousness through body-mind integration and transformational movement explorations.  Her clients and students include corporate professionals, actors, dancers, musicians, artists, psychologists, psychiatrists, designers, medical doctors, teachers, and political activists, among others.

Mary works with all living, body, and consciousness concerns, including but not limited to:  post-surgical rehab support, chronic illness, injury, trauma, aging issues, and ongoing personal development.

She began professionally exploring her passion in 1984 as a dancer/choreographer, which led her to explore Continuum Movement, Epistemics, and the biology of emotion (affective system).  Along with her classes, workshops and clients, since 2007 Mary has been teaching on the Masters in Dance & Somatic Well-being course at the University of Central Lancashire, Preston, England. Leading a section of the course in the USA from 2009-2017.

She also teaches on the Continuum training at the Somatic Academy of Berlin, Germany and mentors people interested in becoming Somatic Movement Educators and/ or Continuum Teachers.

In 1999, Mary founded Moving Body Resources in New York City to provide a physical space for her work, and to create more spaces for a greater community of professionals teaching and serving transformation and consciousness through healing, wellness, and creative practices.

As a Registered Somatic Movement Educator (RSME-ISMETA), she holds a masters degree (Goddard College) in Consciousness Studies with a focus on embodied movement practice and theory.  She explored Continuum Movement with its founder Emilie Conrad from 1994-2014, and continues study and dialog with Susan Harper (Continuum Montage) and Gary David, PhD in the fields of body awareness, movement, and human being theory (Affect-script theory and Epistemics).

All her studies are valuable resources for tracking what is, being open to the emerging unexpected, and for discovering new meaning in core developmental experiences.

She has served on several Board of Directors including:

Silvan S. Tomkins Institute (SSTI), 2013-2016
International Somatic Movement Education & Therapy Association (ISMETA), 2002-2011
Danspace Project at St. Mark’s Church, New York City, 1993-2002
Minnesota Dance Alliance, 1985-1987

She holds a B.A. in Dance from St. Olaf College, formally studied dance for over 30 years, and still performs in intimate venues in New York City.

Podcast Interviews:

Alumni Spotlight
https://goddardalumni.com/alumni-spotlight-mary-abrams/

Universal Dancer Podcast:

YouTube Video Link: https://youtu.be/3s_fJJ9LJZE

Podcast:
https://anchor.fm/leslie-zehr/episodes/Mary-Abrams–Founder-and-Director-of-Moving-Body-Resources-e1ecbdl

Interview of Mary Abrams by Liz Koch, December 2021
MOVING BODY RESOURCES: Talking with Mary Abrams (youtube.com)


Publications by Mary Abrams or including her work include:

Abrams, M. (2020), ‘Finding Heart in the Well of Being’, Dance, Movement & Spiritualities, UK: Intellect Books, Volume 7 Numbers 1 & 2, pp. 87-103.

Abrams, M. (2017) Being Beautiful, MegaZEN Journal, Be Hive of Healing, Agoura Hills, CA., pp. 38-39.

Abrams, M. (2011), Consciousness as Embodied Movement: Exploring intimate and more effective ways of living together. Plainfield, VT: Goddard College Library.

Abrams, M. (2011), Feeling Moving: Wandering through the flesh of personal and human development, USA Body Psychotherapy Association Journal, vol. 10, issue 2.

Olsen, Andrea (2022), ‘Sensations and Emotions with Mary Abrams, founder of Moving Body Resources’, Moving Between Worlds: A guide to embodied living and communicating, Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, chap. 20, pp. 134-139.

Williamson, A. (2016), Somatically inspired movement and prepatriarchal religious symbolism, Journal of Dance, Somatics, and Spiritualities, vol. 2, issue 3, pp. 323-355.

Williamson, A. (2017), with Mary Abrams and Sondra Fraleigh, ‘Falling in love with language’, in S. Fraleigh (ed.), Dancing World: Phenomenologies of the Body in Performance, Illinois: University of Illinois Press.

Photos by Jennifer Moloney