Fall 2025 Somatics: rotating practices with rotating teachers

Drop-in Somatics: rotating practices with rotating teachers

SEPTEMBER

12- Fritha Pengelly

19-Lani Nahele

26-Lani Nahele

OCTOBER

3- Fritha Pengelly

10- Fritha Pengelly

17-Tracy Einstein

24-Tracy Einstein

31- Lani Nahele

NOVEMBER

7- Fritha Pengelly

14- Kate Martel

21- Kate Martel

28-NO CLASS

DECEMBER

5- Tracy Einstein

12- Tracy Einstein

19- Kate Martel

Kate Martel is a dance artist, educator, and Alexander Technique teacher based in Western Massachusetts. She enjoys teaching people of all ages, and currently works as the Youth Program Coordinator and Hatchery Co-Director at School for Contemporary Dance and Thought (MA). Kate was a collaborating artist with Laura Peterson Choreography for ten years, and has also performed in work by Barbie Diewald, Nora Stephens, Luis Lara Malvacias, Rebecca Brooks, Juliette Mapp, and others. Her choreography has been presented by Loculus, the Williston Northampton School, SCDT (WIP), Women in Motion, Movement Research at Judson Church, Center for Performance Research and Purdue University. She was Program Coordinator of Young Artists at Dance Italia 2022-2023. She has been on faculty at Mason Gross School of the Arts/Rutgers University, Adelphi University and Westfield State University. Kate received a BA from Goucher College in Dance and Education (2002) and an MFA in Performing Arts from University of Wisconsin Milwaukee (2014), and is an AmSAT Board Certified Alexander Technique Teacher (Balance Arts Center, 2017).  She teaches the Alexander Technique privately in both group and private settings. She is currently adjunct faculty at Amherst and Smith Colleges.  www.katemartel.com

Lani Nahele

Deeply dedicated to the study of movement and the body, Lani Nahele (aka Lisa Schmidt) has been a lifelong movement educator, dancer/performer, bodyworker, choreographer.  She received her BFA from SUNY Purchase, and taught for and performed with the Trisha Brown Dance Company for seven years.  She was awarded a commission to make work in Germany.  Collaborators in Europe and the United States have included Frey Faust, Deiter Heitkamp, Ka Rustler, Eva Geueke, Catherine Musinsky, Olivier Besson, Jen Polins...among others.  She was a dance professor at Springfield College and has guest taught at Bard, Marlboro, Smith, Julliard, and Keene Colleges.  A Practitioner of Body-Mind Centering since 1994, she is also trained and certified in Gyrotonic, Gyrokinesis, Pilates, Circulatory Massage and Reiki.  She is the director of Studio rEvolution, Florence MA, where she runs Embodied Healing, her private bodywork practice, classes in SomoGyro, and her creative workgroup Who Are You?

Tracy Einstein

Tracy Einstein, M.AmSAT, SEP, wants you to feel empowered in your body, so you can do what you love. She’s a 1600-hour certified Alexander Technique teacher, Somatic Experiencing® Practitioner, and lifelong Performing  Artist dedicated to nurturing embodied resilience,  relationships, and creative expression. Through trauma-informed Alexander Technique (AT), developmental movement, breathing coordination, games, and skillful touch, Tracy guides folx toward balanced energy, healthy movement, posture, breathing, and voice that can support their art and their life. Since 2018, Tracy has been Associate Faculty at the American Academy of Dramatic Arts in NYC, where she’s taught the Alexander Technique and Movement for the Actor to hundreds (almost thousands!) of emerging Actors. Her classrooms combine community, creativity, craft. She believes the arts are a unique place for people to cultivate creative agency in the studio and in our lives. In addition to group teaching, Tracy maintains a private practice as an Alexander Technique Teacher & Somatic Experiencing® Practitioner in Northampton MA and online. Learn more at www.tracyeinstein.com. 

Fritha Pengelly

Fritha Pengelly is a Guild Certified Feldenkrais Practitioner®, a Certified IOPS Practitioner, an Accredited Certified EFT (Emotional Freedom Techniques) Practitioner and a Matrix Reimprinting Practitioner based in Northampton, MA. Fritha Pengelly has over 40 years of dance and movement experience, and completed her Pilates Certification in 2002. She spent seven years (1994-2001) performing and teaching nationally and internationally as a member of the New York City-based Doug Elkins Dance Company, serving as co-rehearsal director from 2000-2001. In addition to her work with the Elkins Company, Fritha has performed with The Chamber Dance Company, David Neumann, and Wire Monkey Dance. Her dances have been performed at several venues in New York City, The Five Colleges in Massachusetts, Northampton, Darien Arts Center (CT), Seattle (WA), Omaha (NE), and at Jacob’s Pillow. Fritha received her B.A. in dance from Hampshire College and her M.F.A. in dance, with a focus on anatomy and physiology, from the University of Washington in Seattle. She has taught as a visiting artist at Hampshire College, Amherst College, Mount Holyoke College, the University of Massachusetts/Amherst, Bennington College, North Carolina School of the Arts, Wake Forest University, the Hartt School, and Springfield College.