Dr. Katya Bloom

Katya Bloom is a movement artist, therapist, teacher and writer. She became a CMA from LIMS in 1980, and Laban’s work has been the primary thread she has consistently woven into all areas of her professional life to the present day.

She moved to London in 1983, the same year that the first DMP training was being set up at Roehampton University.  Katya taught Laban-based ‘Movement Observation and Analysis’in that course for 16 years. She became a Senior Registered Dance Movement Psychotherapist, practicing and supervising in London.

Simultaneously, Katya was privileged to teach Laban-based movement for actors at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA) for 20 years.  She had applied Laban’s work to her own dance/theatre pieces in the 1980’s, and she continued developing its application to acting with students at RADA.

Katya’s PhD, from the Tavistock Clinic and University of E London, was adapted for a book, titled The Embodied Self: Movement and Psychoanalysis (2006:Karnac).  This well-reviewed book aims to integrate ideas from LMA with themes from psychoanalysis.  It draws on her infant and young child observational studies, as well as her clinical work with adults.

Katya also co-wrote Moves: A Sourcebook of Ideas for Body Awareness and Creative Movement, with Rosa Shreeves (1998: Routledge).  More recently she co-edited Embodied Lives: Reflections on the Influence of Suprapto Suryodarmo and Amerta Movement (2014: Triarchy) with Margit Galanter and Sandra Reeve. Working with Indonesian movement teacher Suryodarmo greatly deepened Katya’s embodied experience of LMA.

In 2009, Katya returned to her native USA. She is based in Santa Barbara, CA, where she calls her work Depth Movement.  Projects include a monthly movement group on the beach, and work in the areas of both art and therapy – e.g., she is a founding member of Thrive Infant Family Program in Los Angeles; and has been movement director on several theatre productions in Santa Barbara. She teaches LMA-influenced workshops at home and abroad, including for the Korean Dance Therapy Association in Seoul in 2016.

Katya is one of 5 authors of the forthcoming Laban Workbook for Actors to be published in autumn, 2017. When invited to write this book, Katya decided to invite other teachers to collaborate with her, to get a variety of perspectives.  The publisher, Bloomsbury/Methuen, agreed to the idea, requesting contributors from the USA.  She is joined by Barbara Adrian, Tom Casciero, Jennifer Mizenco and Claire Porter.

www.depthmovement.com