Montreal
Somatic Festival!
FEEL – LEARN – GROW
It’s FREE!!
Completely online
on zoom!
Days Hours Minutes Seconds
Happening Now!
Register Here!
-our teachers-
Friday July 23rd, 24th, 25th
feldenkrais – awareness through movement
andréa Pallotto
Andréa Pallotto (ANd-RAY-a Pa-ll-O-tto) is a certified practitioner and nerd of the Feldenkrais Method. Andréa inserts their background in feminist and anti-colonial thinking, along with their somatic Feldenkrais certification into the work they do. Using these two practices, they help restore their students dignity by offering them genuine and thought provoking care. Andréa strives to create an environment that is inclusive to all genders and bodies. Their purpose is to empower the positive and focus on what students can and want to do. They fight for radical justice for all communities oppressed through colonization. You can find their online classes infused with themes of movement pleasure, spontaneity and slow ease to create change, to learn and to grow. They adore their amazing wife, their beautiful black fluffy cat and their 40 plants.
Somatics – meditation – dance
Aurora Prelević
Aurora Prelević is a teacher of somatics, a maker of performances, a writer, and an herbalist. Born in Tiotià:ke / Montréal, she is the first generation of her family born on this land and carries strong Yugoslav / Balkan roots. Her extensive background in yoga, meditation, contemporary improvisational dance, experimental movement practices, and other somatic forms informs her approach to movement as both ritual and performance, therapeutic and artistic. Aurora has taught regular somatics classes and special workshops for over ten years in her many homes of Montréal, Vancouver, New York, and Belgrade, as well as in Italy and in Germany. She holds an interdisciplinary MA from the New School for Social Research in New York, situated somewhere at the intersection of memory, performance, and gender studies. Aurora lives with chronic pain and illness which informs her teaching style as one seeped in prioritizing accessibility, seeking to be inclusive of all bodies and abilities, encouraging students to find their own forms. Connecting with nature is one of her favourite things about being alive on this planet, and one of the ways she feels most at home here.
somatic experiencing
coral short
Coral Short has practiced in the tradition of Insight/ Theravada for 15 years. They have meditated over 100 consecutive days in silent retreat at Insight Meditation Society, as well as many Goenka Vipassanas and True North Insight retreats. They are currently in teacher training with TNI in Tiohtià:ke.They are decolonizing their practice with the Liberation Academy for White Practitioners. Coral has begun studying both Generative Somatics and Somatic Experiencing over the last years. During the last year of the pandemic they have been offering weekly youtubes on the True North Insight channel
Coral is the co-founder of Queer Sangha in Montréal. They have been co-leading queer sanghas for 6 years in Montréal and Berlin.
Somatics – meditation – dance
george longshadow
George is a playful and experienced clown, dancer, and facilitator. With 17 years of partner dance, 11 years of clown, and 9 years of teaching experience, their work blends clowning with various dance conventions in a supportive and playful environment. Over the course of his teaching experience, George has received plenty of valuable feedback and reflections. His classes are described as a welcoming, safe, silly place in which to explore emotion, general embodiment, and building characters. Previous students have expressed gratitude for a space in which they can practice dance without the usual trappings of hetero and cis-normativity or consent trespassing; instead, they felt a sense of acceptance, agency, and allowance. George’s classes are a safe, fun space for people of all experience levels to explore dance, clown, and themselves, and it is George’s great pleasure to be able to offer them.
somatics – sex education
jessica lieu
I began my deep dive exploration into the bodymind relationship through a Vipassana meditation course in 2015 and ever since I’ve had an insatiable curiosity towards the significance of corporeal wisdom. I began my official somatic studies in 2019 through the BodyMind Centering School (Esprit en Mouvement, Montreal) where the intimate and informative dance of sensing, listening, and expressing my body’s experience continued to flourish, and in 2020 I decided to shift my somatic studies towards sex education. I’m currently a student at the Institute for the Study of Somatic Sex Education (Victoria, B.C.) where the irresistible power of pleasure continues to shift my reality in deep, delicious and sometimes emotionally inconvenient ways, all with the driving intention of developing a counter normative, trauma informed somatic practice.
Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT) – Osteotherapy
Julien fatisson
After starting his career in scientific research in France and then in Montreal, Julien decided to reorient his skills in the service of others. The potential of osteopathy immediately conquered him with its gentle medical approach considering the body as a functional unit capable of self-healing. Holder of an osteopathic degree (with excellence award), Julien quickly became interested in issues of stress, anxiety and personal development. With this in mind, Julien followed Dr O’Hare’s training in cardiac coherence in 2013 and in spring 2020, a training in Emotional Freedom Technique to help improve the mechanisms of organic, nervous and emotional self-regulation. As this is also part of his values, since November 2017, Julien has volunteered his time for osteopathic treatments to members of the LGBTQ + community.
Body-Mind Centering®
mariko tanabe
Mariko Tanabe is inspired by the healing powers of human movement and expression. She has been performing and presenting her choreographic works during the past 25 years in Asia, Europe, and North America. Mariko teaches workshops to dance companies and at universities, art centers and schools throughout the world. She mentors artists and maintains a private practice working with individuals of all backgrounds. For 12 years she worked with American dance master Erick Hawkins in NYC as a principal dancer, teacher and rehearsal director. She is a Certified Teacher and Practitioner of Body-Mind Centering®, as well as an Infant Developmental Movement Educator, Yoga teacher and Registered Somatic Therapist.
somatics – dance
Maxine Segalowitz
Maxine Segalowitz is a queer Jewish dance artist currently living in Tiotià:ke (Montréal), where she has immersed herself in creative communities as a dancer, choreographer, clown, drag+cabaret performer, and stand-up sleeper. As a dancer, she notably worked with Helen Simard, Yannick Desranleau+Chloë Lum and Ingrid Bachmann, performing locally and internationally. As a choreographer, Maxine continues developing her solo-show Sexpectations, where she performs a reimagining of working as a stripper. Maxine’s teaching and facilitation experience comes from an intricate relationship with learning, and guidance from inspiring teachers and mentors, namely Angélique Wilkie, Neil Sochowsky, Keyon Gaskin, Kelly Keenan, Sara Hanley, Karen Fennell, Hanna Sybille Müller, Helen Simard, Hannah Harris-Sutro and Be Heintzman Hope. Through a combination of valuing a supportive learning space, attention to detail and always bringing it back to the joy of a game, Maxine strives to share in her teaching practice that which has always brought her back to keep learning.
feldenkrais – tango
mireille painchaud
Mireille has been teaching movement for over 25 years. Tango teacher since 1992, she is known for her pedagogical skills and her collaborative approach with learners.
After many years of teaching dance, she wanted to go deeper in her study of movement and started to practice somatic education. Eventually she did several courses and workshops in the Feldenkrais method, and completed an advanced training at École Québécoise de Formation en Éducation Somatique in 2012, and also did 350 hours of training in Alexander Technique in 2020.
Mireille teaches somatic education to the general public, tango dancers and musicians.