How can you structure a workshop for neurodiverse children? How can you adapt to their needs and skills to foster a space where they can blossom?
During this experiential workshop, Émilie Barrette and Élysa Côté-Séguin will present tools and exercises to structure an adapted dance session for neurodiverse children. Inspired by their professional experiences, Émilie and Élysa will explain how dance movements can be based on the abilities and strengths of each participant, thus improving mobility and body awareness. Through constant awareness of their participants, on a sensorial, behavioural and language level, to better understand their needs and movement preferences, the duo offers children a space where they can learn new movements, discover the rhythm of the music and explore their emotions.
During this training workshop, participants will warm up with a sequence developed by Émilie and Élysa, based on Ann Gilbert’s Brain Dance, and will then engage in some adapted dance exercises, and will learn how to prepare the space and the class schedule to ensure the success of the program.
This event is presented by the National Centre for Dance Therapy and supported by the RBC Foundation. It is dedicated to all the dance professionals, dance therapists, educators and practitioners who want to offer adapted dance sessions to neurodiverse children.
We are only accepting a small number of participants. Please reserve your spot below and, if you cannot make it, let us know in advance, so we can free your space for someone on the waiting list.
Émilie is a graduate of the École supérieure de ballet du Québec (ESBQ) and of the college program at Ballet Divertimento. She has completed a Bachelor in Communications and History at the Montréal University, as well as the Alternate Route program of the NCDT. She has also begun a Master’s in Dance at the Université du Québec à Montréal, to further develop her adapted dance practice. Always on the lookout for new learning opportunities, she is always eager to participate in continuous education training in dance and dance education, in Montreal and elsewhere, as, for instance, the Adaptive Dance Teachers Training of the Boston Ballet. Émilie has had the privilege of leading various NCDT projects with children, teenagers and adults on the spectrum or with an intellectual disability.
Since 2020 Emilie has taught the leisure programs and junior classes at the ESBQ. She has also participated in The Nutcracker production as the children’s instructor.
Élysa Côté-Séguin has worked as a family psychologist since 2018, first in a school setting (with both regular and specialized classes for children on the spectrum), and then in a clinical setting (both in a natal clinic for mothers at high risk and in a hospitalization unit in neonatology). She has completed a PhD in Psychology, Child and Teenage Intervention, at the University of Sherbrooke. Her doctoral thesis explored the impact of group dance therapy on body image for teenage girls hospitalized for an eating disorder.
She has also completed the Alternate Route program at the NCDT in 2014-2015 and has collaborated on various NCDT projects, offering adapted dance classes to children on the spectrum and dance therapy sessions at the Social Pediatrics Centre Le Galop. Her knowledge in dance therapy enriches her work as a psychologist, adding a corporal dimension to the oral psychological work.
She is currently attending a graduate diploma in perinatal psychology at the University of Quebec in Montreal (UQAM). She can thus adapt her practice to support parents through the various issues they may face during the pre-and post-natal period.
