The National Centre for Dance Therapy is glad to invite the Canadian community of dance therapists for a day of discussions and exchanges on the development of dance therapy in Quebec.
The event will be divided in three 2-hour workshops, each focusing on a different theme: the first one will delve into the specificities of practicing dance therapy in the province of Quebec; the discussion will then move to the practice of dance therapy, a mostly anglophone profession, by francophone speakers; finally, research in dance and the challenges faced by francophone researchers will be discussed.
Each event will begin with a one-hour panel, with renowned speakers, who will bring various perspectives on each topic. The second hour will see the participation of the public, who will be invited to reflect and intervene on the questions raised.
This event is presented by the National Centre for Dance Therapy, with the collaboration of the Dance/Movement Therapy Association of Canada, and is supported by the RBC Foundation. It is dedicated to dance therapists and to dance therapy students who are working in Quebec or are interested in better understanding the specificities of working in the region.
10 a.m. – 12 p.m.: Workshop “Practicing Dance Therapy in Quebec”
1 – 3 p.m.: Workshop “Dance Therapy in the Francophone World”
3:30 – 5:30 p.m.: Workshop “Research in Dance in a Francophone Context”
To ensure that participants can have exchanges and discussions, 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.
Learn more about our panelists below!
R-DMT, M. A.
Andrea de Almeida is a Registered Dance/Movement Therapist, who holds an M.A. in Physical Education and Recreation (Specialization in Dance Education) from the University of Alberta, with coursework also at New York University.
Passionate about dance and its impact on wellbeing, she has worked with several populations, including adolescents with eating disorders, seniors, children on the autism spectrum and caregivers, in several clinical and academic settings in Montreal. She also has an extensive experience teaching dance and creative movement for children in Brazil, USA and Canada.
She participated in research projects and conferences on projects involving the National Centre for Dance Therapy and several clinical settings in Montreal. In addition, Andrea has participated to several media events promoting dance therapy in Montreal. She is a member of the ADTA, DMTAC, and AATQ.
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 to continuous education trainings 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.
Ph. D.
Lucie Beaudry teaches at the dance department of the Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM) where she completed a master’s degree in dance and a specialized graduate degree in somatic education (Feldenkrais Method). She also holds a certificate in movement-based expressive arts education and therapy from the Tamalpa Institute in California. She completed an interdisciplinary doctorate in health and society at UQAM, with a research project on adapted dance in subacute rehabilitation post-stroke.
Her research activities focus on adaptive and inclusive dance practices in community and care settings. Its research program is focused on, but not limited to, the development, description, and evaluation of adapted dance interventions and programs, including both dance content and teaching pedagogy and their effects on various dimensions of health. These practices call for collaborative processes that are both interdisciplinary and cross-sectoral in perspective.
M.A.
Angélique is a dancer, adapted dance teacher and dance and movement therapy intern. After a master's degree in economics, Angélique taught economics and international communication for ten years in France. Upon her arrival in Canada, she began a master's degree in dance and in 2019 joined the training of the National Center for Dance-Therapy of the Grands Ballets Canadiens to become a dance therapist. Today, Angélique works in schools and community centres and gives postural workshops in corporate environments. She works with adults and adolescents living with various challenges: learning difficulties, autism, neurodevelopmental disorders, physical disabilities and immigration.
Combining a humanistic and sensorimotor approach, Angélique deeply believes in the benefits of dance therapy for everyone and continually deepens her knowledge in the field of psychomotor and psychocorporal practices. In her interventions, Angélique uses the techniques of ballet, contemporary dance, jazz, hip-hop and krump, and is always attending different dance workshops to diversify her repertoire of movements, to be more inclusive and to multiply the ways of interacting with clients.
Ph. D.
Nicole Harbonnier has been a professor in Movement Studies at the Dance Department of the University of Québec in Montréal since 2004. She has a PhD in Adult Training from the Conservatoire National des Arts et Métiers (CNAM-Paris, 2009). Specialized in the Functional analysis of the body in the dancing movement, she has worked for the past 12 years on a research project on the movement-observation-analysis in performing arts, with the support of the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (Insight Development program in 2013-2016 and Insight program fin 2019-2024). She has worked in France as a choreographer and dancers for the company La Marelle (1988-2004) and as dance teacher professor for the State Diploma (1997-2004). She has cofounded the Laboratoire-théâtre en arts vivants interdisciplinaires (LAVI) at UQAM and has published over 50 texts on teaching and analyzing movement in dance.
BC-DMT, RDT, M. A.
Joanabbey Sack is a Board-Certified Dance Movement Therapist and a Registered Drama Therapist, with extensive additional training in social sciences, Laban Movement Analysis, theatre arts and music. She holds a master’s in Urban Studies, a master’s and Board Certification in Dance Movement Therapy and has RDT accreditation for Drama Therapy.
Joanabbey worked as a dance therapist at the Montreal Children's Hospital, in Psychiatry and Medicine, for 12 years, and has been teaching at Concordia University in the Creative Arts Therapies Graduate Program, where she is currently part-time faculty, for twenty-five years. She has been the dance therapist at Concordia's Centre for the Arts in Human Development since 1996, as well as the dance therapist and coordinator of the Speech Initiative Research and Parkinson’s dance therapy research at the Centre.
In 2007, Joanabbey co-founded the Parkinson’s Dance Project, Parkinson en movement, in Montreal and currently works toward building consciousness and research on dance and dance therapy with Parkinson’s and other syndromes. Joanabbey has a private practice at the Queen Elizabeth Health Complex in Montreal.
Ph. D.
In Québec since 2014, Céline Verchère is a French sociologist by training. Having completed the National Centre for Dance Therapy’s training (Alternate Route), she is currently working as a dance therapy intern. She is an associated professor at the University of Sherbrooke (Faculty of Letters and Human Sciences). Her research has led her to analyse the role of body and movement from a social, political and ethical perspective, thus resulting from the intimate, personal and collective spheres. More generally, she looks at the question of social change through the sensible experience.
