Dr. Martha Eddy, RSMT, RSDE, is an international speaker and author, a Master Somatic Movement Therapist (MSMT), Registered Somatic Dance Educator (RSDE), and applied physiologist, with a doctorate in Movement Science/Biobehavioral Studies from Columbia University.
She is an innovator dedicated to social justice and was named the First Geraldine Ferraro Fellow of Social Justice and Movement at Marymount Manhattan College. She spent 10 years as part of the certification faculty at the School for Body-Mind Centering® and the Laban/Bartenieff Institute of Movement Studies. She was inspired to blend these profound disciplines, the first to be named The Somatic Movement Therapy Training. Once the field of Somatic Movement became known she rebranded as Dynamic Embodiment® SMTT, also affiliated with Moving On Center - bridging Somatics with Social Change for 30 years, and Moving For Life DanceExercise for Health ® - two nonprofit organizations that she co-founded, first with Carol Swann.
Her articles and chapters on eco-somatics, movement and the brain, social emotional learning, and healthy living have been published in research, arts, educational literature and the news. Martha is the author of Mindful Movement: The Evolution of the Somatic Arts and Conscious Action. The book she co-authored with Shakti Andrea Smith, A Dynamic Embodiment® Approach to the Sun Salutation, guides readers in how to balance their hormonal system through understanding sacred use of space, vibration and movement. She has served on numerous boards, including The Yard Choreographic Residency, National Dance Education Organization, Congress on Research in Dance, the International Somatic Movement Education and Therapy Association, and the Laban/Bartenieff Institute of Movement Studies, the last two of which she has served as president. Clearly dance is a big part of her expression. She has been training people in her somatic approach to dance for 15 years with Certified Teachers of BodyMind Dancing around the world. Together with Moving For Life Certified Instructors and Dynamic Embodiment Practitioners there is robust eco-somatic, social justice, savvy group of somatic movers and shakers applying this work in hospitals, community centers and libraries, businesses - corporate and small, and universities, also internationally.
Her work, especially the dance films and free Moving For Life wellness programs for people going through cancer, have been featured in the NY Times, National Public Radio, and almost every national television news network, along with as well as the healing nature of BodyMind Dancing in releasing pain, tensions, grief, loneliness, stress and MOVING it to pleasure, joy, relief, ease, creativity and beauty.
