Dance Movement Therapy Association in Canada
Board Members
The Board of Directors is responsible for overseeing the entire direction of the Association. Each Board member commits to a 2-year mandate when elected into their position, and becomes the head of at least one committee. Elections are held every 2 years at DMTAC’s annual general meeting.
Meet The Team
Marlene Stirrett-Matson
President
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Marlene Stirrett-Matson, is a psychotherapist and dance/movement therapist, a dance educator, and consultant and workshop leader. Marlene has a Master of Arts in Counselling Psychology from Yorkville University and a diploma in Dance/Movement Therapy from the National Centre for Dance Therapy in Montreal. Marlene also has a BA in history from Lakehead University and an Honours Bachelor of Fine Arts and Master of Arts in dance from York University. Marlene’s MA research was on the link between grief and creativity, and Marlene is keenly interested in working with people experiencing loss and grief in their lives through her therapy practice. Marlene is the President of the Board of the Dance Movement Therapy Association of Canada, the organization that is developing certification and accreditation for dance/movement therapists in Canada. Marlene continues to dance and teach with Image Studio of Dance in Thunder Bay, a non-competitive studio that values accessibility, diversity, equity and inclusion, creativity, community and integrity. Marlene has volunteered with Healthy Dancer Canada as part of the financial development committee and the working group for the Long-term Development Framework for Dance. Marlene also facilitated Healthy Dancer Canada’s strategic planning process over the past year.
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Visit Marlene's profile:
Tania Lazuk
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Vice President, Treasurer
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Tania Lazuk, PhD (Psychiatry), Board Certified Dance Movement Therapist, Part-time Faculty (Concordia University), worked as a psychiatrist and psychotherapist in Ukraine for more than 10 years prior to coming to Canada. She was Scholar-in-Residence in the Department of Creative Arts Therapies at Concordia University in 2019-2021. She provides education, training and supervision in dance therapy, and offers DMT sessions for diverse populations, collaborating with organisations such as National Centre for Dance Therapy of Les Grands Ballets Canadiens, Parkinson en mouvement, Ukrainian National Federation of Quebec. She is one of the founding members of the Dance Movement Therapy Association in Canada.
Jessica Houghton
Past President
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Jessica is a Registered Psychotherapist, Dance Movement Psychotherapist, educator, and dance artist working in private practice in Toronto, where she offers individual and group therapy, as well as educational and personal development workshops. She completed her MA in Dance Movement Psychotherapy in the UK, where she researched the benefits of DMT for survivors of sexual trauma, and worked in adult and childhood mental health in hospital, community and school settings. Jessica's passion is to create supportive spaces where clients can access their embodied intuition and explore the richness of their internal world through creative movement. She is a firm believer in the transformative power of dance and movement, and is committed to supporting the development of DMT as a profession in Canada.
Sandra Bach
Accreditation Committee Chair
Sandra is a Registered Psychotherapist and has completed her Graduate Studies in Dance/Movement Therapy (ADTA - Alternate Route). Sandra has learned that movement allows for healing by bypassing the complexities inherent in verbal and cognitive interpretations of emotion. What emerges from movement is a fully authentic embodied experience that can be woven into a therapeutically-productive and holistic narrative. Sandra has led mindful movement sessions for people presenting with a wide variety of co-morbid conditions, including trauma and addiction and clients from chronically underserved and marginalized communities. Sandra engages in a client-led, trauma-informed and anti-oppression practice that celebrates a client’s strength, skill and resilience.
Rebecca Barnstaple
Accreditation Committee Chair
Rebecca Barnstaple (PhD Dance Studies; Graduate Program in Neuroscience 2020, York University) is the Manager of Community Initiatives, Research and Innovation at Centre Communautaire Chigamik Community Health Centre, Midland, Ontario, and an IICSI Postdoctoral Fellow, University of Guelph. A graduate of the National Centre for Dance Therapy at Les Grands Ballets Canadiens (2015), she provides education and training in dance therapy and associated research globally. She has been involved in the development and delivery of improvisational arts and health initiatives in the United States (IMPROVment, Wake Forest University) and Canada (SingWell, Toronto Metropolitan University; Piece of Mind, McGill; Dance for Health, Nova Scotia) and serves in a leadership capacity for professional organizations including the Dance Movement Therapy Association of Canada (Accreditation and Certification Committee), the American Dance Therapy Association (Research and Practice Committee), and the International Association of Dance Medicine Science (International Benchmarking Standards Task Force, Dance for Health Committee).