As a senior teacher, somatic practitioner and Contemporary Dance Artist, Helen Walkley MFA, has taught, created and performed for 32 years in the United States, Germany, the Netherlands and Canada.

She certified in Laban Movement Studies in 1985 via the Laban Institute for Movement Studies in NYC and has since studied many related somatic practices including Body Mind Centering, the Alexander Technique, voice, yoga, shiatsu and massage. She is also a registered Somatic Movement Educator.

For more information, visit helenwalkley.com.

“From conception through infancy and on to walking, we progress through organized movements, or patterns of skill and organization, in overlapping waves…From flexing to extending, pushing to reaching, the pieces of development gradually integrate to become purposeful, pleasurable and communicative movement through space.” BMC Association Inc.

What Helen's students say:

During the movement-patterning workshop with Helen Walkley, I experienced a profoundly increased awareness of my body that enabled me to witness how I initiate movement. This has informed my understanding of what drives me to move. Given my belief that the mind and body are one, this has led to some psychological as well as physical breakthroughs in self-understanding that have been enriching my life experience ever since.

Rhonda Cooper (physiotherapist) MPT, FCAMP, acupuncture

 

Helen is a genuinely wonderful facilitator and mentor: responsive, potent, intelligent and discerning, she invites her workshop participants to open to their own movement awareness and agency, while providing safety, sensibility and deep inner connection. Her ability to prepare the workshop space and the participants’ own embodied space is palpable. Helen combines incisive clarity, sensitivity, wisdom, deep embodied knowledge and flexibility in style that enables her to move between a light yielding touch and a strong gentle direct containment.  Helen embodies a clarity of sensing, intuiting and acting that responds to and works with expanding her students' experiential processes.

Thecla Schiphorst, PhD, Associate Professor, School of Interactive Arts & Technology, SFU
Director MovingStories research partnership

Through Helen's gifted teaching I have deeply experienced the plasticity of the body. I leave class more fully embodied, with an increased felt-sense that many of my corporeal limitations are habitual patterns of mind that can, and with this work, do change.
This is delicious and profound work. Through my classes with Helen I have begun to tap into my body's potential.

Jean Gordon/ mother, student, writer and community activist

Engaging in the pursuit of a fuller understanding and experience of movement with Helen is a most enriching process. Her guidance and direction are clear - I found the time to embody, reflect and embrace new found depths of physical resources and capacity within her classes. This experience has been so nourishing for both my practice as a dance artist and a movement teacher.

Kathleen McDonagh/ Contemporary Dance Artist, Movement Teacher/ Studio 58, Gyrokinesis practitioner/teacher

“Helen comes from a place of deep embodiment. Her work is rich, dynamic highly creative, and beautifully layered, revealing her breadth of understanding.”

Nikki Zekas /Pilates Instructor, Dynamic Embodiment Somatic Movement Therapist

“The first class I took with Helen, I could almost feel the new neural pathways forming in my brain. It was a peak experience in my years of movement study.
Studying with Helen has challenged and transformed my sense of self… “

Kelty McKerracher /Massage therapist, flamenco dancer