For the last five decades, Glenna has worked at the intersection of dance, Somatic arts, embodiment studies, and neurorehabilitation. This excursion wove in and out of many academic-, pedestrian- and exotic milieus. Whether teacher and mentor in higher dance education, or waitress, maid or belly dancer, Glenna pursued work as a gesture of growth – as a way of unearthing new knowledges that could break down uni-disciplinary silos and crossed class boundaries. She is an internationally recognized teacher of the Alexander Technique (qualified 1989). She currently moves with local veteran dance group Quicksilver, ballroom dance hubs and currently teaches Somatics in the dance programme at Peabody Institute for Johns Hopkins University (Baltimore, MD USA). She is author of Body and Mind in Motion: Dance and Neuroscience in Conversation and co-editor/contributor to Dance, Somatics and Spiritualities: Contemporary Sacred Narratives (2014). Her current work reflects 10 years of collaborative practice with mixed media artist Susan Sentler in the f/old as somatic/artistic practice (thfold.net), and their book will be published in fall 2024. She is an active civil rights advocate, focusing on abolishing extreme sentences and mass incarceration. At 75, she is a woman who is dancing while aging and she fully intends for her last bloom to be the brightest.
Glenna Batson is also known as G;emma* (she, her, hers)
* I would like to adopt the name ‘G;emma’ because my right hand always strays one letter to the right on the computer keyboard. Thus, L becomes a semi-colon and N becomes M. My heritage is Italian, so I believe the name suits me better.
13.06.2024