The Line Up
Here is the line-up of our stellar teachers for the upcoming Global 2024 LGBTQAI+ Everybody Else Feldenkrais® Festival. I am again so proud to be associated with such an incredible group of teachers. Some old favorites and some newcomers.
Frederick Schjang , New York, NY, Primary Host and Presenter
Frederick Schjang is a nationally recognized fitness educator and innovator who specializes in the Feldenkrais® Method. Schjang coordinates the Feldenkrais Festival Online Membership Program which features daily classes featuring himself and sought-after teachers from around the country. He maintains a private practice and mentors other instructors in the field. His (mostly) annual Feldenkrais Festivals have become a must-attend event for fitness and Feldenkrais enthusiasts alike.
As an educator, Schjang taught for over a decade in NYU's Physical Therapy Doctorate Program and the Hollins University MFA program. As the elected Guild Representative for the New York Region of Feldenkrais Practitioners, Schjang initiated many outreach programs to marginalized communities, particularly the LGBTQ Community and people of color.
Schjang is widely recognized for his engaging and accessible style of teaching for both the general public and fitness/wellness professionals.
Frederick can be found at FrederickSchjang.com and FeldenkraisFestivals.com
Nick Strauss-Klein, Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN. Kickoff Presenter
Nick Strauss-Klein, Guild Certified Feldenkrais Practitioner, is a 2006 graduate of the New York Feldenkrais Method Professional Training Program and has studied and taught the method since 2000 in New York City, Baltimore, Minnesota, and Israel. Nick has generously offered his teaching in the last five Global LGBTQIA+ and everybody else Feldenkrais Festivals and his Feldenkrais Project is a supporter of this Festival. He brings to his Feldenkrais teaching the unique background of a Master of Music Pedagogy degree from the Peabody Institute of the Johns Hopkins University, and 25 years of individual and class teaching experience.
Nick’s mission-based donor-supported website, The Feldenkrais Project, is about to turn five years old! In celebration with The FP’s global community of listeners and donors, the Project is a proud sponsor of this year’s Global LGBTQAI+ Everybody Else Feldenkrais Festival. At The FP new resources are being added as our March anniversary approaches, including major new study tools and lessons, and a new course called "Liftoff!"
His vision is to spread the life-changing benefits of Feldenkrais study as widely as possible. Nick is skillful in creating calm, reflective, nonjudgmental learning environments which maximize learning potential.
Nick’s acclaimed online Feldenkrais audio lesson collection, The Feldenkrais Project, offers Feldenkrais study at no charge to thousands of people all around the world in the form of live recordings of his classes, edited with the home user in mind. The Feldenkrais Project is entirely supported by free-will, heartfelt donations from listeners.
Nick can be found at Feldenkraisproject.com
Raz Ori, Tel Aviv, Israel. Kickoff Presenter
Raz Ori is a Practitioner and Educational Director of the Feldenkrais Method®.
Raz is the Educational Director of the Ann-Arbor Feldenkrais Professional Training Program 2023-2026- the lead sponsor of this year’s Global Feldenkrais Festival. Raz has generously offered his teaching in the last two Global LGBTQIA+ and everybody else Feldenkrais Festivals. Since 2008 he has served on the educational staff at Feldenkrais Professional Training Programs in Tel-Aviv, New-York, South Korea, Germany, Palermo-Sicily and London.
Raz runs The Ramat-Aviv Feldenkrais Center where he teaches Awareness Through Movement classes and gives individual Functional Integration lessons. He teaches advanced trainings and conducts on-line mentoring groups. Raz lives in Tel-Aviv, with his wife and children. If you are interested is becoming a teacher of the Feldenkrais Method or if you want to explore the work more fully, inquire at this link.
Raz can be found at:
https://www.feldenkraisaccess.com/ and https://feldenkraisaa.com/
David Zemach-Bersin, Connecticut, USA
Feldenkrais Trainer and practitioner David Zemach-Bersin brings considerable experience to his curatorial position at Feldenkrais Access. David has genrously offered his teaching in the last five Global LGBTQIA+ and everybody else Feldenkrais Festivals. He has maintained a Functional Integration practice for over forty years, and has taught in Feldenkrais Training programs for 35 years. He studied directly with Moshe Feldenkrais and graduated from the first US Feldenkrais Professional Training Program in 1977.
David can be found at https://www.feldenkraisaccess.com/about
Larry Goldfarb, Santa Cruz, CA.
Larry Goldfarb, Ph.D. is a movement scientist, certified Feldenkrais trainer, pioneering educator, and author.
A practitioner for over thirty years, Larry has taught ATM in a wide range of contexts including rehabilitation, the arts, education, and on-the-job injury prevention. Larry has generously offered his teaching in the last four Global LGBTQIA+ and everybody else Feldenkrais Festivals
Larry directs teacher trainings and post-graduate courses, as well as mentorship programs in North America, Europe, and Australia.
Beyond the illuminating models he developed to articulate the method behind the Feldenkrais method, making it easy to understand, Larry is highly regarded for his warm and personal teaching style. He maintains a private practice based in Santa Cruz, California.
“Teaching is not about imparting information; it’s about making learning irresistible”- Larry Goldfarb
This special event is sponsored by the Regions of Feldenkrais Guild of North America
Larry can be found at MindinMotion-online.com. Larry has a professional training starting later this year. Find out about it at this link.
Sheri Cohen, Seattle, WA USA
Sheri Cohen, Assistant Feldenkrais Trainer, (she/her), is co-director of the New England Awareness Through Movement Teacher Training. Sheri has had a lively practice, in Seattle and more recently online, since 1998, where her students are musicians, dancers, actors, moms, meditators, runners, accountants, tech workers, therapists, and all versions of human being. Sheri is an award-winning choreographer who has taught contemporary dance, improvisation and creative process for three decades. Sheri returns to the Festival this year!
Sheri can be found at:
https://www.shericohenmovement.com/
Maggy Burrowes, London, UK
Maggy began teaching Awareness Through Movement in 1989, graduated in 1990, and has been teaching Feldenkrais Functional Integration, and Feldenkrais-based voice work, both privately, and in colleges, universities and adult education centers in the UK and abroad, ever since. Maggy has genrously offered her teaching in the last four Global LGBTQIA+ and everybody else Feldenkrais FestivalsShe is still involved in UK training programs as an experienced practitioner, giving individual lessons to trainee teachers for Garet Newell's Sussex-based training programs.
Since qualifying, her ongoing project has been to develop a comprehensive awareness-based voice and singing teaching system, using the Feldenkrais approach. To this end she gas researched and incorporated many science-based voice training strategies into her practice. her signature Feldenkrais Potent Voice is the culmination of my years of teaching experience, ongoing research, and the development and expansion of her own vocal performance abilities as a jazz singer.
We are thrilled to introduce Maggy to her first time teaching in the Global LGBTQA Feldenkrais Festival.
Maggy can be reached at:
Michael Landau, Valparaiso, Chile
Michael Landau was a professional pianist and university professor for over 30 years. He has also been a Feldenkrais practitioner since 1994, after graduating from the first Jerusalem training. His work with Mindful Movement is enriched by his lifelong engagement with performing artists; it emphasizes self-care and creativity. He claims that Feldenkrais has allowed him to survive and thrive in the long daily hours at the piano.
During the pandemic, as his classes had to be transformed into the online format, Michael has designed an online course of short daily Mindful Movement practices that helps his students create the habit of daily conscious movement.
Michael teaches weekly Awareness Through Movement classes in the Feldenkrais Festival Online Membership program and online for the Sage LGBT Elder Center in the Bronx, New York.
He will be teaching teaching a lesson in English during the Festival.
We welcome Michael to his first time teaching in the Global LGBTQA Feldenkrais Festival.
To know more about Michael's work and get some free samples of his 3-minute sessions, sing up on his web page:
https://www.persistent-growth.com/
To contact Michael, write him an email:
Connor Voss, Washington D.C. (co-host and presenter)
Connor is a Feldenkrais Method® practitioner in the DC area. He graduated from David Zemach-Bersin's NYC Training Program in 2017. Connor’s work as a dancer and choreographer has been nominated for two New York Dance and Performance "Bessie" awards and featured in ArtForum, the New York Times, the New Yorker, and more. Although he is an award winning artist on stage, Connor’s Feldenkrais teaching clearly draws on his upbringing in a home with two scientist parents.
Connor is a regular feature of the Feldenkrais Festival Online Membership program.
Connor can be reached at VossFeldenkrais.com
Fritha Pengelly, Northampton, Massachusetts (co-host and presenter)
Fritha Pengelly has over 30 years of dance and movement experience, and has been a certified Pilates instructor since 2002. She spent seven years (1994-2001) performing and teaching nationally and internationally as a member of the New York City-based Doug Elkins Dance Company, serving as co-rehearsal director from 2000-2001. In addition to her work with the Elkins Company, Fritha has performed with The Chamber Dance Company, David Neumann, and Wire Monkey Dance. Her dances have been performed at several venues in New York City, The Five Colleges in Massachusetts, Northampton, Darien Arts Center (CT), Seattle (WA), Omaha (NE), and at the Inside/Out Series at Jacob’s Pillow.
Fritha received her M.F.A. in dance with a focus on anatomy and physiology from the University of Washington and is currently teaching in the dance program at UMass/Amherst. She has also previously taught as a visiting artist at Hampshire College, Amherst College, Mount Holyoke College, the University of Massachusetts/Amherst, Bennington College, North Carolina School of the Arts, Wake Forest University, and Springfield College.
Fritha teaches Awareness Through Movement® classes, Functional Integration® lessons, a variety of Feldenkrais® workshops, as well as Dance for Parkinson’s classes in Northampton, MA. Contact Fritha for more information about her classes and private lessons.
https://www.feldenkraisandmovementarts.com/aboutfritha/fritha-pengelly/
Fritha can be reached at frithap@earthlink.net
Scott Fraser, New York City, NY
Scott Fraser, a Guild-Certified Feldenkrais Practitioner since 1996, is known for making the method relevant and meaningful to a wide variety of people, ranging from performing artists and white-collar professionals to senior citizens. In his private practice, Scott primarily teaches people with chronic back, shoulder and neck pain, and repetitive strain injury. From editors, therapists and computer programmers, to concert pianists, dancers, and weekend athletes with sore knees and joints, Scott’s comprehensive understanding of the Method and insight into how people learn allows him to facilitate and cultivate long-lasting relief strategies for his clients.Scott's extensive performing background in classical music uniquely qualifies him to understand and effectively respond to the needs of his many performing arts clients. Scott has generously offered his teaching in the last five Global LGBTQIA+ and everybody else Feldenkrais FestivalsHe has worked extensively with dancers from the NYC Ballet, American Ballet Theater, Stephen Petronio Company, musicians and performers from the group Steely Dan and string quartet Ethel, to Broadway musicals such as Hamilton, In The Heights and Frozen. Scott has also developed popular programs and workshops for performing artists and computer users, offering creative solutions to repetitive strain injuries, chronic pain and injury prevention/rehabilitation, presenting at such venues as Mercer Consulting, Saatchi & Saatchi, D.E. Shaw and the N.Y.U. Tisch School of Dance.A group fitness teaching staff member of Equinox Fitness Clubs and the 92nd Street Y, Scott has also assisted in two NYC area professional trainings, and continues to be a leading mentor and teacher of practitioners. Scott also teaches regularly in the FeldenkraisFestival.com membership program.