SRT Teachers 2026
Bahar Vidinlioglu
Turkey
Bahar Vidinlioglu, a graduate of the Mimar Sinan Fine Arts University (MSGSÜ) State Conservatory, Department of Ballet, began her professional career as a soloist and principal dancer at the Istanbul State Opera and Ballet. Later in her career, she created choreographies for Children’s Operas and Ballets at the same institution and retired from this position in 2024.
In 2000, Bahar went to Amsterdam with a Ministry of Culture scholarship and danced with the Het National Ballet for a year. During this time, she also broadened her vision by participating in intensive courses at SNDO (School for New Dance Development).
She continued her academic and teaching career by working as a lecturer for over 20 years in the Contemporary Dance Department of MSGSÜ Istanbul, where she completed her master’s degree. Her teaching activities primarily focused on: Contemporary Dance Techniques, Somatic Studies, Repertoire incorporating Skinner Releasing Technique (SRT) principles, and Improvisation classes. She has led workshops on Skinner Releasing Technique, Creative Process in Landscape, Improvisation, and Body Awareness at numerous institutions and universities both in Turkey and abroad.
Vidinlioglu will take part in the SRT Ongoing (Advanced Level) Teacher Training in Glasgow, which will take place in April 2026. Having also moved her work to digital platforms since 2022, Vidinlioglu continues her online education and sharing journey with “Movement and Dance” classes and “Dance Talks.
Lizzy Lequesne
U.K.
Lizzy is a somatic dance artist with an international creative and teaching practice. Working in dance improvisation and site sensitive choreography, as well as photography and writing, my practice highlights and examines an embodied experience of the material and energetic dynamics within the shared space of our world. My work foregrounds a heightened sense of listening, presence and potential within unfolding interior and exterior awareness.
Trained in fine art, classical and contemporary dance and numerous somatic practices, I have been performing, choreographing, teaching, writing and researching dance and somatic practices for over three decades. I teach professional performers and in conservatoires and universities internationally; and in arts in health in my local community in inner London – supporting qualities of safety and freedom within the physical self and material world.
Lizzy has published extensively in the field of dance, arts and somatics, including book chapters and articles in both academic and wider journalistic fields. As a PGR at the Centre for Dance Research, Coventry University, she has produced research exploring how SRT supports the autonomic nervous system. She is currently engaged in a full time practice-based PhD ‘A Dance of Becoming’, exploring processes of embodied vitality and transformation through somatic dance, Skinner Releasing Technique and new materialist philosophies; funded by a scholarship from Midlands 4 Cities.
Deniz Soyarslan
Turkey
I am a dancer, performance artist, circus performer(aerialist), gong bath practitioner and former underwater archaeologist.
I have a BA in archeology and history of art and I experienced many archeological excavations underwater or on land. My life is very much inspired and shaped from those experiences. My interest of research and excavations always lead me to discovery what I truly need to do in the different phases of my life. During my MA in underwater archeology I chose to change my path, to study in Circomedia, Center for Contemporary Circus and Physical Theatre in Bristol. Specialized in physical theatre, aerial and juggling. I have performed as a circus artist for sometime but creating a creative contemporary circus community in Turkey was in my main focus at that time. So I am one of the creator and former organizer of ongoing international Juggling Festival in Turkey called J-Fest.
My deep interest and research about improvisation, creativity, movement, artistic expressions has taken me many schools, workshops and festivals until I found Skinner Releasing Technique in 2009. Since than SRT became my primary movement technique. I studied with Robert Davidson, Gaby Agis, Mary-Clare McKenna and Nathan Dryden. SRT has a great influence in all parts of my life. Now my dance is just everywhere and in every moment. In years of my practice with SRT I discovered my own voice as the continuation of my dance, and vibrational realm of sounds.
In 2017 I became certified SRT teacher on introductory level since than I am running SRT workshops and facilitating movement explorations in the sound vibration field.
Sally E. Dean
Norway / U.K. / USA
Sally E. Dean is a choreographer, performer, educator, and researcher with over 25 years of international experience. Her artistic practice is an interdisciplinary weave of somatic-based movement, costume design, and cross-cultural collaboration—integrating site, materials, and the body.
Sally leads the Somatic Movement, Costume & Performance Project (2011–2026), which co-creates Somatic Costumes designed to generate psychophysical awareness in the wearer and immersive sensorial performances. Her work has been produced internationally at venues such as the 14th Prague Quadrennial, The Place (London), and the International MASQUE Theatre Festival, as well as in site-specific settings ranging from Javanese traditional markets to the Spitalfields Church Crypt. Her research and performance work have been supported by Arts Council England and the British Council.
Currently a Research Fellow at the Oslo National Academy of the Arts, Sally is completing her PhD: The Somatic Costume Dressing Room – Choreographing Attention through Touch & the Poetic. This research redefines choreography as the “art of attending,” challenging ocularcentrism to foster embodied reconnection through Somatic Costume and the sense of touch.
Sally has been practicing Skinner Releasing Technique (SRT) since 1997, beginning her training at Bennington College with Lionel Popkin. She deepened her practice through summer intensives in Seattle with Joan Skinner, Stephanie Skura, and others, eventually certifying at both the Introductory (2004) and Ongoing (2011) levels. She has taught SRT at major UK universities—including Trinity Laban, Central School of Speech and Drama, and Chichester University—and internationally, such as in Europe, the USA, Indonesia, and Sri Lanka.
Sally’s work contributes to the evolving dialogues regarding the technique’s philosophical underpinnings and future. Her writing on the intersection of somatics and materiality is included in several publications, such as her chapter on the encounters between SRT and Somatic Costume in Skinner Releasing Technique: A Movement and Dance Practice (Dean, 2021) and her development of the Aware-Wearing methodology in Performance Costume: New Perspectives and Methods (Dean, 2020).
Funda Özokcu
Turkey
Funda Özokcu is a dancer, linguist, writer and researcher based in Istanbul. She graduated from translation and interpreting studies (Boğaziçi University) in addition to studying philosophy, art and social sciences at several universities in Istanbul and the Netherlands. She has a mixed movement training background in Skinner Releasing Technique, contemporary dance, folk dances, Bones for Life and various other approaches along with experience in dramaturgy and performing in dance. She started to practice Skinner Releasing Technique in 2011 and became a certified teacher in 2024.
Thalia Laric
South Africa
Dance artist, community leader and teacher of Contact Improvisation and Skinner Releasing Technique. I live in Cape Town, South Africa, and travel regularly to Europe and Asia to teach, dance, create and learn.
As the first certified teacher of SRT in South Africa, I feel a great sense of inspiration and purpose to share this incredible approach to dance and creative process in my country.Before certifying as a SRT teacher, my main focus has been teaching Contact Improvisation, and nurturing the growth of the CI community in Cape Town. I have been teaching CI for over 14 years and organising various events including a Facilitators Research Lab and the annual Contact Festival South Africa.
I studied dance at the University of Cape Town and completed my Masters in Choreography at Rhodes University in 2013. I have danced professionally with various South African theatre companies and founded several dance platforms including Underground Dance Theatre and MusicDance CapeTown.
I enjoy collaborating and performing with other dancers and musicians towards real-time composed performances, and have studied with Katie Duck, Julyen Hamilton, Lily Kiara and Manuela Lucia Tessi in this area.
My approach to dance is to create space to listen deeply to the innate wisdom of our embodied experience. To allow for rest, ease and stillness, to respect authenticity and integrity, to observe simplicity, economy and clarity. To notice support, discover alignment, and to release into dancing with an effortless effort, while cultivating freedom, autonomy, connection and joy.
Cleo Tabakian
France
Cleo Tabakian is a dance artist, living in Die, France. She graduated from the Fine Arts Academy of Paris in 2014 and from the Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance, London in 2018.
Her dancing dialogs with somatic practices and martial arts. Deeply influenced by Joan Skinner’s approach to movement, she understands the pedagogy as a wonderful and necessary way of (just) being. She also perceives an empowering and strengthening potential within the practice.
Cleo is a strong advocate of the pedagogy in France specially. With Ana Stegnar and Bettina Neuhaus, she is working on the creation and publication of a booklet about Skinner Releasing in French. Cléo has been working and teaching children extensively and their playful and selfless attitude has been a great source of inspiration.
Eszter Gál
Hungaria
Eszter Gál is a Master Somatic Movement Educator and Therapist (MSME/T), dancer, choreographer, and teacher, currently teaching at three Performing Arts institutions: FreeSZFE and Budapest Acting School (for actors’ training), and Budapest Circus Arts and Contemporary Dance College. She graduated from the University of Physical Education in Budapest in 1989, where she specialized as a Physiotherapist for children. She studied in Arnhem at CNDO/EDDC from 1991 to 1994, and taught there between 1995 and 2004 as a guest teacher and for two years as a faculty member.
She is a certified SRT® teacher on the Introductory and Ongoing levels. Her most influential teachers include Eva Karczag, Mary O’Donnell (Fulkerson), Stephanie Skura, Steve Paxton, Tony Thatcher, Lisa Kraus, Benoit Lachambre, Mark Tompkins and Joan Skinner, Robert Davidson, Teresa Moriarty, Gaby Agis, Martin Keogh, Nina Martin, Nancy Stark Smith. She has been teaching open classes, master workshops of contact improvisation, release-based movement technique, composition, and improvisation in independent dance programs nationally and internationally since 1995. She has taught at the Hungarian Dance Academy, the Contemporary Dance Academy, and the University of Theater and Film Arts in Budapest, where she has coordinated the movement studies for 6 years. She was the artistic director and organizer of the annual Kontakt Budapest International Improvisation Festival from 2002 until 2015 and was leading national and international events and projects in Hungary and Europe.
She is one of the co-founders of IDOCDE – International Documentation of Contemporary Dance Education, a project on developing a website for sharing, discussing, and archiving the process and practice of teaching contemporary dance. Her core interest is in somatic-based movement research, improvisation performance, and community work for dance education. She has been creating her own artistic work since 1993.
In 2020, she joined the Berlin-based Cranky Bodies a/company to research collaborative performance-art making within an international frame and make the artistry of the Postmodern dance legacy visible. She is a founding member of ArtMan Association for the Arts and Movement Therapy (2005), which has provided therapy and art programs for groups of all abilities. Since 2003, as a member and co-leader of Company Tánceánia, she has been applying the principles and practices of Contact Improvisation, SRT®, and ensemble improvisation methods for disabled people. She is in the final phase of her doctoral studies, researching the legacy of Contact Improvisation in Hungary.
In 2023, she co-founded Somatic Dialogues Academy with Ágnes Gyulavári, Ferenc Kálmán and Vera Sifter and directs its 500-hour Somatic Movement Educator Training program.
Bettina Neuhaus
Germany/Netherlands
Bettina Neuhaus (Amsterdam) is an Independent Dance Artist, mentor and certified Skinner Releasing Technique (SRT) teacher at Introductory (2004) and Ongoing (2011) levels. She studied SRT with Joan Skinner, Robert Davidson, Stephanie Skura, Theresa Moriarty, Sally Metcalf, Gaby Agis and Kirsty Alexander. After studying music and movement at the Folkwang University of the Arts in Essen and dance at the Theatreschool Amsterdam (AHK), she received her Master’s degree in Creative Practice from Trinity Laban Conservatoire in London in 2013.
For over 30 years, Instant Composition in performance and the collaboration with dancers, musicians, visual artists and light designers have been at the heart of Bettina’s artistic work. With a growing interest in human ecology, she has been developing a movement practice in natural environments since 2010, which she shares in projects and special workshops. Bettina teaches Instant Composition and SRT, facilitating classes and workshops at independent studios, dance and art academies, and in diverse communities across Europe.
Ana Stegnar
Belgium/Slovenia
Ana Stegnar is a dancer, choreographer and dance teacher. Born in Slovenia, she lives in Belgium. She studied contemporary dance at the CNDC in Angers, France. After her dance studies, she danced first for the company Ultima Vez and later on co-created dance-theater performances for the company Les BGM together with Saïd Gharbi.
She has a master degree in dramaturgy and theater science from UCLouvain.
Since 20 years Ana teaches contemporary dance, improvisation and Skinner Releasing in different schools and contexts.
