Who We Are

Our Founder

Dan Leven, RSMT, MPC,  founding director of LIFE Movement.

Dan is the Founder and Director of LIFE Movement, Leven Institute for Expressive Movement. Drawing from 40 years of experience, Dan created integrative approaches to body-mind healing and wellness: Shake Your Soul® and SomaSoul®: Somatic Therapy. As a former professional dancer and Program Director at the Kripalu Center where he co-founded Kripalu Danskinetics™ (now Kripalu YogaDance), Dan has led numerous workshops and professional certification trainings at the Omega Institute and Kripalu. Dan holds a Master’s in Pastoral Counseling and served as a faculty member of Hartford Family Institute’s Body-Centered Gestalt Psychotherapy Training Program, training psychotherapists and healers in this work.

More about Dan Leven

For over 45 years, Dan Leven, the founder of LIFE Movement, Leven Institute For Expressive Movement, has been teaching and training people in body-centered transformation.

With nearly five decades of education and training to inform Dan Leven’s work, he joined the faculty of Kripalu Center in 1980 and he established his training institute in 1993 where he began training people to become Somatic Movement Therapists.

Leven’s early studies and training in modern dance formed the foundation of his life work to follow. He trained as a bodyworker and massage therapist and then later as a Somatic Movement Therapist with Martha Eddy. This training combined the work of Body-Mind Centering with Laban Movement Analysis. He later studied in a training program that explored Anna Halprin’s expressive arts therapy work called the Life/Art Process.

His foundational training in somatic psychotherapy began with the Hartford Family Institute where, following his six-year training in Body-Centered Gestalt Psychotherapy, he joined the faculty. He worked with that institute for 18 years training psychotherapists and healers in this somatic-based approach to psychotherapy.

Dan deepened his somatic psychotherapy work through training in Polyvagal-Informed Therapy with Deb Dana from 2018-2019.

In 2003, LIFE Movement became an approved training program with ISMETA (International Somatic Movement Education and Therapy Association).

Our Faculty

Sage Brody, MPC, MSMT/E – Lead Faculty and Educational Director

After weathering the financial crisis, she chose to leave behind her stressful career as an investment banking executive in order to share her passion for dance and healing with others. Sage has been designated a Master Somatic Movement Therapist and Educator by the International Somatic Movement Therapy and Education Association and holds a Master’s in Pastoral Counseling. In addition to her work with the Leven Institute, Sage has been a Kripalu faculty member for over 12 years where she leads inspirational dance classes, workshops, and mindful outdoor experiences, is a Trainer in the Body-Centered Psychotherapy Training Program at the Hartford Family Institute, and has a private practice in SomaSoul® Somatic Therapy in Lee, MA. and online.

Terry Anthony – MSMT, IBCLC – SomaSoul® Faculty member

Terry started her own healing journey as a young adult – when she found modalities that helped to regulate her nervous system and heal what she felt stood in the way of her aliveness. She began to share her talent for supporting healing with children and families in the early 1980s. After years of private practice as a family educator, counselor, and business owner, Terry expanded her ability to heal deep trauma with training in pre and peri-natal psychology, Body-Centered Psychotherapy, Polyvagal Theory, Expressive Arts Therapy, and Therapeutic movement. She has been involved as a staff member at the Leven Institute for 12 years and is also on the faculty for the Human Relations Program at the Hartford Family Institute. Her focus on clients and students continues to be helping people deepen their relationships with themselves and others. Terry has a private practice in SomaSoul® Somatic Therapy and is the owner of This Moment Center for Yoga and Healing Arts in Hopkinton, MA.

Marcia Giudice, MS, OT, RSMT – SomaSoul® Mentor

Marcia Giudice has a Master of Science degree in Occupational Therapy (OT) and over 25 years of experience as a Body-Mind therapist/educator and as a Feldenkrais® Practitioner. Her professional experience began as an OT in physical medicine and rehabilitation hospitals. She discovered her passion for teaching as adjunct faculty at Boston University and then as a Kripalu yoga teacher and Feldenkrais instructor. She is certified as a SomaSoul® Somatic Therapist and is a graduate of Hartford Family Institute’s Body-Centered Psychotherapy Training Program. Marcia currently offers classes and private sessions using an integrative body-centered approach to personal growth, healing, and wellness.

Kathryn Gardner, RSMT – SomaSoul® Mentor

As a SomaSoul® Somatic Movement Therapist, Kathryn works with individuals and groups, facilitating wholeness & healing through movement, creativity, and heartfelt connection. Her background in bodywork, yoga, peer counseling, and the expressive arts led her to this work and enable her to work with clients and groups in gentle, clear & intuitive ways to help heal areas of blockage and dysfunction. The resulting integration brings greater self-awareness, compassion & grounded power.