Pamela Fairweather, BC-DMT, NCC
DMT Director of Southern California Courses

Pamela Fairweather is the CMER DMT Director of Southern California Courses and a DMT faculty member. In addition to many years of clinical practice, Pamela has held faculty positions at UCLA and CSULB, served on the Board of Directors of the American Dance Therapy Association as the Committee Chair of Education, Research & Practice, and served on the Editorial Board of the Arts in Psychotherapy Journal.

Janet Lester, Psy.D., BC-DMT
DMT Director Of Northern California Courses

Dr. Janet Lester is the CMER DMT Director of Northern California Courses and a DMT faculty member. Dr. Lester is a psychologist and dance/movement therapist who specializes in working with children and adolescents in school and mental health settings. She is currently Assistant Vice President of the Family Resource Center at Hathaway- Sycamores Child and Family Services, a community based prevention and intervention program for children and adolescents. Janet has extensive professional experience supervising dance/movement therapy interns.

Judy Gantz, MA, CMA - CMER Director & Founder

Judy Gantz is the Founder and Director of CMER. Judy taught and developed curriculum at UCLA (1982 to 2005). Alongside a strong academic career, Judy was the former Fitness Editor for Shape magazine, Co-Editor of Kinesiology for Dance, and she is a Certified Laban Movement Analyst.

Kathy Cass, MA, BC-DMT, NCC, CYT, E-RYT 500

is a board certified dance/movement therapist, nationally certified counselor, and a certified yoga therapist with over 25 years of instructional and clinical experience with a variety of populations. She has expertise as a long-standing director of a non-profit therapeutic dance/yoga organization as well as a movement/yoga consultant for numerous institutions and individuals. Kathy is a member and head of the BC-DMT Certification Committee for the American Dance Therapy Association. She has been a guest lecturer at Scripps College, CMER at Loyola Marymount University and Tiverton House at UCLA.

Kathy is currently a part-time faculty member at Santa Monica College Emeritus Division and an Advisory Board Member for CSUF Extended Education in Expressive Arts Therapies. She also maintains a private practice including group and individual supervision in Santa Monica, CA. She has also been choreographer/movement consultant for local theater and off- Broadway productions.

Karen Clippinger, M.S.P.E.

Karen Clippinger received her masters in Exercise Science from the University of Washington and currently is a professor at California State University, Long Beach. She has worked for over 20 years in the areas of injury prevention and rehabilitation for dance and sports. Ms. Clippinger has worked with hundreds of dancers including members of the Joffrey, Mark Morris, Bill Evans and Alwin Nikolais companies. She has also consulted for the U.S. Weightlifitng Federation, U.S. Race Walking Team, the California Governor's Council on Physical Fitness and Sports, and various sports medicine clinics and fitness facilities. Ms. Clippinger is a well published in the areas related to dance and sports kinesiology. She wrote a monthly column for Shape Magazine, was co-editor-in-chief of the Journal for Dance Medicine and Science from 1996-2005, and recently completed her textbook titled Dance Anatomy and Kinesiology.

Suzanne Ecker, LMFT, BC-DMT

is a CMER DMT faculty member, dance/movement therapist and psychotherapist in private practice. She has taught courses at CSULB and Santa Monica College, lectured at the Phillips Graduate Institute, and the Jung Institute of Los Angeles, and provided services to a number of hospitals and agencies. She is currently training to become an analyst at the C. G. Jung Institute of Los Angeles.

Forest Franken, BC-DMT, MA, MFA

is a CMER DMT faculty member in northern California. Forest received both her M.A. in dance/movement therapy (1995) and her M.F.A. in choreography (2003) from UCLA. Her work as a dance/movement therapist spans thirteen years in inpatient psychiatric hospitals, intensive outpatient programs, and rehabilitation facilities with adolescents, adults, and seniors.

She moved to the bay area in 1998 to study the discipline of Authentic Movement with Janet Adler whom she mentored with for nine years. From 2001-2008, she worked at UCSF/Langley Porter Psychiatric Hospital and Clinics where, as inpatient supervisor to chaplain interns, she explored the integration of spirituality, dance/movement therapy, and dialectical behavioral therapy, and as facilitator of pain management groups, focused on the applications of dance/movement therapy and Authentic Movement principles with individuals navigating the challenges of living with chronic pain.

Her current focus involves the teaching of Authentic Movement with attention to the discipline as a vehicle for creative work and for containing and expressing life changes/losses related to the body.

Gabrielle Kaufman, MA, BC-DMT, NCC

is a CMER faculty member, dance/movement therapist and counselor with close to twenty years experience in the helping profession. She has taught creative movement to preschoolers and elementary school students, has used DMT with the elderly, Holocaust survivors, adults with mental illness, individuals with eating disorders and body image
issues, with teens at high risk and other individuals suffering from anxiety and depression.

Currently, she is the coordinator of the New Moms Connect Program of Jewish Family Service of Los Angeles. She has run several programs for high risk children and teens in both English and Spanish languages, taught classes to parents of newborns and toddlers, and runs support groups for single parents, women with eating disorders and women with perinatal mood disorders. She has served as the national credentialing chair for the American Dance Therapy Association, and is a coordinator with Postpartum Support International and has a private practice in Los Angeles.

Berti Klein, MA, MCAT, MSS, NCC, BC-DMT

has spent over 35 years studying and facilitating many aspects of Dance, Movement, Dance/Movement Therapy, Authentic Movement, Somatic Psychology, Counseling, Bodywork, Meditation, and the Body-Mind-Emotion-Spirit relationship. She holds five Masters degrees and will receive a Doctorate in Spiritual Science in June, 2011. Additionally, she has a background in Nurturing Touch having studied and presently practicing CranioSacral, Polarity, Oriental Medicine, Shiatsu, Jin Shin, and Chi Gong. These are lovely additions to her DMT work.

Berti has facilitated Dance/Movement Therapy in many types of health and healing centers, businesses, and other organizations, with children, adults and geriatric populations. She also has worked in elementary schools with children, teachers, staff and parents. Berti has supervised many students in various fields and currently consults and has a private practice in Santa Monica, California, including working with terminally ill clients and their caretakers.

Her teaching career has included courses at Yale University, University of Santa Monica, Hahnemann Medical University (now a part of Drexel University), and the National University of Mexico. She also facilitates workshops, trainings, classes, and seminars throughout the United States, Europe and Latin America.

Dawn Lyon, MA, BC-DMT

Dawn Lyon is a CMER DMT faculty member, and has over twenty-five years of experience working as a dance/movement therapist with adults in in-patient psychiatric, day treatment and residential facilities and with children, adolescents, and seniors in in-patient settings. She developed the dance/movement therapy internship training program at Metropolitan State Hospital where she is currently on staff.

Janice Meaden, MA, CLMA, RSMT

Janice Meaden is a CMER faculty member, and the Director, and faculty of the Integrated Movement Studies Certificate Program in Laban/Bartenieff Movement Studies at the University of Utah where she holds the position of Adjunct Assistant Professor in the Department of Modern Dance. She is a Certified Laban/Bartenieff Movement Analyst, a Registered Somatic Movement Therapist and a Body-Mind Centering Practitioner.

Shira Musicant, LMFT, BC-DMT, SEP

Shira Musicant is a Board Certified Dance/Movement Therapist, Somatic Experiencing Practitioner, and body centered psychotherapist. She has been licensed as a marriage and family therapist since 1985. With over twenty-five years of clinical experience, she has taught, led workshops, and published in the fields of dance/movement therapy and Authentic Movement. Shira has extensive hospital and agency experience with a range of psychiatric and medical patients, and is currently in private practice, working with people recovering from both developmental and acute trauma..

Paula Perlman, BC-DMT, LMFT, CLMA

Paula Perlman, is a CMER faculty member, a Board Certified Dance/Movement Therapist (BC-DMT), a Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist (LMFT) and a Certified Laban Movement Analyst (CLMA). Paula is a member of American Dance Therapy Association, Dance and the Child International (daCi) and the California Association of Marriage and Family Therapy (CAMFT). She has been practicing Dance/Movement Therapy for the past 25 years and has been in movement education for 16 years.

Paula has worked as a facilitator of a Dance Therapy group for seniors and has taught Creative Movement with inner city children at a downtown Los Angeles art center since 2002 and has taught Creative Movement at a child-initiated private school since 1993, pre K-5th. She expanded her studies of choreography at the University of California, Los Angeles, and dance/movement improvisation, “Logomotion,” with Simone Forti for six years. Additionally, she has twelve years experience as a participant in an Authentic Movement group.

Paula has co-created a Professional Development program titled, “How to Use Movement in the Classroom to teach Art and the Curriculum K-5th.” She is planning on teaching her skills as a Dance/Movement Therapist and Creative Movement teacher in Peru to teachers and students. As an integration of her movement work she presently leads retreats for adults focusing on Creative Process, Creative Movement and Authentic Movement..