JUDY GANTZ
DIRECTOR & FOUNDER

Judy Gantz, M.A., CMA, is the Director and Founder for the Center of Movement Education and Research (CMER), a non-profit organization. She is an international movement specialist, teacher and lecturer, and was an Associate Adjunct Professor at UCLA in the department of World Arts & Cultures from 1982-2005. Ms Gantz has specialized in Laban Movement Analysis, dance kinesiology and creative dance/movement education. Judy’s teaching in the United States includes the University of Washington, University of Southern California, University of Illinois, and the University of Western Michigan. Internationally, she has taught in England at the University of Surrey, in Bombay and Madras India, and in Scotland at the Common Wealth International Conference on Sports Medicine, Dance, Physical Education and Health. Outside the University she has worked in numerous professional certification programs for the Laban/Bartenieff Institute of Movement Studies in New York, at Westwood Charter Elementary and Palms Middle School in Los Angeles California.

Gantz was the former Fitness Editor for Shape magazine and Co-Editor of Kinesiology for Dance, an international publication. Her latest writings on Dance Kinesiology were published by Oxford Press in the International Encyclopedia of Dance. Her writings on fitness were requested for the first textbook published by the Aerobics and Fitness Association of American- Fitness: Theory & Practice.

In 2003 the CMER received a $35,000.00 grant to provide movement programs for young children in LA. In 2000 Gantz received the UCLA Jane Permaul Faculty Incentive Award for Service Learning to support development of a new dance education curriculum; in addition, she became a mentor to the UCLA Artsbridge Scholars. Ms Gantz has focused on how to create a dance pedagogy that can blend critical, social, and cultural concerns and how the arts build human understanding. “I am interested in the arts being integrated not decorative to education, and this means understanding the myriad of expressions of the human heart. From my work in public schools I was introduced to the Council Project and it lead to my training as a Council facilitator. I see the arts and Council working hand and hand to build social/cultural awareness and emotional intelligence”.

In Los Angeles Judy maintained a private practice as a movement specialist, working with such clients as Jody Foster, Angela Lansbury, Barbara Walters, Ed Asner, and others. She presented the first workshop on Laban Movement studies at the Esalen Institute in Big Sur,and was honored as CMA of the month from Laban/Bartenieff Institute of Movement Studies in New York.

Judy is active in Producing and Choreographing health and exercise videos and guest lecturing on movement studies nationally. Her current project is the children's exercise DVD KIDS GET MOVIN'. This DVD was produced by CMER and CDK Productions and can be found at: www.kidsgetmovin.com