JUDY GANTZ
DIRECTOR & FOUNDER

Judy Gantz, M.A., CMA, is the Director and Founder of the Center for Movement Education and Research (CMER), a non-profit 501c3 organization (2003). 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 Domincan University, University of Southern California, University of Washington, University of Illinois, Sonoma State University, 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. She has also 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.


"I feel the most important issue facing our children today is health and education.
We must build new models for education
that reflect the needs of our society and
take us beyond 20th century thinking"
 

Ms Gantz has focused on how to create movement/dance pedagogy that can blend critical emotional, social, and
cultural concerns using creativity from the arts to 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 want to see schools offer movement experiences that foster health of the whole child. The Council and The Toolbox Projects are something I am currently involved with and I want to see how movement can be integrated into both these curriculums".

 

"I see the arts being useful in cultivating empathy and social-emotional intelligence. When children can express and identify
feelings, they can develop social/cultural awareness and emotional intelligence"

Along with blending education with social-emotional paradigms, Gantz teaches Anatomy for Dancers at Dominican University, and 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. Judy is active in Producing and Choreographing health and exercise videos and guest lecturing on movement studies nationally. Her children's exercise DVD, KIDS GET MOVIN' was produced by CMER and CDK Productions and can be found at KidsGetMovin.com