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Martha Eddy

Ferraro Fellow
  • Martha Eddy, Ph.D.
Martha Eddy, RSMT, CMA, DEP, EdD, and Licensed TBMC, is MMC’s first Ferraro Fellow on Social Justice and Movement.
Dr. Eddy is an international advocate of somatic movement education and therapy, as well as somatic movement dance education. She is the author of Mindful Movement: The Evolution of the Somatic Arts and Conscious Actionand a lecturer on embodied cognition, eco-somatics, the interaction of neuro-motor and socio-emotional development, and the role of the body and movement in peace education and violence prevention. She co-founded the Moving On Center in 1994 with Carol Swann in order to bridge somatic awareness with social change. She is also Advisory Council member and co-chair of the Health Committee of the Micah Institute, a NYC-based interfaith advocacy and education organization focused on justice for all. 
Dr. Eddy has a long career in the instructional areas of somatics and movement science, including anatomy and physiology, and has been involved with medical research related to dance, therapeutic movement, and adherence to physical activity. She brings to all of this work her academic studies in curriculum development using the movement sciences within biobehavioral studies and health promotion. As a founding member and early conference coordinator for the International Association of Dance Medicine and Science, she holds a strong belief in advocating for creative career development in somatic dance and dance science. She is known for her work as a Registered Somatic Movement Therapist and as founder of the Dynamic Embodiment – Somatic Movement Therapy Training (DE-SMTT) program, which integrates skilled touch, movement, and compassionate dialogue to help people of all ages and abilities to relieve stress, find enhanced expressiveness, and balance all aspects of the body and psyche.

Title/Position

Ferraro Fellow

Department

The Ferraro Institute

Email

meddy@mmm.edu

Recent Work

Most recently she has been touring her book, Mindful Movement: The Evolution of the Somatic Arts and Conscious Action, sharing specifics such as:

  • The history of the field of somatics and the evolution of its related fields – somatic psychology, somatic bodywork, somatic movement, somatic dance, social somatics, eco-somatics, somatics and spirituality, and body-conscious design. Watch Dr. Eddy’s lecture here.
  • How does the renowned creator of dance notation and human movement analysis – Rudolf Laban – still influence the world today?
  • What is somatic awareness – the body-mind connection and how is it infused in higher education.
  • Politics and Somatics: how does the body, race and activism impact the world? How is race important to one’s relationship to practicing or teaching Bartenieff Fundamentals, Body-Mind Centering®, Dynamic Embodiment, EastWest Somatics etc.