In loving memory of Glenna Batson

“I want to dedicate this year’s season to my mentor: Glenna Batson who just passed away, and whose innovative research on the effects on improvisation for people living with Parkinson's and whose generosity of conversations has inspired me for so many years. Glenna was an incredible, brilliant human, activist, practitioner and researcher and I miss her already dearly so much.” — Murielle Elizéon, Culture Mill Co-Director

About Glenna:

For more than five decades, Glenna Batson, PT, Sc.D., MA, sourced from multiple discourses as catalysts for teaching, research, and artistic growth. She was an independent researcher and lecturer who honed a trans-disciplinary approach to the study of embodiment. Her teaching and publications have bridged between theory and practice within dance, human movement science and somatic education (Somatics). Glenna was professor emeritus of physical therapy at Winston-Salem State University (North Carolina, USA). She held a Master’s in dance education (1978), and Master of Science (1983) and Doctor of Science in physical therapy (clinical neuroscience) (2006). She was an internationally recognized teacher of the Alexander Technique (qualified 1989) and was pivotal in the early establishment of IADMS (International Association of Dance Medicine and Science). Faculty of the American Dance Festival (1986-2013) and the Hollins/ADF M.F.A. (2006- 2013), Glenna also taught Somatics for the MFA in dance at Duke University, was a Fulbright Senior Specialist in dance, and held residences at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Dance (London, UK), the Universities of Tallinn and Tartu (Estonia), and Bath Spa University (Bath, UK).

Between 2008-2016, she conducted pioneering research on the effects of improvisational dance on agency in people living with Parkinson’s disease. In addition to her published research, she was author of Body and Mind in Motion: Dance and Neuroscience in Conversation and Dance, and co-editor/contributor to Somatics and Spiritualities: Contemporary Sacred Narratives (University of Chicago press, 2014).