Emily Nussdorfer received her master's in dance movement therapy in 2001 and has since provided DMT services to diverse populations of all ages through her work in schools, hospitals, and through her non-profit Moving Creations Inc. She developed dance and drama therapy programs to support empowerment and leadership skills in underserved youth. Prior to her DMT work, she studied flamenco dance and performed movement theater around social justice issues. Currently, she conducts private and group dance therapy sessions, supervises students, and teaches workshops on therapeutic and cultural applications of dance.

1. Emily Nussdorfer, MA, BC-DMT, Formal Bio
Emily Nussdorfer, MA, BC-DMT, received her masters in dance movement
therapy from MCP Hahnemann University in 2001. She is a dance/theatre
teaching artist, curriculum designer, and board-certified dance movement
therapist. For the past fifteen years, she has provided DMT services to diverse
populations of all ages, both inpatient and outpatient. She has worked as a
clinician in school settings in the Pennsylvania and New Jersey with children
and adolescents with behavioral disorders, and in in-patient psychiatric
facilities with children, adolescents, dual diagnosed adults in crisis, and elders
with psychiatric symptoms in relation to dementia and Alzheimer’s. She
founded the non profit, Moving Creations Inc, in 2005 to provide dance and
drama therapy based curricula to help develop empowerment and leadership
skills in underserved youth living in resource deprived communities.
Prior to her dance therapy work, Emily lived in New York City, studied
flamenco dance and worked as an actress for four years with the Living
Theatre, performing movement theater around issues of social justice, in-doors
and out, in a wide variety of locales, and engaging audiences directly in the
performances. In 1994, Emily created and conducted an award winning
curriculum in creative dance and theater for children living in a shelter in
Chinatown, through a program called Art Start, (see article below) and upon
moving to Pennsylvania, became a Pennsylvania State Council of the Arts
teaching artist. As a teaching artist, she conducted workshops and residencies
for children in elementary schools, summer camps, and community centers for
several years across the United States. When she traveled to Hawaii in 1997 to
study indigenous healing dance and ritual, she developed an after-school
movement program aimed to support literacy development in elementary
children in a local Hawaiian.
During her semester of graduate studies in Hawaii, she began a study of the
processes of transformation within indigenous healing dances. In 1998, she
began her masters program studies at MCP Hahnemann University in
Philadelphia, and in 2001 published her master's thesis, "Moving Creation, a
dance and drama therapy-based program for preadolescent identity repair,"
based on an intensive literature review into the identity transformational
processes across cultures and fields of inquiry, and some exploratory
qualitative research in classroom behavior change in elementary school
children in Coatesville, PA in 2000, using therapeutic dance and drama
curricula she developed to test her ideas. In 2002, she commenced a three year
training process to become a certified Spirit Gateways® movement healing

2. practitioner, a form of shamanic energy work using expressive movement and
meditation processes developed by Iana Lahi.
In 2003, with the support of the Family Planning Council and DHS of
Philadelphia, she launched the Girls on the Move® program to support the
emotional, social and empowerment needs of pre-adjudicated and adjudicated
adolescent girls exhibiting self destructive, high-risk behaviors, living in
marginalized, low income Philadelphia communities. Girls on the Move® was
developed from her master’s thesis research into the effectiveness of a
synthesis of culturally-targeted dance, theater and creative arts therapy in
promoting healing, empowerment and social change amongst marginalized
adolescent youth. She founded Moving Creations Inc. in 2005 to expand this
work. Together with a team of multicultural artists, chosen for their cultural and
artistic expertise she tested and refined the program over a period of 10 years.
Girls on the Move® has served over 100 girls since its inception, and garnered
awards and acclaim (see www.movingcreationsinc.org). The program yielded
important qualitative data regarding causative factors of self-destructive
behaviors in this population of girls and the reparative properties of culturally-
targeted art forms, creativity and female artist mentorship in transforming these
behaviors, which she is currently going through to develop a series of journal
articles and eventually a book on this work.
Currently, through LifeDance® with Emily she conducts group and private
dance therapy sessions, supervises graduate students, and develops and teaches
workshops in a wide range of therapeutic, anthropological, cultural, spiritual
and empowering educational applications of dance in a wide range of settings,
from colleges and school classrooms, to yoga studios, community centers and
corporations.