CPD: Different Dances | Creating Supportive Spaces For Neurodivergent Dancers with Jess Glenny

Continuing Professional Development

Different Dances | Creating Supportive Spaces For Neurodivergent Dancers

with Jess Glenny

Sunday September 6th 2026, 11:00 AM BST

6 AM EDT- 12 PM CEST - 1 PM MSK - 8 PM AEST - 10 PM NZST

This workshop is an invitation to get curious about how we can optimise our teaching and our dance spaces to better include neurodivergent dancers.

Neurodivergent dancers can expand our dance floors with their out-of-the-box movement, enthusiasm and originality. They can also bring mutual miscommunications that challenge us as teachers to expand our understanding, and sensory issues that require us to become more nuanced in our attention to the physical environment.

In this workshop, we will be defining terms and looking at some of the common challenges neurotypical people experience in conscious dance classes. The intention is not to provide ready-made solutions but to offer some context for what might be happening for your neurodivergent dancers, and to invite curiosity about how you might be able to move forward in a way that serves everyone on your dance floor.

There will be plenty of time for discussion, so please bring your questions, along with any personal experiences you’d like to share – as either teacher or dancer – of neurodivergence on the dance floor.

Both neurodivergent and neurotypical teachers are very welcome to this workshop.

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About Jess

I am autistic, dyspraxic, hyperphantasic, synaesthetic and hypermobile, and for as long as I can remember I have been embodying these experiences in movement. I first came to conscious dance in 2001, through the 5Rhythms. I began teaching my own approach to conscious dance in 2010, and graduated as an Open Floor teacher in 2016. My dance background is eclectic, and all sorts of influences show up in my approach to holding dance space, from Authentic Movement, through explorations in independent dance, to practices of sounding, drawing and writing. I am also an Elder Yoga Teacher, a Registered Yoga Therapist, and a Registered Somatic Movement Therapist, with specialisms in complex trauma, and in genetic joint hypermobility. I am the author of three books – The Yoga Teacher Mentor, Hypermobility on the Yoga Mat, and Ravelled Up: A Journey Into Embodiment. I also offer one-to-one mentoring to movement teachers and therapists.

For more about me, go to https://www.embodyyogadance.co.uk/about-jess

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This event is free for ICMTA members. Open to non-members teachers of conscious movement for a fee.

This event will be recorded and made available to those registered, and to all ICMTA members through our website.

If you're not a teacher of one of our recognised schools, please let us know at info@icmta.com if you would like to attend.

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This is one of regular Continuing Professional Development events held by the ICMTA. Find more about these sessions here.

If you are a member, you can watch the recordings of the previous sessions here.

Let us know if you have a suggestion of a theme or topic you would like us to explore next time, or if you have an expertise in a subject that could be of interest for your colleagues - conscious movement teachers - and you would like to hold one of these sessions.