I knew I wanted to be a dancer from the time I was 9 years old, shortly after beginning formal ballet training. At 14, I was chosen for the scholarship program at the American Ballet Theater school which provided optimal training to develop the skills needed to engage with the stories classical ballet offered. Within six years striving for perfection day in and day out had alienated me from the reason I fell in love with dance in the first place – the desire to express a personal or given narrative to music.

The decision to leave classical ballet opened up my life. New opportunities to dance, improvise, choreograph and teach followed, and brought me closer to what has become my life’s work: helping people to relieve pain or strain and to embody themselves with freedom and authenticity.

My passion is to enable individuals to access their stories whether they are sharing them publicly or privately, in their music, or to bring to life another’s story in performance.  I know when bringing life to a role, how habit and emotion can constrict one’s body and voice. My goal is to meet students where they are and empower them to appreciate themselves unadorned by habit of imitation, constraint, or excess effort, and to enable them to skillfully re-create this freedom on their own.

I first encountered the Alexander Technique while working in sports medicine and preparing to study physical therapy.  Through lessons, I gained insight into my own psycho-physical habits and how they often constricted my movement, breathing and vocal expression. A few months later, I began training at the American Center of Alexander Technique.

I have been teaching the Alexander Technique in private practice as well as in various drama and music programs here in New York City since 1995. In my private practice, I work with students whose pain is limiting them, as well as with those who want to improve how they physically engage their bodies. Students can apply the Alexander Technique principles to any activity: playing an instrument, working at the computer, performing domestic tasks, playing a sport and other physical practices. It is in taking the AT lesson onward into their lives as practice that a student begins to experience the benefit of applying new self knowledge which often reveals a fuller potential.

As a practitioner of the technique I have recovered from bone surgery on both feet and knees, and – with the help of innovative work provided by movement teachers and other AT teachers – I am living an unrestricted life as a dance improvisor.  I have learned a great deal about what it means to live an active life as the body changes over time.

A teaching objective of mine is that each student enlivens desire to change and develops skill at integrating the Alexander principles in activity. This often brings people a sense of well being and presence, whether walking down the street, interacting in their professional lives, or performing.

I can’t remember a single confusing moment over the course of my studying with Teva that was injected by a contradiction in her person.  Sure, I experienced numerous confusing moments in my attempts to grasp the depth of the concepts she presented and have them find a place in my experience, but she always arrived and left the teaching space as an embodiment of the principles she was imparting. Her sincerity was a living and breathing thing.  Her personal poise was a beacon to all that she was teaching.
– Christopher L. Browne, actor

Click here to see my Professional Developments and Performance Highlights.