Belinda is a movement specialist with expertise in communication, presentation, and the performing arts.
Her skills are sought out to resolve issues with chronic tension or anxiousness as well as balance and movement coordination. Her students gain a sense of well-being that comes with living dynamically and comfortably in your own skin.
I’ve always been in motion. Dancing and storytelling through movement have always been part of my life and what I have studied. I treasure the time I spend outdoors, especially in the water. My Alexander Technique story began more than four decades ago. Like many college students, I was kind of a mess – an idealistic mess, but lacking a process for changing anything. I wanted to be more receptive to learning, but I was actually quite unaware and resistant to the resources around me. My inner messiness showed up as debilitating shin pain and migraine headaches. I taped my lower legs before dance classes and then recovered in a bucket of ice at the end of the day. I found relief through very deep massages and Rolfing. But the more I released tension on the table, the more I realized that I could never get from the table to the door without putting the tightness and pain back into my body, and my spirit. The patterns were strong, my self-confidence was low and I felt out of control.
My dear friend, Ariel Weiss, insisted that I join her in an intensive Alexander Technique course. I went reluctantly. From previous experiences, I associated the AT with the image of a string pulling my head – and I didn’t want to be a puppet.
But the class surprised me. Instead of being pulled up, aligned or corrected, I felt more at home in my own body. I was encouraged to trust my sense of self while at the same time I was being invited into somatic learning that embraced ‘not knowing’.
I felt lighter. I could breathe - move - think all together. My leg pain left me and has never returned.
Meeting up with the discoveries of F.M. Alexander ignited a foundational shift in my life. The principles, shared by our teachers Bruce Fertmann and Martha Hansen-Fertmann, just made sense to me – and so I wanted to delve deeper. I trained to be an Alexander Technique teacher while juggling a busy life of performances, marriage and the birth of two children. And I’m still discovering how to use AT to restore my inner balance through challenging times. My natural joy of living shows up when I’m in my studio. I love to share practical experiences with clients, to wake-up their sense of embodiment and resiliency. Teaching one-to-one allows me to get to know the inner workings of people. It’s an honor be with another person as they challenge their habits, quiet their reactivity, and center their well-being in their art.
As part of my AT teacher-training, I was fortunate to learn from master-teacher, Marjorie Barstow. She was a pioneer in the craft of group teaching, with direct application of AT to daily activities and to the performing arts. I’ve made it my mission to develop the art of teaching AT in groups – reaching more people and in turn, gaining the advantages of the shared intelligence and cultures in the room. In collaboration with others, I produced the Freedom to Act Conference, created the Poise Project curriculum for partners of people with Parkinson’s. I’ve designed and taught an integrative AT and movement program for BFA actors at Brooklyn College. And I am honored to continue to pursue my passion for working with performers at two lively communities of actors in NYC: The Barrow Group and Terry Knickerbocker Studio.
Please join me at my studio, AT MOTION, a place to continue to explore human presence, expression and freedom of motion.
Belinda Mello is a senior level Alexander Technique teacher and movement specialist in practice since 1989. In addition to her ongoing classes and lessons at AT MOTION, she currently teaches at The Barrow Group, Terry Knickerbocker Studio and as a guest at other acting programs and corporate training conferences. .
Training and Influences: Her movement experience is grounded in contact improvisation, ideokinesis, modern dance, yoga and Body-Mind Centering. She has been tutored in mask by Per Brahe and studied Rasaboxes with Paula Murray Cole. Her Alexander Technique training began at The Alexander Foundation in Philadelphia with Bruce Fertman and Martha Hansen, including study with the late Marjorie Barstow, first generation teacher. She continues to study with master teachers and completed a post-graduate training in the Carrington approach and Dart procedures. Her mentors and influences include Bill Conable, Meade Andrews, Sarah Barker, Cathy Madden, Buzz and Peg Gummere, and Jean-Louis Rodrigue.Belinda earned her BA at Hampshire College and is a graduate, cum laude and Joel Zwick scholarship awardee, of the MFA directing program at Brooklyn College/CUNY. She is a member of the Margolis Method professor certification group and holds Kari Margolis as one of her most influential teachers.
Belinda is a teaching artist. For fifteen years she was an adjunct Assistant Professor in the Brooklyn College/CUNY Theater Department where she taught the BFA Movement, Mask and BA Acting. She has taught at the SITI Company Conservatory and masterclass series, Ted Bardy Studio, Larry Singer Studio, Muhlenberg College, The Actor’s Movement Studio, the New Actor’s Workshop, NYU's Musical Theater Workshop, The Shakespeare Lab in NYC, Jean Cocteau Rep, Aching Dogs, and in Montreal and Toronto, Canada, as well as in Colorado Springs.
Alexander Technique Projects: Belinda co-produced the annual Freedom to Act Conference in NYC and was on faculty at the summer Alexander Residential Workshops in Spokane and Columbus. In collaboration with Monika Gross of the Poise Project, she created the curriculum of the first AT based course for care partners of people with Parkinson’s Disease: Partnering with Poise. Belinda has led post-graduate seminars in Basel, Switzerland, at the Alexander Technique International Congress in Chicago and in Berlin, and for ATI annual conferences. She has taught continuing education courses to Licensed Massage Therapists and presented at the National Verbatim Reporters Convention. As a director, divisor, & movement specialist: on theater productions with The Women’s Project (CROOKED), Prospect Theater Company (DARK NIGHTS PROJECT), Tribeca Center for the Performing Arts (PARLOR SONG), Sulai Lopez’s one woman show (CULTURE OF COMPUNCTION;THE ARCHETYPES OF AMERICAN NEUROSIS). She performed and directed in the Peculiar Works Obie Award winning series OFF-STAGE EAST/WEST VILLAGE FRAGMENTS. She performed in the 15th International Theater Festival in Istanbul.
As a writer: She has been published as a BACKSTAGE Expert and co-authored (2012): Cultivating a lively use of tension: the synergy between acting and the Alexander Technique, Theatre, Dance and Performance Training, 3:1, 27-40.
