Maria Varela

Maria Varelá is a Movement Medicine Professional Teacher. She completed the Movement Medicine Apprenticeship Programme & Professional Training with Susannah and Ya’Acov Darling Khan. She has followed the Movement Medicine dancing path since 2014, training in Devon, England, and assisting in workshops and training modules in Europe and the UK.

Maria taught Movement Medicine in and around the area of Athens, Greece, for four years, designing and delivering weekly and bi-monthly classes, in collaboration with creative (dance and theatre), wellbeing, and co-working spaces, including special events for festivals, as well as online from March 2020 onwards. She was a School of Movement Medicine Organiser for Greece (2017-2020), helping introduce the practice to local participants through long weekend workshops with experienced Movement Medicine teachers and facilitators, establishing collaborations with different venues, as well as translating, adapting or creating a range of material to present and promote the practice on various platforms, in both Greek and English.

She was first introduced to movement meditations in 2006, through a variety of active meditations and meditative therapies, completing a training in childhood deconditioning (2007-2009). Starting in 2011, she focused intensively on embodied dance/movement practices, with continued professional development in modalities combining somatic movement, voice, and other creative forms of expression ever since.

Maria has a PhD in Political Discourse Analysis, with a background in Foreign Languages and Translation, and has worked for more than fifteen years as an author's editor and technical writer for non-native English speakers, mainly academics. She is currently a resting member of the Movement Medicine Association, while starting a new role in Research & Enterprise management in UK Higher Education, and considering the next steps in her movement journey, both as a practitioner and as a teacher.