Alexander Technique Congress Association (ATCA)
Aim and purpose
The purpose of the Association is to create a platform for the enhancement, promotion, further development and deeper understanding of the F.M. Alexander Technique.
To achieve this goal, the Association organizes international congresses by way of appointing and contracting with independent Congress Directors who have independent financial control. At the same time, it also fosters links and creates possibilities for new contacts between teachers of the Alexander Technique and the general public.
ATCA also protects assets such as trademarks, website domain names and contents, and other intellectual property associated with running International Congresses.
ATCA is a Voluntary Association (“Verein” within the meaning of Art. 60 ff Swiss Civil Code). ATCA has its registered office c/o Rosa Luisa Rossi, Im Theodorshof 13, CH – 4310 Rheinfelden.
Members:
Michael D. Frederick, Rosa Luisa Rossi, Robert Britton, Richard Brennan, Jamie McDowell, Jean M.O. Fischer, Lucia Walker, Lolita Brinkley, Kevan Martin
Executive Board Members:
Founder/Creative Director: Michael D. Frederick, President: Rosa Luisa Rossi, Vice-President Secretary: Robert Britton, Treasurer: Jean M.O. Fischer
Michael D. Frederick is an internationally recognized teacher in the field of psychophysical re-education. He trained as an Alexander Teacher in England with Walter and Dilys Carrington and in America with Marjorie Barstow (all master teachers trained by F.M. Alexander in the 1930s).
He studied in the U.S. and Israel as a Feldenkrais Practitioner with Dr. Moshe Feldenkrais and has extensive training in the Yoga tradition of T.K.V. Desikachar from Madras, India. Michael also trained as an actor at The Bristol Old Vic Theatre School, Bristol, England and completed a two-year training in the work of Sanford Meisner at the Baron-Brown Studio in Los Angeles. He has a B.Sc. Degree in Speech & Theater from the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater ’68.
As founding director of the first three International Congresses on the Alexander Technique, he has organized and taught over 150 workshops in the U.S. and Europe since 1978. He is Director of Alexander Technique Workshops-International.
Michael worked for two years at the Los Angeles Philharmonic Institute and taught for over a decade in The Old Globe Theatre’s MFA Acting Program at the University of San Diego. From 1994 to 2000 Michael organized Alexander Technique Master Classes with Marjory Barlow (F.M. Alexander’s niece) and Elisabeth Walker in San Francisco, Basel and Paris.
Michael is a member of the Society of Teachers of the Alexander Technique (STAT), the American Society of the Alexander Technique (AmSAT), and Alexander Technique International (ATI). He is former Chairman of the American Society for the Alexander Technique and is now Co-Director and on the Board of Directors of the Alexander Training Institute-LA. Currently, Michael teaches in Los Angeles and Santa Barbara, California.
Rosa Luisa Rossi –
By intensively studying F.M. Alexander’s work and with extensive experiences in applying the work of Self in activity, she has a unique perspective on the Technique in the working world.
She is teaching many different strata of workers, from laborers to corporate executives. In the past she worked for prestigious clients in Switzerland such as the Swiss National Bank, Zurich Insurance, Thomy Nestlé, Siemens SA, Straumann SA. Nowadays Rosa Luisa is collaborating closely with Alexander Technique colleague Priska Gauger-Schelbert from Switzerland, who has successfully developed a system for applying the Alexander Technique as `Health Management at the working place’. Rosa Luisa currently works with Victorinox SA., the world famous knife producing company and the City Government of Zurich.
The value of the Technique is beginning to spread out to other companies and sectors. Since 2014 Rosa Luisa is engaged as an Alexander Technique coach at IMD in Lausanne, Switzerland, working with several professors in different programs. These professors are experts for developing global leaders through high-impact executive education. She has been teaching the Alexander Technique since 1986.
Rosa Luisa Rossi was one of the 2008 Int. AT Congress Directors in Lugano. She has helped to create the Alexander Technique Congress Association in 2008 and is since then a member. She is committed to help to develop the Alexander Technique worldwide.
Robert Britton graduated in 1978 from the Alexander Training Institute-SF (Frank Ottiwell and Giora Pinkas). In addition to his private practice in San Francisco, he has taught the Alexander Technique to musicians at the San Francisco Conservatory of Music since 1984. He has helped train Alexander Technique Teachers since 1989, and regularly gives workshops to Alexander Teachers around the World.
Richard Brennan has studied the Alexander Technique since 1983 and has been a fully qualified teacher since 1989 having undergone a three-year teacher training course approved by STAT (UK); he travels internationally giving talks and courses on the Technique. He has taught the Technique at many educational centres including Galway University (NUIG), University of Limerick (UL), Dublin Conservatory of Music and Drama DIT (), Dartington College of Arts (Devon), and Middlesex University (London). He was a director of the 2015 Alexander Congress in Limerick and is the organiser of the 2013 and 2017 Alexander Teacher’s Conventions in Dublin.
He has written eight books on the Alexander Technique, which are translated into nineteen languages and are on sale worldwide – the titles including The Alexander Technique Workbook, Change your Posture – Change your Life and How to Breathe
Richard has been the Director of the only Irish Alexander Teacher Training College for the last 20 years, (STAT approved) and is the current president and the co-founder of the Irish Society of Alexander Technique Teachers. (ISATT).
Jamie McDowell is Director of the Fellside Centre in Kendal, a training facility in the Lake District of England. He has been teaching the Alexander Technique since 1984 and is currently Head of Training at Cumbria Alexander Training. Originally Jamie became certified under the direction of Don Burton in London and has lived and worked in England and throughout Europe.
He is active with other European Alexander Teachers organizing events throughout Europe and attending annual gatherings, where he has presented workshops on functional anatomy (the Use of the Arm) and teaching modalities (Styles of Teaching).
In 2015, he gave the FM Alexander Memorial Lecture at the STAT Conference in London.
Jamie was previously a Congress Director at the 9th International Conference in Lugano, Switzerland. He is a member of A.T. Congress association (ATCA), the supervisory board for the International Congresses.
Currently, as the Editor of Statnews (the newsletter of the Society of Teachers of the Alexander Technique) and Co-Editor of The Alexander Journal, Jamie has ongoing contact with a wide range of opinion-makers in the Alexander world and looks forward to hosting the 2018 Congress in Chicago.
Jean M. O. Fischer trained with Karen Wentworth 1984-87 in Denmark and subsequently did post-graduate terms at the Constructive Teaching Centre in London, where he also taught. Between 1991 and 1996 he taught at the North of England Teacher Training Course in the Alexander Technique, Leeds. Jean started STAT Books and has edited and/or typeset a number of Alexander Technique books for STAT and individual teachers. In 1995 he started publishing under the imprint of Mouritz. He was co-director of the 7th International Congress of the F. M. Alexander Technique in Oxford, 2004. He was STAT Council member 2007-09, and a member of STAT’s Publications Committe 1991-2009. He instigated and created the STAT Archives during the period 1991-2009. He was a trustee of the F. M. Alexander Trust 2007-2010. He was assistant director 1997-2012 at a teachers training course, The Alexander Technique Studio, in London. He is currently assisting the Walter Carrington Educational Trust. He gives individual lessons at the Pimlico Centre in London.
Lucia Walker qualified in 1987 after 3 years training with her parents Dick and Elisabeth Walker at the Alexander Teacher Training Centre Oxford. She teaches the technique to individuals, groups and on teacher training programmes and holiday workshops in England, France, Germany, US, and Japan. After qualification, she also assisted on her training school in Oxford for many years. Working with performers is a particular interest and she works regularly with classical musicians, singers actors, and dancers.
Fascination with the relationship of vision to use and movement led to ongoing study and teaching with ALTEVI (Alexander Technique and Vision) with whom she led holiday study retreats and workshops.
She has also explored Nonviolent Communication (NVC) which like AT supports the ability to change habitual responses and facilitates listening more deeply to oneself and others.
She continues to work as a movement artist, specializing in Contact Improvisation and Instant Composition, teaching, directing and performing.
Lucia was one of the three Directors of the International Alexander Congress held in Oxford in August 2004 and has presented at 6 of the other International Congresses.
Since 2014 she has been co-director of Alexander Technique Learning and Teaching Programmes, Johannesburg, running a teacher training programme and introducing the work in a variety of contexts.
Lolita Brinkley is a movement coach specializing in postural re-education, performance enhancement and movement using a process called unleashed biodynamics, which she developed based on the principles of the Alexander Technique. In the spirit of the Alexander Technique, she teaches students to coordinate thinking and movement so that the thinking leads the movement. This mind-body connection eliminates unconscious inefficient uses of the self which often introduce unnecessary stress and downward compression on the body. Lolita is interested in personal growth and assisting others in achieving optimum health and well-being.
Kevan A.C. Martin is a Director of the Institute of Neuroinformatics and a Double Professor of Systems Neurophysiology at the University of Zurich and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (‘ETH’).
His research is on the structure and function of the circuits of the neocortex where he studies the physical basis of perception, cognition, and action.
One of his longstanding interests is the physical basis of thought. He explores many aspects of performance to find an answer to the simple question: What is the relationship between thought and movement? His own performance is as a member of 4-Brain, a formation skydiving team that trains in Switzerland.