Penny Collinson has worked in dance and somatic movement practices for 30 years. She currently lives in Morecambe, Lancashire, where she teaches somatic-informed movement in the community, is a Somatic Movement Therapist, and offers Supervisor.

Penny was a senior lecturer at the University of Central Lancashire for many years, and course director of MA Dance & Somatic Wellbeing: Connections to the Living Body, an Approved ISMETA training programme. She gained her Master’s by Research in 2005, which explored the application of Authentic Movement in creative settings. She is an external examiner for the Institute for Integrative Bodywork & Movement Therapy (IBMT), and involved in national discussions relating to the field of somatic practice and health. Penny’s publications and presentations on the application of somatic practice in health, education and social care contexts include:

• ‘Mother witness: revisiting rupture at birth through somatic movement practice’, cited in Hartley (2022) The Fluid Nature of Being: Embodied Practices for healing and wholeness UK: Handspring Pub.
• ‘When body makes its presence felt: Somatic informed movement practice as an integral part of the hospital care team’. https://clok.uclan.ac.uk/35590/
• Collinson, Penny & Herd, Nicola (2020), ‘Embodying Health: a review of the work of dance & somatic movement practitioners working in NHS hospitals’. http://clok.uclan.ac.uk/22848/