Show Notes
Alexandra Beller on Body Image, Somatics, and Creating Embodied Art Choreographer, educator, and author Alexandra Beller discusses her early experiences coming of age in the 1980s amid intense diet culture, bullying, and body shaming, while finding wholeness and spiritual aliveness through dance. She describes how her body type limited casting and training opportunities, the power critics once held, and how joining choreographer Bill T. Jones’ company broke industry norms but increased public scrutiny of her body. Beller reflects on building chosen family in dance, developing internal guardrails for self-worth, and learning to receive praise without taking criticism as truth. She explores menopause as a neurological and personal rewiring that strengthened consent and self-advocacy, and shares creating a pivotal work based on her preverbal child’s developmental movement. She explains her somatic approach to helping clients access body-held emotion and why she wrote a book to support artists, creativity, and inner-critic work. 00:00 Meet Alexandra Beller 01:09 Teen Years and Body Image 04:38 Disordered Eating Pressures 06:08 Rejection and Breaking In 09:42 Critics Then and Now 11:58 Dance Community and Self Worth 16:06 Learning to Receive Praise 19:31 Love Mirrors and Self View 21:22 Menopause Rebellion and Renewal 25:22 Healthcare Gaps and Finding No 29:10 Starting a Dance Company 31:41 A Work Where Words Fail 34:03 Baby Movement as Spiritual Research 38:04 Inner Child Onstage 40:25 Why We Stop Moving 42:26 Undoing School Body Locks 45:51 Nature As Sensation 47:56 Breastfeeding And Wholeness 51:16 Helping Clients Embody 53:38 Somatic Patterns And Emotion 56:43 Why Write The Book 58:32 Writing Flow And ADHD 01:02:19 Vulnerability In Print 01:04:39 Pruning Ego And Therapy 01:06:14 Next Decade And Good Life 01:08:22 Closing Thanks https://www.alexandrabellerdances.org/ https://www.facebook.com/alexandra.beller.73/ https://www.youtube.com/@alexandrabeller9868 https://www.instagram.com/alexandrabellerdances/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexandra-beller-0a56a57/ https://www.tiktok.com/@thelabanista?lang=en
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