Ania Kowalska-Catalano

Ania Kowalska-Catalano began to open spaces for groups of movers and witnesses in 2002, in a form that had emerged organically from her meditation, dance, and healing practices. In 2009, during her Dance Movement Psychotherapy studies, she discovered Authentic Movement and felt at home because the natural healing process of body and soul moving was already a crucial focus in her life.

In 2014 Ania started her Discipline of Authentic Movement practice with Jane Bacon in a regular group and individually. In 2015 she entered the Circles of Four program, embarking on annual retreats with Janet Adler and supervision with Fran Lavendel. In 2018 she completed the program, and in 2022 became a faculty member.

In 2017, in Warsaw, Ania collaborated with Joan Chodorow, offering the space for embodied, transgenerational memories from the Holocaust. Ania practices regularly with her fellow teachers in peer groups and retreats. She offers individual sessions, groups, and retreats in Poland and Italy in the Discipline of Authentic Movement.

Her main commitment is to the intimacy of the studio practice, where she relishes the embodied union of simplicity and mystery, intimateness and boundlessness, as well as the constant search for the language that speaks the unfolding truth.  Her major guides in this work are a trust in the warmth of relationship, intuitive knowing, and the innate sense of unity of all that is.

Ania is also strongly drawn to the collective and ecological implications of the practice. She is particularly interested in how it can support the organic building of the collectives that respect diverse individuals and our Earth, invite consciousness and kindness, and make space for the unknown.

The Discipline of Authentic Movement is an embracing vessel for Ania’s own spiritual and personal growth, influencing her everyday presence, her being a mother, living between Poland and Italy, and her being a part of this Earth’s community.

Ania is a certified Dance Movement Psychotherapist registered with the Polish DMP Association. She has completed a two-year formation in the Polish Association for Jungian Analysis. She has been working therapeutically in private practice and in various institutions. She collaborates with the Polish Dance Movement Psychotherapy Institute, introducing Authentic Movement in training future therapists and inviting bridges between the discipline and psychotherapy work. Ania translated into Polish Janet Adler’s book Offering from the Conscious Body, published in 2022 by Raven.