Dr Andrea Maciel is a dance performer, scholar, therapist and teacher. Her academic/artistic work investigates the physical resonance of social urban landscapes through dance, performance and installations. She has taught movement techniques for BA and Master Course actors at Universities in Brazil, New York – US and UK. She has an extensive experience in Laban Bartenieff technique and has been teaching somatic approaches within CPD as well as utilising those techniques in her clinic therapy practice. She holds a PhD in Performing Arts at Federal University – Brazil with a Visiting Scholarship at New York University and has 20 years of practice of physical theatre training and somatic-healing approaches for dancers, actors and bodywork practitioners. Andrea is a core member of Cross-Pollination Platform of Theatre where she is a co-creator in collaborative embodied research practice and is the Artistic Director for Intercultural Roots. Her passion to connect art, healing and public space performance has perfectly coalesced through Intercultural Roots’ ‘Arts for Health and Social Change’ programme.
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Dr Alex Boyd has a passion for developing collaborations based on equity, integrity and mutual benefit. He is the conceiver and cofounder of the EmbodiedResearch Working Group at the IFTR from which he cofounded and is Executive Director of Intercultural Roots. He is a practitioner-scholar who graduated from the University of California at DavisPhD programme with a focus on the fields of Performance Studies and Critical Education. Dr Boyd's dissertation entitled ‘The Sustainability of TraditionalKnowledge Systems’ draws on what is now 3 decades of professional work in practising, teaching and appreciating Chinese Daoist embodied culture to benefit communities in the UK, Europe and North America. He is a Research Associate with the University of California at Davis (Theatre & Dance) and a Core Member of Cross Pollination. His research explores how performers can cultivate presence and express this, work that has already benefited many internationally acclaimed dancers, musicians, athletes and even CEO’s.

Andrea and Alex are co-creators of the arts for health and social change programmes that Intercultural Roots has delivered.