Eline Kieft

In her work, Eline combines her passion for anthropology, health, spirituality, and her intimate knowledge of the dancer’s body. She studied contemporary dance at CODARTS, Rotterdam, and also qualified as a teacher in Movement Medicine. This is an improvisation-based, meditative dance practice with roots in a shamanic paradigm. She obtained a PhD in dance anthropology at the University of Roehampton in London, studying the contributions of Movement Medicine to participants’ wellbeing and empowerment. She was a Research Fellow at Centre for Dance Research, Coventry University, for many years. As a medical anthropologist, she has conducted various studies on health and wellbeing from a social and cultural perspective, working with people with learning disabilities, burnout and depression, and other long-term chronic conditions. In her previous post at The University of Exeter Medical School, she focused on the development and implementation of patient-initiated care in the NHS. Eline also teaches site-specific and outdoor movement practices, for instance through forest immersive sessions. She is a trained Qigong practitioner. Qigong is a millennial old system of coordinated body-posture and movement, breathing, and meditation used for the purposes of health, spirituality, and martial-arts training. Qigong draws energy from great natural sources. In this session, Eline will be showing how to draw physical energy from the woods.