Alexander Technique Center at Cambridge

For the past 36 years, Tommy Thompson has taught the Alexander Technique to professional and Olympic athletes, dressage riders, scientists, physicians, corporate and university professionals, musicians, dancers, actors, children and the disabled. He has an exceptionally busy private teaching practice and has given over 350 workshops for Alexander teachers and teachers in training in the U.S.A., England, France, Ireland, Spain, Hungary, Canada, The Netherlands, Switzerland, Germany, Austria, Italy, Japan and Israel. Tommy is founder and Director of the Alexander Technique Center at Cambridge which has been training Alexander teachers since 1983. Tommy is also on the faculty at Harvard University where he teaches the Technique to graduate students enrolled in the Institute for Advanced Theater Training, Harvard University/Moscow Art Theater and the American Repertory Theater. In 1976, Tommy was special assistant to the 1976 Olympic USA Heavyweight Rowing Crew.

Prior to teaching the Alexander Technique, Tommy enjoyed a fruitful career in professional and university theater. He holds a M.A./Ph.D. (A.B.D.) in theatre arts/dramatic criticism from the University of California at Santa Barbara (1972). A former Assistant Professor of Drama and Managing Director of Tufts Arena Theater at Tufts University, and Lecturer at Harvard University Tommy has acted in and directed over 200 theater productions, working, acting or directing with such notable artists as Jerzy Grotowski, actor/producer Michael Douglas, Jerry Turner (of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival), Georgi Paro (Dubrovnik), Robert E. Lee (Inherit the Wind) and Tennessee Williams in a revival of Eccentricities of a Nightingale (1977). He taught, acted, or directed at the Pasadena Playhouse and later at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Loeb Drama Center (now The American Repertory Theater), California Institute of the Arts and other American repertory companies.

Tommy is co-founder, charter member, and first Chair of the Executive Board of Directors of Alexander Technique International (ATI). He served as Chair of ATI's Executive Board from 1993-1998 and Assistant Chair from 2000-2005. In October 2007, Tommy resigned after serving on the ATI Executive Board for sixteen years. He is currently out going Chair of ATI's International Committee. Tommy also co-founded the Alexander Technique Association of New England (ATA) in 1982 and the Frank Pierce Jones Archives and the F. Matthias Alexander Archives, housed in the Wessell Library at Tufts University. He was ATA’s director for six years.

Tommy is co-author of Scientific and Humanistic Contributions of Frank Pierce Jones and has contributed numerous papers on the Alexander work, Tai Chi, and theater to Alexander and theater journals, periodicals, martial arts journals, and newsletters. He has lectured and given workshops on the Alexander Technique for American and European universities, educational and medical centers, including Harvard, Brandeis and Cornell universities, New England Conservatory of Music, California Institute for the Arts, School at Jacob's Pillow Summer Dance Festival, Expanded Dance, Harvard and Bates College Summer Dance Festivals, La Canal Danse, Institut de Pedogogie Musicale et Choreographique, American Dance Guild and Children's Hospital Boston, and at the Alexander Technique Summer Festival at Sweetbriar College in Virginia.

Tommy has taught on teacher-training courses for over twenty trainings worldwide. Tommy presented papers at both the First and Second International Congresses for Alexander Teachers, and was one of the Second Generation Teachers invited to give master classes at the Third International Congress in Switzerland in August 1991. Tommy presented three classes as part of the presenters' forum at the Sixth International Congress in Freiburg, Germany in 1999. In addition, he delivered a paper, “Inhibition as Direct Experience” which was published in The Congress Papers. At the Eighth Annual Congress for the Alexander Technique in Lugano, Switzerland, Tommy was invited as one of the Continuous Learning Teachers and gave master classes to three quarters of the nearly 600 teachers and trainees present, including special workshops for the Japanese teachers. In 2012 Tommy will reduce the number of countries he teaches in and will focus on completing a book in progress while beginning his book on the Alexander work, The Gift of Self.

Personal

Tommy's late wife Julie Ince Thompson was a certified teacher of the Alexander Technique and a member of Alexander Technique International. She served on the faculty of the Alexander Technique Center at Cambridge, The Boston Conservatory of Music, Dance and Theatre, and The Harvard Summer Dance Center. Julie was a beloved member of the Boston dance community, particularly well known for her performance Tamsen Donner a Woman's Journey (1982-2002) which portrayed the pioneer adventures of the Donner Party in the 1800s. The Julie Ince Thompson Theatre at the Dance Complex in Cambridge, MA was named in her honor after her death.

Tommy's older daughter Adrianna is a Master teacher of Gyrotonics, an exercise modality that guides users to simultaneously stretch and strengthen muscles and tendons while also articulating and mobilizing joints. Adrianna holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts (B.F.A.) in dance from California State University at Long Beach (1991) and spent eight years in New York City as a professional dancer. She lives in Aspen, CO with her husband David, an actor and their son Aidan. Tommy's younger daughter Danielle is pursuing a Master of Public Policy (M.P.P.) with a concentration in health policy at The Heller School for Social Policy and Management at Brandeis University in Waltham, MA. Prior to graduate school, Danielle spent three years working for the Massachusetts Executive Office of Health and Human Services and recently completed a summer fellowship at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. She holds a Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) in history from Hollins University in Roanoke, VA (2005) with minors in creative writing and psychology.

Tommy's son Gabriel is a senior at Emerson College in Boston where he is working on a B.F.A. in Writing, Literature, and Publishing. In his free time, Gabe creates music videos, performs as a hip-hop recording artist and performer and has taught English to refugees at the Boston Jewish Community Center. You may listen to his music at: http://www.facebook.com/gabethompsonofficial and if you enjoy after listening to his music, please "like” on his facebook page to help launch his career.

About Deborah Adams, principal teacher

Debi Adams is a Certified Teacher of the Alexander Technique having received her certificates from Tommy Thompson and from Alexander Technique International. She is also a Nationally Certified Teacher of Piano.

Debi holds a Master of Music Degree in Piano Performance from Boston University. She currently teaches the Technique at the Boston Conservatory of Music and the Alexander Technique Center at Cambridge (a teacher training course), maintains a private practice in piano and the Alexander Technique and performs in the Boston area. She has taught workshops throughout the USA and in the Czech Republic.

Debi's interest in the work stems from her own experience recovering from hand injury. The Alexander work was last in a long line of investigations toward healing.. It was the only discipline that sufficiently addressed her needs. She feels a responsibility to share this important work with others. She has published articles in various music and Alexander journals. You can read her article on Piano and Alexander Technique on this site

About Bob Lada, principal teacher

Bob Lada is a Certified Teacher of the Alexander Technique having received his certificates from Tommy Thompson and from Alexander Technique International.

Bob teaches at the Alexander Technique Center of Cambridge, Chesapeake Bay Alexander Studies in Greensboro, NC, American Repertory Theater and Harvard Extension School as well as in private practice in Cambridge. He has taught workshops throughout the USA and Europe and is a charter member of Alexander Technique International.

Bob’s background is in athletics and analytics and he looks as the Technique as a tremendous aid in getting out of one’s way in performance situations so that creativity and skill can come through. He is currently working in videos about the Technique which will be posted on this site.

About Andrea Matthews, adjunct teacher

About Marie-Françoise Le Foll-Possompès, visiting teacher

After studying foreign languages and teaching German in French schools, Marie-Françoise discovered the Alexander Technique and moved to London to study with Patrick J. Macdonald. She became a certified teacher of the Technique in 1976.

She then returned to France and gave private lessons in Aix-en-Provence and Paris. She also directed a Teacher Training School for Alexander teachers from 1984 to 1995, one of her founding principles being that a diversity of perspectives should be represented. First and second generation teachers were regularly invited to teach – Marjorie Barstow, Walter and Dilys Carrington, for example – so that students were encouraged to develop their own vision and practice, while remaining faithful to the work of F. Matthias Alexander.

Marie-Françoise subsequently continued her private practice in Paris and taught on training programs and workshops in Europe, North America and Japan. In France, for example, she has run workshops for actors, dancers and singers in Avignon and numerous workshops for dancers and teachers at the Centre National de la Dance. Among the other professionals she has worked with are musicians, teaching graduates and medical personnel.

She has been a regular participant at the International Congress for Alexander Teachers, presenting papers on a number of occasions – “The work of Etienne Guillé in relation to the Alexander Technique” in Engelberg, Switzerland in 1991 and “Inhibition, a marvelous human potentiality we all possess” in Freiburg, Germany in 1999, both of which were published in the official books of Congress Papers.

For some years she was an active sponsoring member of Alexander Technique International (ATI). Convinced that the faculty of inhibition inherent in F. Matthias Alexander’s undoing approach had more secrets to reveal, she then “went back to school” in 1995 to study the works of Etienne Guillé, a French scientist, researcher and university professor.

As the study of movement, rhythm and respiration relates to many areas of life, Marie-Françoise also works with her architect husband. Since 2005 she has opened her Paris studio to both private students and trainee teachers of the Alexander Technique. Her aim is that this teaching should be closely linked to the questions man is faced with in the modern world.

About Rosa Luisa Rossi, adjunct teacher

Rosa Luisa Rossi's interest is to research the complexities of human development and well being.

Since 1986, she has taught the Alexander Technique in schools and companies, privately and in groups, mainly in Zurich and in Rheinfelden where she lives but also around the world.

She is Co-Director of Think out of the Box, a company specializing in Alexander Technique workshops for corporate clients. In addition, she regularly organizes workshops in Switzerland and abroad, which combine the findings of F.M. Alexander with activities such as horseback riding, tennis, tango, singing, music, painting and Japanese Tea-Ceremony, always co-coaching with experienced teachers in those disciplines.

She also offers private lessons, group teachings and workshops combining the Alexander Technique with Vision and good use of the eyes.

Her teaching expertise draws from continuing education workshops in Europe, the United States and from her numerous teaching trips to Japan.

About David Gorman, adjunct teacher

David Gorman has a background as an artist and a fascination with exploring human structure and function. In the mid-70s he spent many nights dissecting in the lab and drawing furiously. In 1980 he published an illustrated 600-page work, The Body Moveable and a collection of articles and essays, Looking at Ourselves in 1996.

He studied the Alexander Technique since 1972 and taught that work from 1980-1997 becoming well-known worldwide for his innovations to the work. He has been invited to teach all over the world in universities, conservatories and training colleges, at conferences and symposia, and with performance groups and health professionals.

In 1982, his teaching was revolutionized by his discovery of a new model of human organization with its profound implications of our in-built and natural tendency toward balance, ease and wholeness. He extended these insights into a new way of training teachers of the Alexander Technique and from 1988 to 1997 in London, UK he trained 45 teachers, assisted by Ann Penistan.

However, further explorations in his own and other training groups made it clear that a great part of our problems lay not in the 'body' but in our consciousness and way of seeing things — our underlying belief systems and how we misinterpret our daily experiences and then react to these misunderstandings. Recognizing the need for a new approach to help people uncover and liberate themselves from these circular traps, David developed the LearningMethods work to teach people how to gain command of their exquisite in-built clarity of perception and powerful tools of intelligence so they can successfully navigate their lives.

Since the beginning of the work in 1997, David has completed the training of a growing number of LearningMethods Teachers, many of whom are now teaching the LM work in universities and conservatories, and continues to evolve the Apprenticeship Teacher Training Program. He continues to give workshops in Europe, North America and Asia including at various Alexander Technique training courses as well as writing about the work and raising another young son.