Dancing Dialogue

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Dancing Dialogue A multi-disciplinary, embodied, creative arts psychotherapy practice with locations in New York City and Cold Spring, NY

Dancing Dialogue LCAT LMHC PLLC is a creative arts and embodied psychotherapy practice with offices in New York City and Cold Spring, NY. We also provide training and continuing education for mental health care providers interested in increasing their knowledge of embodied, creative, and movement-based psychotherapy. Dr. Tortora is a board certified dance movement therapist, Laban Nonverbal Movement Analyst, and specialist in the field of infancy mental health and development. Her expertise in early childhood development and the importance of early relationships inform her psychotherapeutic work across the life span. Dr. Tortora has a private dance movement psychotherapy practice, in New York City and Cold Spring-on-the-Hudson, New York. Dr. Tortora offers training programs and lectures about her dance therapy and nonverbal video analysis work with infants, children and families, at national and international professional meetings and universities. She is on the board of the New York Zero-to-Three Network. Dr Tortora has been featured on “Good Morning America” and Eyewitness Five-O’Clock News, WABC –TV; Women’s Day magazine; highlighted in Malcolm Gladwell's New Yorker article and book titled What the Dog Saw and other adventures; has published numerous papers about her therapeutic and nonverbal communication analysis work with children, parent-infant dyads, and Autism Spectrum Disorders; has twice been guest editor of the Zero to Three Journal; and has a book with Paul H. Brookes Publishing Company titled The Dancing Dialogue: Using the Communicative Power of Movement with Young Children. Dr. Tortora graduated with honors from the Eliot-Pearson Department of Child Development Tufts University specializing in child development, education and psychology; received her dance movement therapy masters degree at New York University; and her doctorate with a specialization in infancy/early childhood development, psychology and education from Teachers College, Columbia University. She has done extensive study and training in the field of infancy and early childhood research, development, education, communication and intervention through the Zero to Three Institute and Dr. Stanley Greenspan. She has studied Authentic Movement with Janet Adler & Body-Mind Centering with Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen. Dr Tortora is also a certified Laban Movement Analyst, and Kestenberg Movement Profiler.

Grief lives not only in our thoughts, but in the body. Finding Meaning After Loss is a 10-session online Thursday evenin...
10/24/2026

Grief lives not only in our thoughts, but in the body. Finding Meaning After Loss is a 10-session online Thursday evening grief support group for adults who have lost a spouse, partner, significant other, or parent. Through guided conversation, movement, poetry, writing, and art, you honor the person you lost and reconnect with what gives your life meaning. Our next group begins Thursday, November 12, led by Jenn Whitley. Join from anywhere. Learn more and reserve a seat: https://www.dancingdialogue.com/grief-support-group-nyc

You can often tell how someone is doing before they speak, from the tempo of their walk, the weight in each step, whethe...
10/21/2026

You can often tell how someone is doing before they speak, from the tempo of their walk, the weight in each step, whether their movement travels outward or stays gathered close. What we read so easily in others is also available about ourselves. Movement carries mood. And because the conversation runs both ways, changing how you move can shift how you feel. Slowing your pace can settle agitation. Expansive movement can lift a flattened state. The body is always talking with itself.

Anxiety often looks like a thinking problem, so we try to reason with the worry. Each answer produces a new doubt, and t...
10/14/2026

Anxiety often looks like a thinking problem, so we try to reason with the worry. Each answer produces a new doubt, and the reassurance never quite sticks. Before anxiety is a thought, it is usually a change in the body. Breath quickens. Muscles tighten. Vision narrows. Reasoning addresses the top of the loop while the physical activation underneath keeps supplying fuel. Shifting the physiology gives the system a real chance to settle.

This November, Dr. Suzi Tortora will join her dear friend Dr. Diana Fischman online for Brecha’s Ultimo Seminario del An...
10/12/2026

This November, Dr. Suzi Tortora will join her dear friend Dr. Diana Fischman online for Brecha’s Ultimo Seminario del Ano, the final intensive seminar of the year at the current Brecha studio in Buenos Aires.

Brecha is one of Argentina’s leading Dance/Movement Therapy training programs, and this gathering carries extra meaning. It is the last seminar at the current space before Brecha moves to a new home.

We are honored to be part of this global community of embodied practice, even from a distance. If you are interested in attending, reach Brecha directly at [email protected] or visit www.brecha.com.ar.

Regulation is not the same as calm. A steady nervous system can rise into anger, grief, or excitement and find its way b...
10/07/2026

Regulation is not the same as calm. A steady nervous system can rise into anger, grief, or excitement and find its way back to baseline. What matters is flexibility and recovery, not the absence of intensity. These small practices work because breath, posture, and movement are among the inputs your body uses to decide how alarmed it should be. Try any of them when you are already relatively settled, so the pattern becomes familiar before you need it. A minute practiced often will do more than twenty minutes practiced rarely.

There are moments when your thoughts move faster than you do. Grounding is a family of small practices that help you re-...
09/16/2026

There are moments when your thoughts move faster than you do. Grounding is a family of small practices that help you re-establish contact with the present through your body, the weight of your feet, the temperature of the air, the rhythm of your breath.

It won't erase anxiety. What it can offer is a small increase in steadiness, enough to notice what you're feeling and make a choice.

Save this one for a moment you might need it.

Movement travels. Last Thursday, Dr. Suzi Tortora joined the Children's Cancer Foundation in Singapore for a virtual Ped...
09/15/2026

Movement travels. Last Thursday, Dr. Suzi Tortora joined the Children's Cancer Foundation in Singapore for a virtual Peds Dance Party Collaboration with the social workers and therapists who care for children at KK Women's and Children's Hospital and National University Hospital.

Together, we explored how dance and movement can offer children navigating serious illness a language for what words cannot always hold. Thank you to Hwee Hsiang and the entire CCF team for the invitation, and for the deep care you bring to every family you serve.

What role has movement played in your own healing? We would love to hear.

Have you ever known something was wrong but had no words for it?That gap isn't a failure of vocabulary. Some experiences...
09/09/2026

Have you ever known something was wrong but had no words for it?

That gap isn't a failure of vocabulary. Some experiences were encoded before language was available, and others were too overwhelming to turn into a story at the time. The body kept the record anyway.

Adding a body-based dimension to therapy doesn't discard talking. It gives insight and felt experience a chance to catch up with each other.

Anxiety is often described as a thought problem, but ask where you feel it, and the answer is usually physical. Tight ch...
09/02/2026

Anxiety is often described as a thought problem, but ask where you feel it, and the answer is usually physical. Tight chest. Clenched jaw. Legs that will not stop moving.

A body that spends a lot of time braced can start treating bracing as normal. Working somatically means starting with those physical facts, rather than arguing with the thoughts.

September is Su***de Prevention Month. If you or someone you know is struggling, call or text 988.

***dePreventionMonth

The silks came out and the whole circle came alive. At the Cold Spring Farmers Market, Dr. Suzi Tortora led children thr...
08/28/2026

The silks came out and the whole circle came alive. At the Cold Spring Farmers Market, Dr. Suzi Tortora led children through movement and play during a special storytime with children's book author Barry Waldo, who shared his book The Secret Life of Tools. Hand a child a piece of flowing color and watch what happens. It becomes a wave, a wind, a cape, a feeling. Scarves are one of the simplest tools in dance/movement therapy because they invite big, expansive movement and give children a way to express themselves before they have the words. And the little ones watching from the edge of the blanket? That's participation too. Thank you to Barry and to every family who joined the circle.

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1806 Route 9D, Suite 1
Cold Spring, NY
10516

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