is a movement consultant to schools and organizations, a movement trainer and mentor to teachers, and a movement artist. She is a licensed Lebed Method instructor and a certified Spacial Dynamics practitioner. Valerie has been performing, choreographing, directing and teaching movement and dance in San Francisco since 1973. A former ballet dancer (Hollywood Ballet) and choreographer (Pacific Ballet), she trained in the modern dance techniques of Horton with Bella Lewitzky, Graham with Donald McKayle and Limon with Aaron Osborne and Lisa Burnet. After receiving her BFA in Dance from California Institute of the Arts, she moved to San Francisco where she was a featured soloist at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and other locales. She has been a guest teacher of Dynamics for Dance for the Mountain View Academy of Ballet, Zohar Dance Center in Palo Alto, and Brisbane Dance Workshop. Valerie has choreographed dances and stage movement for many productions including student musicals "Fiddler On The Roof", "Oliver!" and "Guys and Dolls" and "Grease". In 2003 she produced and directed "Istanbul Late Night" in San Francisco with composer and musician Dov Goldberg, stage designer Michael Garrett, and many artists from the community. Since 2007 she has been a performing member of the nation's foremost vintage ballroom ensemble, The Academy of Danse Libre. Read more at danselibre.org/
As a certified Spacial Dynamics practitioner trained by Jaimen McMillan, Valerie Baadh was the Movement Education instructor at San Francisco Waldorf School from 1990 through 2006. She helped develop and taught a comprehensive developmental movement program for grades one through twelve and led workshops for parents, teachers and the community.
San Francisco Movement Studio classes and workshops began in 2005. In 2007, Valerie joined the faculty of the Neighborhood PlayGarden, the Yoga Garden, and the San Francisco Lifeways Teacher Training Program. She has been a guest presenter of movement workshops for Spacial Dynamics Institute, Rudolf Steiner College and San Francisco Waldorf School and mentors other movement teachers in the Bay Area. She created a cat's cradle string game toy, Mrs. Baadh's PlayStrings, which is in play with children around the world. Several of her movement stories were published as The Adventures of Uffe the Gnome in 2007, as well as a small collection of movement games for young children, Games We Play And Sing, from the collections of Joan Carr Shimer and Valerie Baadh. Both publications are available on our website and at bookstores around the country.
Valerie was a choreographer, dancer and movement trainer for the four international children's OlymPeace/AllinPeace Festivals which took place 2001 through 2006 in Olympia and Delphi, Greece, Quito, Ecuador, and just recently in Beijing, China.
Photo of Valerie Baadh with children at the Hands in Peace Festival 2006 in China by Benno Klandt.
