• Founders of BabyContact


    The founders of this new approach to dance with babies are two Russian women, Alfiya Rakhmanova and Olga Zotova .

    This is what they say about themselves and how it all began:
    “We have many different interests in life but what both of us are really fascinated about is dance and the way it can change people’s lives, bring more openness and freedom into it. We are moms who have been dancing before the pregnancy, during the pregnancy, and after giving birth we realized that we just can’t stop dancing — but now we would love to do it together with our babies, as it is such a natural thing to do and a joyful experience for both a parent and a kid. But soon it turned out that at the time in the city there was no such a place where moms with a small baby would feel welcomed, where they could spend time together in a meaningful way. So we decided to create such a space, where we could share the dance with other parents and children.

    Our background in dance and contact improvisation, psychology and dance/movement therapy helps us to connect the best of available research in the field of developmental psychology with practical experience as moms and inspiration as dancers.”



    Alfiya Rakhmanova — has a degree in psychology and dance/movement therapy, member of Association of Dance and Movement Therapy of Russia.
    Alfiya is a practicing psychotherapist; she conducts trainings and classes on movement, contact improvisation, art and dance therapy.
    At the moment she is especially interested in perinatal psychology.
    She is a mom of Ruslan (December 2007).





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    Olga Zotova — has a degree in sociology, she is a business trainer, specialist in corporate communications and knowledge management. Since 2002 she has been practicing dance improvisation, contact improvisation and contemporary dance. She conducts trainings on movement. Her personal interests are developmental psychology and positive psychology and how dance can enhance people’s life and bring more meaning into it.
    She is a mom of Ilya (July 2008).