Leadership

Andrea Saito is an artist, art therapist, and researcher. She holds MAs in Cultural Management (International University of Catalonia) and in Artistic and Creative Therapies (ISEP, Barcelona). She also studied engraving (Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú) and Japanese Woodblock (University of the Arts, London). She published Essencial Tune (2016) and Art Lab vol.1 (2017) in collaboration with Radar Art Lab. Andrea led interdisciplinary art labs in Lima and was in charge of the Cine Olaya Cultural Center. She worked as a cultural manager at Nau Bostik and Acid House in Barcelona. She currently offers Art Therapy sessions for individuals and groups and is a Dance Therapy teacher at Holistic Dansart, Puigcerdà.

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Jade leads Programmes & Operations at the Institute of Devotional Arts, supporting the design and delivery of our programmes from planning through participant care. With a degree in Communications from the University of Cape Town and over a decade of experience across non-profit organisations in South Africa and Australia, she brings deep expertise in community engagement, stakeholder communication, and programme coordination.

At IDA, Jade oversees operational systems that help our faculty, partners, and participants work smoothly together—strengthening access, inclusion, and a consistent learning experience across initiatives. Her work is grounded in practical empathy and clear execution, ensuring that people feel supported while programmes stay organised, responsive, and well run.

Outside IDA, Jade remains active in community volunteering and is a long-time practitioner of yoga and mindfulness.

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Małgorzata Goliszewska is a PhD candidate at the Worclaw Academy of Art and a research assistant of Prof. Aleksandra Janik. She holds a BA in Fine Arts from Cluj-Napoca University of Arts and Design in Romania and an MFA in painting and new media from the Szczecin Academy of Art in Poland.

Her thesis, "Art as Presence:Presence as Art", explores the ways in which art can enable both the creator and viewer to establish a profound connection with reality. She approaches art not as a concept, but as a state of being, as a transformative tool for human consciousness, and as a means of experiencing the present moment. The objective of art is not as the personal expression of the individual, but the dissolution of the individual, leading to a state of complete presence. It draws inspiration from such as Zen Buddhism, Vedic theories of Rasa, Christian Orthodoxy, as well as from the philosophy of G. I. Gurdjieff.

Małgorzata is also a documentary artist, poet, and filmmaker. She has exhibited and performed worldwide, including at the Venice Biennale in 2013 and 2019.  

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Jorge N. Ferrer, PhD, is a clinical psychologist, author, and educator. Jorge was a professor for more than 20 years at the California Institute of Integral Studies, where he served as chair of the Department of East–West Psychology. He is the author many articles and books on transpersonal psychology, integral education, religious studies, and intimate relationships, including Espiritualidad Creativa: Una Vision Participativa de lo Transpersonal (Kairos, 2004), Participation and the Mystery: Transpersonal Essays in Psychology, Education, and Religion (SUNY Press, 2017), and Love and Freedom: Transcending Monogamy and Polyamory (Rowman & Littlefield, 2021). Jorge was a member of the Esalen Institute’s Center for Theory and Research as well as an advisor to the Religions for Peace organization at the United Nation.

Caroline Obolensky, PhD, is an entrepreneur, truffle cultivator, and researcher. Caroline wrote her thesis on social entrepreneurship and responsible ownership for a more equitable and sustainable economy at the University of St Gallen. She founded several start-ups in a wide range of fields such as an art meta-search engine, a truffle plantation, and an academic productivity platform. Besides angel investments in sustainable Proptech ventures, she is fascinated with alternative medicine, holistic well-being, and ways to explore human nature beyond its intellectual capacities. She is currently the CEO of Thurgau Institute for Digital Transformation (TIDT), which is dedicated to advancing knowledge and expertise in the field of digital transformation, particularly within the context of businesses and organizations

Patrick Curry is a Canadian-born writer and scholar who has lived for many years in London. He holds a BA in psychology from U.C. Santa Cruz, an M.Sc. in Logic from the LSE, and a PhD in the History and Philosophy of Science from University College London. He hasbeen a lecturer at the University of Kent and Bath Spa University, and in currently a tutor at the University of Wales Trinity St David. Patrick is the author of, amongother books, Defending Middle-Earth: Tolkien, Myth and Modernity (Houghton Mifflin,2004), Ecological Ethics: An Introduction (Polity Press, 2017), Enchantment:Wonder in Modern Life (Floris, 2019), and most recently Art and Enchantment: How Wonder Works (Routledge, 2023). He is now working on the third and final book about what is now his principal subject, entitled Living Enchantment. He is also editor-in-chief of the online journal The Ecological Citizen and a companion of The Guild of St George, the education charity started by John Ruskin.

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Revd Jean-Yves Leloup, PhD, is a theologian, psychologist, Orthodox priest, and writer. Jean-Yves is the author of over 90 books and has translated and commented on numerous Christian texts such as the apocryphal gospels according to Thomas, Philip, and Mary. His oeuvre covers a broad range of topics, including the Desert Fathers, Gnosticism, and the role of the feminine in the history of Christianity. In the early 1990s, he pioneered transpersonal psychology in France, co-organizing the first conference on the subject and founding the International College of Therapists, which promotes a holistic and pluralistic approach to the care of the self. As a life-long advocate of intercultural and interreligious dialogue, Jean-Yves founded the Institute for the Encounter and Study of Civilizations as well as the Unipaz, one of the three universities of peace recognized by UNESCO. He advocates and embodies a Christian spirituality that is both faithful to its roots and open to other traditions, free from sectarian dogma, but full of depth and beauty.

Angela Voss, PhD SFHEA, is an author, musician, and co-founder of the Centre for Myth,Cosmology and the Sacred. Angela led a career as a musician in London before becoming an academic and astrologer in Canterbury, UK. Whilst she was involved in the world of Renaissance and Baroque music, she became intrigued by the astrological music therapy of the Renaissance philosopher Marsilio Ficino, which became the subject of her doctorate and of a CD ‘Secrets of the Heavens’. Angela is the author and editor of several books, including The Imaginal Cosmos (Jean Hinson Lall, 2006), Daimonic Imagination, Uncanny Intelligence (Cambridge Scholars, 2013), and Re-enchanting the Academy (Rubedo Press, 2017) as well as of numerous articles and chapters on Ficino, esoteric philosophy, and astrology. She directed graduate programmes in The Cultural Study of Cosmology and Divination and Myth, Cosmology, and the Sacred at Canterbury Christ Church University for 15 years. She has always been a walker between the worlds of symbolic practice and academia, with a passion for restoring the soul in scholarship. 

Tom Cheetham, PhD, is a philosopher, biologist,and poet exploring creative imagination in human life and culture. Tom was professor of environmental studies and ecology for over 20 years and is one of the leading experts on French philosopher and Islamic scholar Henry Corbin. He has written five books on the imagination in psychology, religion, science, and the arts, including Imaginal Love: The Meanings of Imagination in Henry Corbin and James Hillman (Spring Publications, 2015) and All the World an Icon: Henry Corbin and the Angelic Function of Beings (North Atlantic Books, 2012) as well as a book of poems, Boundary Violations (Dos Madres Press, 2015). He also co-edited Vol. 11 of James Hillman's' Writings on melancholy and depression (Spring Publications, 2022). Tom was awarded the John Templeton Foundation Prize for Expanding Humanity’s Vision of God and is a Fellow of the Temenos Academy.

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Jessica Bockler, PhD, is a distinguished psychologist and theatre practitioner with over 25 years of experience in expressive arts facilitation, specializing in embodied approaches to accessing creativity and imagination. She is the co-founder and CEO of the Alef Trust, an organization focused on transformative and integrative education, and the founder of Creative Alternatives, an arts-based mental well-being service in the UK recognized for award-winning innovation in public service.

Jessica is a member of the British Psychological Society and the Royal Society for Public Health, as well as a Fellow of the Royal Society for Arts, Manufactures, and Commerce, one of the UK’s oldest organizations supporting social innovation. She serves as an academic advisor to the Inner Development Goals, collaborates with the UN’s Conscious Food Systems Alliance and the Presencing Institute, and is on the editorial board of the International Journal of Presencing Leadership & Coaching. Additionally, she acts as a reviewer for the Journal of Awareness-Based Systems Change.

Nino Naneishvili holds a Bachelor of Arts in Piano, a Master of Sacred Music from Tbilisi State Conservatory, as well as a PhD in ethnomusicology from Ilia State University. Nino is a lecturer at the University of Church Chant and at Rose Bruford College in London, as well as an assistant professor at Giorgi Mtatsmindeli University. She has published several articles on the Georgian singing tradition, especially on sacred music. As an award-winning singer, she was a member of various folk ensembles and church choirs such as the Sathanao choir and the Alilo Ensemble. She has performed and offered workshops throughout Europe. Nino also served as strategy coordinator for the Ministry of Culture from 2015 to 2016 and has been guiding annual tours in a dozen Georgian regions over the past 20 years.

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Kythe Maryam Heller is an award-winning poet, interdisciplinary artist, and founder of Vision Lab, a global art and research collective exploring the future of the human spirit. She holds an MFA in Poetry from Sarah Lawrence College as well as an MDiv and a PhD in Literary Studies and Comparative Religion from Harvard University. As the author of Firebird (Arrowsmith), a poetry collection nominated for the Massachusetts Book Award, Kythe’s work explores the intersections of mysticism, spirituality, and social justice. Her writing spans poetry, essays, and critical studies, with recent publications in Cambridge University Press and Akron Series in Contemporary Poetics. Kythe is currently a faculty member at Bard College and Villanova University, where she inspires others to push the boundaries of creative writing and artistic expression and is a faculty member at Bard College. Her art engages contemporary spirituality and social justice, pushing the boundaries of how we experience art and the human condition.

Linda Wise is an actor, director, and voice coach. Linda grew up in Kenya and trained as an actress in Scotland at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama. Linda worked the Roy Hart Theatre, an avant-garde company known for its radical approach to voice work from 1969 and was one of the founders of the Roy Hart Centre in France. She currently directs, with Enrique Pardo, Pantheatre, which they founded in 1978. Linda has performed, taught, and directed shows around the world. She has taught voice work at national theatre schools in Denmark,Norway, Australia, New Zealand, Chile, Argentina, Scotland, and France. She performed Nedda in the Roy Hart Theatre’s OBIE winning performance of“Pagliacci” and later directed “Moby Dick” Prix Jean Vilar. She has directed a series of solos (Cassandra, The Song of Songs, Granade, Les sybilles) as well as a jazz-opera “Overflaten” in Norway, an immersive theatre piece in NY“ Inside the Wild Heart”. Her latest piece “the Invader’s Fear of Memories”, written and performed by Ben Rivers, premiered in Johannesburg in 2023.

Ewa Zurakowska, PhD, is a cultural anthropologist, performer, singer, and theatre director. Ewa attended the Gardzienice Centre for Theatre Practices and graduated from the University of Warsaw with an MA degree in Cultural Anthropology. She wrote her doctoral thesis on traditional songs and site-specific theatre at the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague, where currently teaches performance and ritual at the Anglo-American University. Since 2010 she has been performing as a singer for Korjen, whose music draws inspiration from her ethnomusicological journeys to the Balkans, the Republic of Tuva,Lapland, Eastern Poland, and Ukraine.

Her artistic work explores the connection between space, sound, and body. She performed for the Czech company Divadlo Continuo and for Teatr Novogo Fronta as well as for several other organizations such as Studio Matejka (PL), Budalasultan (Turkey), and Rose Bruford College (UK). She directed the documentary musical performance based on mining folklore and taught at the Milon Mela Centre for Performing Indian Arts. Ewa also works as a coordinator for Polish-Czech cultural partnerships and supports the Gorzanow Castle Foundation in Lower Silesia Poland.

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Enrique Pardo is a theatre director, performer, writer,and visual artist. Born in Peru in 1946, he went to school in France, studied painting at the Chelsea School of Art, and taught Fine Arts at Goldsmith College, University of London. He joined the Roy Hart Theatre in 1968, a utopian avant-garde company known for its radical voice work, with which he moved to Malerargues, Southern France, in 1875. In 1878, he founded Pantheatre (from Pan, the dancer-singer god), which he co-directs with his partner, Linda Wise. Enrique has collaborated with a wide array of artists, thinkers, and psychotherapists. One of his main intellectual sources of inspiration is the post-Jungian psychologist James Hillman, father of archetypal psychology, with whom he created the Myth and Theatre Festival in 1986. Enrique directs and teaches choreographic theatre and voice performance, weaving together movement and dance, music, voice and singing, with a complex poetical approach to the inclusion of text, which he describes as « Cubist, as in Cuba », that is, closer to voodoo than to formal cubes.

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Guillermo Rozenthuler is an Argentine-born vocalist, guitarist, and facilitator based in London. Trained in classical and cross-cultural ancestral singing, he began his career performing jazz, tango, and Latin American music before dedicating himself to vocal improvisation and circle singing. A pioneer of spontaneous collective singing, he leads workshops and retreats worldwide exploring voice, presence, and connection. Guillermo’s approach — shaped by traditions from South America to Europe —celebrates singing as a universal birthright and a pathway to belonging, creativity, and inner freedom. Founder of The Singing Village and the ensemble Anthropos – Songs of Humanity, his work bridges artistry and human development, inviting participants into experiences of deep listening and shared expression where the voice becomes a tool for transformation and community.

Holly Taylor-Zuntz is a singer and choir director. Her mission is to bring the folk music of Georgia to a global audience. She holds a BA (Hons) in European Theatre Arts from Rose Bruford College and studied Natural Voice Leader with Frankie Armstrong as well as Advanced Circle Singing and Vocal Improvisation leader training with Guillermo Rozenthuler. Over the past five years, Holly has been conducting research on Georgian polyphonic music, spending several months a year in Georgia learning from local ethnomusicologists. She created three theatre shows about Georgian music in the UK. She is the founder and co-host of the Voices of the Ancestors podcast and directs the Georgian choir in Oxford. Holly also leads open-access community choirs and offers workshops that encourage everyone to sing, no matter their vocal experience.

Olga Lidia Kozłowska is a licensed psychologist, singer, and voice coach. She is certified in Core Energetics Body Psychotherapist, Process training (A&A Mindell), and holds an MA in education. Drawing inspiration from Alexander Technique and Polyvagal Theory, Olga approaches voice work in a holistic and embodied way. She specializes in traditional Slavic and Georgian singing, choral music, and improvisation. Her teachers include Franke Kane, Natalia Polovynka, Emma Bonnici, Amit Carmeli, Kristin Linklater, and Lane Aryne. She is the founder of Authentic Voice and has been leading workshops since 2011.

Aaron Finbloom, PhD, is a philosopher, performance artist, and pedagogue, as well as the founder and director of The Deep Play Institute and co-founder of The School of Making Thinking. Aaron earned a PhD in Interdisciplinary Humanities from Concordia University and an MA in Philosophy and Art from Stony Brook University. His work involves designing performative “conversation pieces” for transformative inquiry that seek to aesthetically expand the scope of philosophical, academic, and psychotherapeutic pedagogies. He has presented these works internationally at conferences, exhibitions, and theaters such as The School of the Art Institute (Chicago), Maschinenhaus Kulturbrauerei (Berlin), and UNAM (Mexico City). The scores of such works have been published in multiple platforms including “Propositional Attitudes” (Golden Spike Press, 2018) a book of performance scores which showcased at The Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago. His research into philosophical-performative pedagogies has been published in journals such as Performance Research and TENOR. Aaron currently teaches philosophy at The City College of New York and at the University of Portland. 

Benjamin Korta is a somatic therapist/educator, bodyworker, musician, and researcher. Benjamin received an MTS in Religion, Dance, and Performance from Harvard University, where, with Ilya Vidrin, he co-directed Movement Lab, a colloquium on somatics, education, and neuroscience. He is a guest editor for the Journal of Dance and Somatic Practices and a writer/facilitator for Michael Hamm, a centre for integrative bodywork therapy. Benjamin’s teaching, research, and collaborative projects engage the intersection of movement, spirituality, neuroscience, somatic therapy, ecology, and philosophy.

Currently, he is developing, with Jenna Spinei, a practice-based research study on the use of embodied visualization for individuals with body image and anxiety disorders. He is the co-developer, with Maybel Ovalles, of Field Movement, an open system of movement practices that investigates the field-like features of perception, action, and collective awareness. He is steadily completing an album of music and video art with his partner, Arulu Gallagher,and has presented visual art, poetry, and performances at Tanzfabrik Berlin, Chicago Performance Philosophy conference, the School of Making Thinking, and other venues.

Marianne Costa is an author, actor, and globally renowned Tarot scholar. A graduate of both the École Normale Supérieure, where she earned an MA in Comparative Literature, and of the Jacques Lecoq School of Physical Theatre, she has worked as a performer and has written and translated numerous works of poetry, fiction, and essays.

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She collaborated closely with filmmaker Alejandro Jodorowsky, co-authoring The Way of Tarot (2005) and Metagenealogy (2011), and helping to revitalize the Tarot as a path of spiritual and psychological exploration.

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As a specialist in symbology, Marianne collaborates with leading cultural institutions such as the Guggenheim Collection in Venice and the Accademia di Belle Arti in Palermo. Integrating mythology, transgenerational psychology, and creative expression, she teaches Tarot as a mirror of the soul to audiences worldwide.

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Marta Carvalho is a visual artist and art therapist. She has been creating sacred spaces of transformative and healing arts since 2012. Marta holds degrees in Graphic Design and Visual Arts Theory. Her approach merges intuitive painting with vocal improvisation, somatic awareness, and performative practices. For the past four years, she has been developing numerous collaborative, interdisciplinary, and participatory art projects in Portugal. She guides personal and artistic development processes through individual mentoring, art therapy courses, and art residencies.

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Riki Parenti is a certified music therapist (Les Heures, University of Barcelona) and an accredited neurologic music therapist (MTAE-53). He hold degrees in music from the University of Bologna and in transpersonal psychology (IPTB). Riki has been working as a music therapist since 2010 and specializes in neurorehabilitation. As a singer, he has been exploring the voice in its most ancestral aspects, mastering the overtones singing technique. He was a member of MuOM Overtone Singing Choir with which he released two albums and toured internationally. In recent years, he has been deepening the Dhrupad singing technique. Riki facilitates the personal growth laboratory "Journey through the Voice" where he mixes body and vocal work with transpersonal music therapy.