Rena Kornblum

Rena Kornblum is a board-certified dance/movement therapist with over 40 years of professional experience as a dance/movement therapist. She is licensed in the state of Wisconsin to practice psychotherapy specifically through expressive arts therapies and is senior lecturer in the Dance Department, where she also serves as the advisor for the undergraduate certificate program in Dance/Movement Therapy at UW-Madison.

Rena established the Children and Family Program at Hancock Center for Dance/Movement Therapy, where she served as Executive Director for 12 years. During her work at the Hancock Center, she developed Disarming the Playground, an embodied social skills curriculum. She currently uses this curriculum in the Madison public schools to teach social skills classes and violence prevention to children.

In addition to several articles on dance movement therapy, Rena has published a book titled Disarming the Playground, Violence Prevention Through Movement and Pro-Social Skills, in 2003, which has been called “a must read for anyone who is concerned about the violence that permeates our society” (Afsaneh Rahimian, Ph.D., Violence Prevention Researcher & Program Evaluator).

Her many awards include the 2009 American Dance Therapy Association Excellence in Education Award and the 2013 Unsung Hero Award by the National Alliance in Mental Illness. She has also received several teaching awards from the UW-Madison.

Rena travels globally to conduct workshops and trainings on her Embodied Violence Prevention and Pro-Social Skills curriculum, on the use of dance/movement therapy with children dealing with trauma, and on family therapy. She has recently taught intensive courses in Argentina, Korea, and China.