Tommy Thompson

 

Alexander Technique (A1 & A2)

For the past 36 years, Tommy Thompson has taught the Alexander Technique to professional and Olympic athletes, dressage riders, scientists, physicians, corporate and university professionals, musicians, dancers, actors, children and the disabled. He has an exceptionally busy private teaching practice and has given over 350 workshops for Alexander teachers and teachers in training and the general public in the U.S.A., England, France, Ireland, Spain, Hungary, Canada, The Netherlands, Switzerland, Germany, Austria, Italy, Japan and Israel. Tommy is founder and Director of the Alexander Technique Center at Cambridge which has been training Alexander teachers since 1983. Tommy is also on the faculty at Harvard University where he teaches the Technique to graduate students enrolled in the Institute for Advanced Theater Training, Harvard University/Moscow Art Theater and the American Repertory Theater. In 1976, Tommy was special assistant to the 1976 Olympic USA Heavyweight Rowing Crew.

Prior to teaching the Alexander Technique, Tommy enjoyed a fruitful career in professional and university theater. He holds a M.A./Ph.D. (A.B.D.) in theatre arts/dramatic criticism from the University of California at Santa Barbara (1972). A former Assistant Professor of Drama and Managing Director of Tufts Arena Theater at Tufts University, and Lecturer at Harvard University Tommy has acted in and directed over 200 theater productions, working, acting or directing with such notable artists as Jerzy Grotowski, actor/producer Michael Douglas, Jerry Turner (of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival), Georgi Paro (Dubrovnik), Robert E. Lee (Inherit the Wind) and Tennessee Williams in a revival of Eccentricities of a Nightingale (1977). He taught, acted, or directed at the Pasadena Playhouse and later at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Loeb Drama Center (now The American Repertory Theater), California Institute of the Arts and other American repertory companies.

Tommy is co-founder, charter member, and first Chair of the Executive Board of Directors of Alexander Technique International (ATI). He served as Chair of ATI's Executive Board from 1993-1998 and Assistant Chair from 2000-2005. In October 2007, Tommy resigned after serving on the ATI Executive Board for sixteen years. He is currently out going Chair of ATI's International Committee. Tommy also co-founded the Alexander Technique Association of New England (ATA) in 1982 and the Frank Pierce Jones Archives and the F. Matthias Alexander Archives, housed in the Wessell Library at Tufts University. He was ATA’s director for six years.

Tommy is co-author of Scientific and Humanistic Contributions of Frank Pierce Jones and has contributed numerous papers on the Alexander work, Tai Chi, and theater to Alexander and theater journals, periodicals, martial arts journals, and newsletters. He has lectured and given workshops on the Alexander Technique for American and European universities, educational and medical centers, including Harvard, Brandeis and Cornell universities, New England Conservatory of Music, Bereklee School of Music, California Institute for the Arts, School at Jacob's Pillow Summer Dance Festival, Expanded Dance, Harvard and Bates College Summer Dance Festivals, La Canal Danse, Institut de Pedogogie Musicale et Choreographique, American Dance Guild and Children's Hospital Boston, and at the Alexander Technique Summer Festival at Sweetbriar College in Virginia.

Tommy has taught on teacher-training courses for over twenty trainings worldwide. Tommy presented papers and master classes at all of the International Congresses for Alexander Teachers he was able to attend. and was one of the Second Generation Teachers invited to give master classes at the Third International Congress in Switzerland in August 1991. At the Eighth Annual Congress for the Alexander Technique in Lugano, Switzerland, Tommy was invited as one of the Continuous Learning Teachers and gave master classes to three quarters of the nearly 600 teachers and trainees present, including special workshops for the Japanese teachers.

In 2013, Tommy will reduce the number of countries he teaches in and will focus on completing a book in progress while beginning his book on the Alexander work, The Gift of Self.

 

Personal

Tommy's late wife Julie Ince Thompson was a certified teacher of the Alexander Technique and a member of Alexander Technique International. She served on the faculty of the Alexander Technique Center at Cambridge, The Boston Conservatory of Music, Dance and Theatre, and The Harvard Summer Dance Center. Julie was a beloved member of the Boston dance community, particularly well known for her performance Tamsen Donner a Woman's Journey (1982-2002) which portrayed the pioneer adventures of the Donner Party in the 1800s. The Julie Ince Thompson Theatre at the Dance Complex in Cambridge, MA was named in her honor after her death.

Tommy's older daughter Adrianna is a Master teacher of Gyrotonics, an exercise modality that guides users to simultaneously stretch and strengthen muscles and tendons while also articulating and mobilizing joints. Adrianna holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts (B.F.A.) in dance from California State University at Long Beach (1991) and spent eight years in New York City as a professional dancer. She lives in Aspen, CO with her husband David, an actor and their son Aidan. Tommy's younger daughter Danielle is pursuing a Master of Public Policy (M.P.P.) with a concentration in health policy at The Heller School for Social Policy and Management at Brandeis University in Waltham, MA. Prior to graduate school, Danielle spent three years working for the Massachusetts Executive Office of Health and Human Services and recently completed a summer fellowship at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. She holds a Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) in history from Hollins University in Roanoke, VA (2005) with minors in creative writing and psychology.

Tommy's son Gabriel is a senior at Emerson College in Boston where he is working on a B.F.A. in Writing, Literature, and Publishing. In his free time, Gabe creates music videos, performs as a hip-hop recording artist and performer and has taught English to refugees at the Boston Jewish Community Center. You may listen to his music at:

http://www.facebook.com/gabethompsonofficial and if you enjoy after listening to his music, please "like” on his facebook page to help launch his career.