Born in Mendrisio, Switzerland, on August 27, 1960, Manuela Canova has always been passionate about body language and expression which she first met through a theatre experience when she was very young and then deepened thanks to dance therapy, while her main professional path developed around teaching languages at the local scuola media. For more than twenty years, though not continuously, she has been trying to make people engage in the process of self-investigation and growth through the expressive movement, encouraging self-acceptance and creativity, in order to enhance physical, emotional and mental wellbeing. After training as a holistic operator at Milena Rottmann's school, where she deepened numerous psychotherapeutic approaches, such as bioenergetics, Gestalt, massage, voice and breath work, she explored the connections between dance, movement and therapy at the Riza Institute of Psychosomatic Medicine in Milan. She qualified as a conductor of groups in dance therapy at the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Tanztherapie, of the Fritz Pearls Institut, in Germany, and kept deepening her research by attending various courses and workshops around dance therapy and the art of movement. Among others she had the opportunity to learn from Laura Sheleen and her Junghian approach, Ya’cov and Susannah Darling Khan and their Movement Medicine, Nunzia Tirelli and the Laban Movement Analysis, Rosa Maria Govoni and the Authentic Movement. At the same time she carried out a four-year theatrical training at the Concreta in Mendrisio and since 2017, she has resumed theatrical research at Magliaso’s Agorateatro. Since 2012 she is an accredited Practitioner of The Journey method, by Brandon Bays, and gives individual sessions, helping people to recover from emotional and/or physical pain, finding back to their full potential.