Suzan Lemont – Founderess, Director & Chairperson: is a writer, dance-theater-maker, embodied philosophy practitioner and teacher, web spinner, creator of mythologies and chaos agent, mother, and disruptor extraordinaire. She is the original seed planter & incubator for what is now NEXAA. Suzan has been practicing expressive arts since at least the age of ten, when she wrote her first poem to help her express what everyday language could not help with: the trauma of her father being in Vietnam and the presence of domestic violence and abuse at home. (You can read more about this in chapter 18 Integrating Creative Writing and Expressive Arts, which she wrote for The Handbook of Expressive Arts Therapy, published in 2022).  From there, she went on to incorporate theater and dance, so that when she entered into the Adult Learner’s Program in Dance Therapy at Lesley (then) College in 1990, she already innately understood the power of intermodal expressive arts to promote transformation and healing. She earned a BSc. from Lesley University in 1993 in Dance & Dance Therapy. 

After starting the first year of the Masters in Expressive Therapies at Lesley in 1994 Suzan met the person who would become her husband and life partner, which precipitated a move to Europe in 1995, where she was able to study/train with Paolo Knill (the co-founder of the intermodal ExA philosophy) et. al at the European Graduate School then located in Leuk,  Switzerland, and received her MA jointly from Lesley and the European Graduate School in Expressive Therapies in May of 1997, having sent in her thesis just one week before her first daughter was born in April. 

Suzan has lived and worked in the Netherlands since 1996 and currently lives in Utrecht where she has given body-mind integration sessions, expressive arts trainings, held a private practice in trauma and neuro-divergent informed expressive arts psychotherapy and many other offerings and initiatives in the past 8 years in her small creative arts studio Pandora’s Playspace. Utrecht is thus the sort of natural hub of NEXAA activity, even though our team is spread around different parts of the Netherlands.

Over the past 30 years, Suzan has worked to increase the visibility and acceptance of expressive arts methods in the Netherlands and internationally (you can see much of this story on the History of NEXAA page), as a presenter at various conferences and symposia, as an author, as a volunteer for IEATA (International Expressive Arts Therapy Association), and as a facilitator and educator in various settings. She has worked in initiatives ranging from community centers in Zurich to a 3-year project funded by the Dutch government in Johannesburg, South Africa, to a training project for the Heal Her Storytelling Circles for Survivors of Gender-Based and Sexual Violence project at University College Utrecht. You can find out more about her and her work at suzanlemont.com

Hannah Behrens – Co-founder & Treasurer: graduated with a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing with a concentration in Poetry from the University of Colorado, USA. She has experience in teaching, writing, editing, and publishing. After moving to the Netherlands in 2016, she practiced as a freelancer with her business, Weeds and Wilderness Creative Writing, which primarily focused on coaching and facilitating groups of writers, artists, and other freelancers on various creative writing-related projects and self-development work.

In 2019, Hannah began her work with Intermodal Expressive Arts, completing the postgraduate certificate program in Expressive Arts Therapy, Coaching and Consulting, and Education and Social Change from the European Graduate School (EGS) in Saas-Fee, Switzerland. She also participated in the Expressive Arts in Transition program, also with EGS, which included training in group facilitation.

Hannah co-facilitates the Poetry Critique Group- Amsterdam, a bi-monthly meetup for poets and writers. She has published two anthologies with the Poetry Critique Group, one centered around themes of the pandemic and the second focusing on the climate crisis. She has also published numerous poems and is currently working on a full volume of poetry as well as a novel. Her artistic motivation is to integrate Expressive Arts principles into the medium of writing, sharing, and performing poetry, which she believes is an integral part of health, well-being, and self-expression.

Diana Zuican – Secretary: is a Romanian visual artist based in Amsterdam, whose practice engages with surreal, conceptual, and documentary photography and illustration. Her work gently probes the intricate terrain of trauma and human conditioning, stemming from a conviction that genuine nonconformity often begins with a quiet turn inward, a subtle resistance to the unexamined societal programs we may inadvertently absorb. Having found a path through art to process her own experiences with trauma, Diana has come to understand art’s profound capacity as a tool for self-exploration, processing, and integration.

For Diana, peeling layers off oneself is a lifelong inquisitiveness beneath the skin. She perceives art as a rich opportunity for emotional engagement, holding a belief that it can be a potent medium for re-evaluating how we relate to and interact with the world around us. A central, guiding question within her practice remains: “How transparent are we truly to ourselves? Do we genuinely own ourselves, or are we, in part, a product of our past? Consequently, human conditioning, self-reliance, and introspection form core axes of her artistic exploration.

Diana believes that self-knowledge may not be about arriving at a definitive description of who we are at any given moment, but rather about committing to an ongoing process of introspection and playfulness, continually discovering new ways to illuminate different facets of ourselves. 

Currently, Diana extends her artistic philosophy into community contexts by engaging with urban gardens, practicing urban foraging, and hosting whittling workshops. She also facilitates art workshops at a homeless shelter in Amsterdam. Further enriching her practice, she is presently studying Intermodal Expressive Art Therapy and is a signatory and  contributing to NEXAA as Secretary on the Board.

Zhen Di Yang (Jendy Yang) – Intern Spring/Summer 2025: is a Master’s student in Arts and Society at Utrecht University, originally from Taiwan. She holds a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration and was actively involved in creative performance during her undergraduate studies, including one of the leading roles in a musical for her university’s Grand English Drama production. Her passion for the arts spans across multiple forms, including poetry, sketching, dance, acting, and museum engagement.

Jendy’s interest in the intersection of arts and mental health led her to join NEXAA as an intern, where she contributes to making expressive arts more accessible and relatable, both in workshop settings and digital platforms. She believes that the healing power of the arts is not limited to professionals and that everyone can benefit from engaging with creativity.

In her personal life, Jendy enjoys journaling, reading, solo traveling, moving her body through dance or physical activity, and learning new languages and cultures. She is passionate about fostering spaces for self-expression and connection through the arts and is excited to contribute to NEXAA’s mission of creative healing and community care.

Menekşe Onbaşı – General Board Member & Supporter/Advisor: to NEXAA is a psychological counselor, expressive arts therapist, and psychodramatist based in the Netherlands. Born in Bulgaria and holding both Bulgarian and Turkish citizenship, she brings a multicultural sensitivity and embodied warmth to her work in education, therapy, and community facilitation.

She holds a double major in Psychological Counseling and Guidance and English Language Teaching from Istanbul University, and completed her master’s degree focusing on self-efficacy in language learning. She received her diploma in Psychodrama from Psychodramath Greece, and in 2022, she completed the Certificate of Advanced Graduate Studies (CAGS) in Expressive Arts: Therapy, Education and Consulting at the European Graduate School (EGS) in Saas-Fee, Switzerland, with a specialization in research, leadership and training in intermodal expressive arts.

As a Fulbright Scholar, Menekşe taught Turkish at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and has since served as a university lecturer at Istanbul Technical University in Turkiye and beyond, teaching courses in Educational Psychology, Expressive Arts Therapy, and Teacher Education at MEF University in Turkiye. Her academic and therapeutic work combines psychodrama, expressive movement, and intermodal arts practices to support emotional exploration, trauma healing, and intercultural dialogue.

A passionate tango dancer, she weaves the language of the body into her work through Tango-Drama, a method that blends dance, embodied storytelling, and role-play to explore personal and relational dynamics. She views movement as a powerful gateway to emotional insight, connection, and transformation.

Menekşe has extensive experience in leading large group processes across artistic, educational, and therapeutic settings. She has facilitated both home groups and large group sessions within international psychodrama and expressive arts academies, including those held in Crete under the Hellenistic Psychodrama Academy. In Athens, she co-leads monthly Psychodrama and Expressive Arts workshops with themes such as “The Hesitation,” “Roots and Belonging,” “Echoes of the Body,” and “Crossroads of Identity,” creating emotionally safe and artistically rich spaces for deep exploration.

Her work also focuses on immigration, belonging, and cultural identity, working both nationally and internationally with immigrant families and children. Through community art, storytelling, and psychodramatic methods, she supports individuals and families navigating transitions, loss, and cultural adaptation.

She has collaborated with municipalities and local education authorities in providing voluntary teacher training programs, aiming to support educators working in multicultural and inclusive classrooms. In addition to university-level teaching, she has developed and implemented projects in diverse school settings, integrating expressive arts with themes such as mental health, sustainability, creativity in learning, and inclusive education.

Over the past 20 years, Menekşe has led and designed numerous European Union projects focused on inclusion, migration, trauma recovery, and psychosocial support, working with teachers, young people, children, and communities across Europe. She is the founder of Artmonia, a foundation dedicated to harmonizing art, therapy, and education.

In all of her work—whether in the classroom, the therapy space, or the dance floor—Menekşe nurtures creativity, presence, and the transformative power of shared expression.