NEXAA may seem like a new thing, but it’s actually been more than 10 years in the making. Suzan Lemont, the brain behind the NEXAA concept, graduated all the way back in 1997, with a Master’s degree in Expressive Therapies obtained through a joint program from Lesley University (the oldest Expressive Arts program in the United States) and the European Graduate School (founded by Paolo Knill as a new university focused solely on high-level Expressive Arts training and the first of its kind in Europe). Below we give a rough timeline of the developments that led to the registration of NEXAA as an official non-profit in the Netherlands on March 27, 2025.
October 1996 – Suzan moves to the Netherlands, from Switzerland; begins writing her Master’s thesis and waits for the birth of her first child.
May 1997 – Suzan receives her MA diploma from Lesley/EGS and is busy with being a new mom.
June 1997- October 2009 – Suzan tries (and fails) to make contact with other intermodal practitioners in the Netherlands. When this doesn’t succeed, due to a lack of familiarity with the intermodal expressive arts concept in the Netherlands, she turns to other ways of working with expressive arts (teaching at the Cultural Center for Utrecht University and University College Utrecht, holding workshops) and has an on-again/off-again small private practice.
October 2009 – Suzan receives an email from South African Educational Psychologist Dr. Elzette Fritz, who is developing a pilot project in schools in Johannesburg to utilize intermodal Expressive Arts within schools, addressing the high levels of trauma among both students and staff. She is applying for funding from a Dutch government initiative called the South Africa-Netherlands Research Programme on Alternatives in Development and needs a Dutch research partner to qualify. She looks on LinkedIn and comes across Suzan’s profile: at the time, the only intermodal person she could locate in the Netherlands. They embark on a 3-year project funded by SANPAD, involving Suzan making multiple visits to South Africa to train Master’s and PhD students, and to advise on the integration of Intermodal Expressive Arts into the curriculum there.
2010-2013 – Suzan works in the SANPAD program and through this meets Nadine van Westrhenen, a Dutch psychology researcher who wants to learn about Expressive Arts Therapy. Nadine goes on to do her PhD between the University of Johannesburg and Utrecht University, and later graduates with what is likely the first PhD in the Netherlands with Creative Expressive Arts as the research topic.
2013-2017 – Suzan gives an introductory training in Expressive Arts for a small group of 10 interested people in Utrecht. She attempts to parlay the experience of the South Africa project into a job or a PhD position in the Netherlands, but once again fails due to a continued lack of understanding about the legitimacy and potential of Intermodal Expressive Arts.
2017-2019 – Suzan and Nadine decide to transform what Suzan has been working on (Intermodal Expressive Arts Therapy – NL) into the Netherlands Expressive Arts Association (NEXAA) and go for funding of a project to train refugees in the use of Expressive Arts, and lobby to get a formal training programs set up, as well as to attract members.
2019-2022 – After funding for the project is unexpectedly and abruptly denied, Nadine steps away from NEXAA as her workload at her university increases, and Suzan focuses on building up her new studio adventure, called Pandora’s Playspace in Utrecht. Besides the studio offerings (private Expressive Arts practice along with embodiment and improvisation classes) Suzan also works as a volunteer for the International Expressive Arts Therapy Association, first as an organizer for their conference in 2019 and then as the European regional co-chair, where she and her co-chair push for the first ever intermodal expressive arts conference to be held in Europe. This effort is not successful, and she steps down as regional co-chair in September 2021. In July of 2019, Hannah Behrens (an American MFA graduate in Creative Writing and student of Expressive Arts) first made contact with Suzan. Hannah, a resident of the Netherlands since 2016, is also seeking others with whom to build an Expressive Arts practice in the Netherlands. Just as they begin to build the network they were hoping for, the 2020 pandemic interrupts their plans.
2022- 2025 – The pandemic continues to wreak havoc on the dreamweaving, but finally, things start to fall into place with a series of happy coincidences. In the spring of 2023, Madi Musson, an American psychologist living in Amsterdam, makes contact with Suzan. She and Suzan begin planning first for a conference, and then to establish NEXAA as an official Expressive Arts organization. Soon after, Suzan reconnects with Hannah Behrens and invites Hannah to become a partner in this latest effort to put Expressive Arts on the map in the Netherlands. Hannah and Madi meet, and everyone gets along fabulously.
Konstantina Korai, finally succeeds in making contact with Suzan in the autumn of 2023 (after several failed attempts in 2022) and becomes the 4th member of the core team.
In November of 2023, Suzan meets Floor Dompeling in a breakout room for a dance therapy symposium and discovers they both live in Utrecht and have similar interests, and soon after, Floor joins as the 5th member, followed closely by Kaitlin Hawthorne joins the team as web development, marketing, and branding help.
Things Almost Fall Apart:
In Spring 2024, Madi moves back to the U.S.
Summer 2024 – NEXAA secures a donation that will cover the cost of the registration at a Notary, if we ever get that far. First, the Statutes need to be written (in Dutch). Ay-yi-yi!
September 2024 – Statutes are almost complete, but Konstantina has to step away from the team.
In October 2024, Floor and Kaitlin also leave the team.
October 2024 – January 2025 – Suzan and Hannah bravely slog on, bolstering each other’s flagging spirits with weekly meetings and continuing to spin plans for the dream of NEXAA becoming real.
Oh!
The sun’ll come out
Tomorrow
So ya gotta hang on
‘Til tomorrow
Come what may!
– Tomorrow – Lyrics from Annie (C. Strouse/M. Charnin) (1977)
January 2025 – June 2025 Diana Zuican contacts Suzan to ask about becoming an art therapist and becomes the 3rd Board member a month later.
Atul Pinge joins us to help design our website.
We get an intern – Jendy Yang – from the Arts & Society program of Utrecht University, who starts working on marketing and blogging.
We finalize our Statutes with the Notary in Enschede and set a date to sign the papers.
Diana agrees to be the Secretary.
March 27, 2025, NEXAA becomes officially registered as a non-profit organization in the Netherlands, with Suzan as the Director/Chairperson, Hannah as the Treasurer, and Diana as the Secretary.
… It’s a long, long road
From which there is no return
While we’re on the way to there
Why not share?
– He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother: The Hollies (1969)
We get help, mostly in unofficial capacities, but welcome nonetheless. And continue to get inquiries and interest from all kinds of unexpected places. Just recently, Psychotherapist and Psychodrama practitioner and trainer Menekşe Onbaşı, who hails from the Republic of Türkiye and who already has an expressive arts foundation in the Netherlands, made contact with us, and we are excited to say that she will actively join the team as soon as she and her family relocate to Utrecht this summer. And so the family grows…
June 2025 – We launch the revamped website with an active membership application page.
Though each of us has different levels of training and expertise, and our own favorite disciplines within the intermodal framework, all of us passionately believe in the power of the arts to be a force for transformation and healing in every aspect of society, from the medical field to primary education and everything in between. We approach the new challenges and adventures with optimism and a sense of community, which is so aptly expressed in the quote at the top of our membership page:
“Individually, we are one drop. Together, we are an ocean.” by the writer/poet Ryunosuke Satoro
And we will go on:
“Drench yourself in words unspoken
Live your life with arms wide open
Today is where your book begins
The rest is still unwritten”
– Unwritten: Natasha Bedingfield ‧(2004)