Interview by Maria Kostova
Many international performers dream of making it to New York—for Izabel Mitkova, a talented young Bulgarian actor, dancer and choreographer who won a Fulbright/Thanks to Scandinavia Scholarship, this dream has come true! In Fall 2025, Izabel began a two-year MA program in Dance/Movement Therapy at Sarah Lawrence University in Bronxville, New York. In the conversation below, Izabel discusses her personal path to dance therapy, offers her early impression of the Fulbright experience, and shares her hopes for introducing dance/movement therapy to Bulgaria.
Izabel, your artistic journey began in acting and eventually unfolded into contemporary dance. What was the moment you realized that movement—not words—would become your primary form of expression?
When I look back on my time in the Theatre Arts Program at New Bulgarian University, one sentence from our professor Tsvetana Maneva keeps echoing in my mind. I will paraphrase it: “Hear what they say, but deeply listen for what they don’t.”
I remember asking myself: How do I do that?
That question sent me searching—not in language, but in the body. In movement, and in stillness. I began to notice that where humans choose silence, the body continues speaking. It reveals a map of thoughts, emotions, fears.
Finding expression through the body also meant reclaiming that body—learning to trust it, inhabit it, and bring my words and physical truth into alignment. That search for congruency expanded my expression first as a human being, and only then as an artist.
Photographer: Evan Ray Suzuki
Now that you’re studying at Sarah Lawrence College, what aspects of the program resonate most deeply with your vision for dance as a healing practice?
At Sarah Lawrence, what resonates most deeply with me is the program’s commitment to the body as an integrated, intelligent system—not just a technical instrument. The faculty encourage us to approach movement with curiosity rather than correction, to understand where movement originates emotionally, psychologically, and somatically. The Dance/Movement Therapy program treats the body as a source of knowledge, history, and healing—not just as an artistic tool. The training invites us to pay attention to sensation, impulse, gesture, and relational movement in ways that mirror my own belief that healing begins with noticing.
This aligns profoundly with my belief that dance can be a healing practice. Here, I am given the space to slow down, to sense, to notice the patterns my body carries from past experiences, and to move in ways that reorganize or release them. Classes often blur the line between technique and inner inquiry: we work with breath, touch, imagery, and sensation in ways that feel restorative rather than performative.
What feels especially meaningful is the emphasis on therapeutic presence: learning to witness another person’s body without judgment, to attune, to respond, and to create safety through movement and empathy. This approach aligns so closely with my vision of dance as a healing practice—one that restores agency, fosters connection, and helps individuals rewrite the stories held in their bodies.
The program encourages congruency between inner experience and outward expression, which is something I’ve been exploring for years. Here, that exploration is given structure, language, and clinical grounding. I’m learning not only how movement heals me, but how to hold space for others as they discover their own embodied pathways to healing.
What I value most is that the program doesn’t separate the artist from the human being. It asks us to honor our bodies as they are, to move from authenticity, and to let artistic expression emerge from that integrity. For me, that is the essence of healing—movement that acknowledges where you are, and gently expands where you can go.
What has surprised you most about your Fulbright experience so far? Has the Fulbright community influenced your work or thinking in unexpected ways?
What has surprised me most about my Fulbright experience is how deeply human the community feels. I expected academic rigor and cultural exchange, of course, but I didn’t anticipate the level of vulnerability, generosity, and curiosity I would encounter in other fellows. There’s something powerful about being surrounded by people who have uprooted themselves—not for comfort or certainty, but for growth, service, and learning.
This has influenced my work in unexpected ways. Fulbright has expanded my understanding of what it means to be in dialogue across cultures—not just intellectually, but somatically. I’m learning how different bodies carry different narratives, social histories, and inherited tensions, and how those layers surface in movement, communication, and presence.
The community has strengthened my belief that healing is relational. Conversations with fellows in fields far outside dance or therapy—law, cognitive science, fashion, anthropology—have opened new perspectives on how the body responds to systems, landscapes, and cultural context. It has made me think about Dance/Movement Therapy not only as a clinical practice, but as a bridge between people, identities, and ways of being.
In that sense, Fulbright hasn’t just enriched my academic experience. It has widened my sense of responsibility as an artist, therapist-in-training, and global citizen.
Much of your work—artistically and academically—touches on mental health, trauma, social isolation, and community well-being. What social issues are you currently most passionate about addressing through movement?
Lately I’ve been most passionate about addressing the embodied effects of disconnection—how trauma, social isolation, displacement, and chronic stress live in the body and shape the way we relate to ourselves and to others. In my studies and in my movement research, I keep returning to the idea that many of today’s social issues—mental-health crises, polarization, loneliness—are not just psychological or structural problems. They are also somatic. They show up in collapsed posture, in hypervigilance, in numbness, in the inability to feel safe in one’s own body or in the presence of another person.
I’m also passionate about addressing emotional literacy through movement. Many people struggle to name what they feel, but their bodies know. Dance/Movement Therapy offers a pathway for people to reconnect with sensation, reclaim their physical voice, and re-enter relationships with others from a place of grounding and authenticity.
Ultimately, the social issue that drives me is the question of how we heal in community. Movement allows people to witness each other in ways that are deeper than language, and I believe that kind of embodied witnessing is essential for collective well-being.
Looking ahead, what projects or research themes are you most excited to explore during your degree and after returning to Bulgaria?
Looking ahead, I’m most excited about developing frameworks that can help Dance/Movement Therapy take root in Bulgaria. At home, the field is still emerging, and I feel a strong responsibility to help shape its foundations—to build structures that are ethical, culturally responsive, and accessible.
One of my long-term dreams is to create a dedicated space in Bulgaria where dance/movement therapy, artistic residencies, and community programs can coexist. A place that meets people exactly where they are, yet offers the safety, support, and imagination to build a reality of where they can be. A space for healing, experimentation, and shared becoming.
In terms of research themes, I’m deeply drawn to the idea of vulnerability as a responsible choice—not as weakness, but as relational courage. I want to explore how vulnerability, when held in a therapeutic or communal container, can become a powerful mechanism for personal and collective healing.
And something that keeps growing in me, especially witnessing my country from afar, is the understanding that ethics is not limited to the quiet therapy room. Ethics also lives in systems, in laws, in access to care, in whether people are treated with dignity. The demonstrations happening in Bulgaria are not separate from my therapeutic identity. They inform it. When thousands take to the streets asking for justice, transparency, and the right to a livable life, they are enacting the same principles we hold in therapy: safety, truth-telling, boundaries, agency.
In this way, ethics becomes both personal and political. It becomes an embodied stance—a commitment to stand with others, not only sit beside them. A reminder that healing is individual, yes, but also collective. Ethics is a dance: it requires presence, responsiveness, and a willingness to move with the complexity of human relationships.
My body will always be my first instrument in this work. My personal story will always inform my sensitivity. And my cultural roots will always guide my commitment to bridging worlds—between art and therapy, between individuals and communities, and between Bulgaria and the wider field.