Lebed Davis, Sherry (Sherry Lebed Davis)

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Lebed Davis, Sherry (Sherry Lebed Davis)

PERSONAL:

Daughter of Jack and Rita Lebed; married Morty Gloss (a jeweler), 1967 (died, 1974); married Jeff Davis (a record company manager), 1994; children: (first marriage) Adam, Randy. Education: Philadelphia College for the Performing Arts, B.F.A.; certified Dance Master of America.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Seattle, WA. Office—Lebed Method: Focus on Healing, 14418 47th Pl. W., Lynnwood, WA 98037.

CAREER:

Professional dancer, beginning at age fifteen; former owner of three Focus on Dance studios; worked as marketing director for a national health care company, Seattle, WA, c. 1990s; Lebed Method: Focus on Healing, Lynnwood, WA, cofounder and president of board of directors. Circle of Hope Lymphedema Foundation, member of advisory board; worked as dance teacher in the United States and Europe; choreographer for the Philadelphia Eagles cheerleaders and Whiz Kids (children's dance company); frequent public speaker and guest on media programs.

AWARDS, HONORS:

William Penn Proprietor and Governor Award, 1987, for organizing an international dance exchange program; certificates of merit from U.S. Navy and Pro West.

WRITINGS:

Focus on Healing through Movement and Dance for the Breast Cancer Survivor (video), Enhancement, 1998.

(With Stephanie Gunning) Thriving after Breast Cancer: Essential Healing Exercises for Body and Mind, Broadway Books (New York, NY), 2002.

Author of audiocassette program The Lebed Method, which is also available on CD-ROM. Contributor to periodicals, including Health, People, Coping, Radiation Today, Cancer and You, Dancer, Hope, Chatelaine, Los Angeles Times, and National Physical Therapy Journal.

Thriving after Breast Cancer was translated into French.

SIDELIGHTS:

When her mother contracted breast cancer, professional dancer Sherry Lebed Davis and her two surgeon brothers created an exercise program that combined ballet and dance movements as a form of physical therapy. The method proved very helpful to Lebed Davis's mother, who survived until the age of seventy-three. Later, Lebed Davis herself contracted cancer and used her own therapeutic dance as part of her treatment. She found dance to be so effective that she created the "Focus on Healing" program, which is now used in many hospitals in North America as a way to help cancer patients. Lebed Davis founded the Lebed Movement, which sells her instructional video, Focus on Healing through Movement and Dance for the Breast Cancer Survivor and her book, Thriving after Breast Cancer: Essential Healing Exercises for Body and Mind, to help spread the word. In a review of Thriving after Breast Cancer, a Publishers Weekly critic felt that Lebed Davis's methods might be problematic for audiences without previous dance training, but still suggested that "some women may find her focus on restoring both flexibility and femininity to be just what they're looking for."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Library Journal, May 15, 1999, Bette-Lee Fox, review of Focus on Healing through Movement and Dance for the Breast Cancer Survivor, p. 141.

Publishers Weekly, May 29, 2000, Nick Charles, "Dance of Life: To Help Breast Cancer Survivors Recover with Dignity, Sherry Lebed Davis Choreographs a Program of Healing," p. 67; July 8, 2002, review of Thriving after Breast Cancer: Essential Healing Exercises for Body and Mind, p. 46.