Lilian’s History

A charter member and principal dancer of the National Ballet of Canada (’51 – ’63), Lilian Jarvis (nee Lilja Jarvinen) is one of Canada’s ballet pioneers. After her 12 years with the Toronto-based company, her focus turned to modern dance at the Martha Graham School in New York where the impact of the Graham training led her to explore ways of overcoming certain physical limitations she had encountered throughout her dance career.
Persisting with her endeavours through the following 13 years, she was rewarded in 1976 with an invitation to dance the role of “Juliet” as guest artist in the National Ballet’s 25th anniversary production of Romeo and Juliet.

The success of this performance at age 45 convinced her that the exercises she had been evolving during her 13-year “retirement” offered a valid means of not only improving on one’s physical abilities, but of retaining them into the later years of life.
 

After some preliminary teaching beginning in 1977, she established a studio in midtown Toronto in 1980 and gave her exercises the name of BioSomatics, which subsequently was changed to Somatic Stretch. She has taught her technique at the University of Toronto as well as conducted workshops at other universities and trained several instructors. Besides her studio teaching, Lilian has appeared on a number of TV shows, written a 37-week exercise series for The Toronto Star (June ’85 – Feb. ’86) and a 7-month series for the medical periodicalFamily Practice (Sept. ’93 – Jan. ’95). Her book, Stress Releaser Stretchcloth, on stretching and strengthening exercises was published in December, 1994.

With a father who was one of Toronto’s first masseurs in the 1930s and her late brother an osteopath, Lilian comes from a family with interests in various aspects of the healing therapies. Her daughter, an instructor and co-director of Somatic Stretch and a shiatsu/acupuncture therapist, has developed her own unique approach to bodywork, which she has named Neural Resonance. (linked to Mer’s website) And Lilian’s son is a medical doctor with a leaning toward alternative therapies. With her lifelong involvement in training and her continuing pursuit of physical excellence through the work that she teaches, Lilian is highly attuned to the workings of the body and exceptionally well qualified as a somatic educator.