Our Team
Inspirees has professional management team based in China, Europe and US. They oversee the different programs and business sections of book/publishing and education/trainings. Most of the colleagues have been working with us for almost ten years thus our communication and work are very effective based on shared value and mission.
Boudewijn Heeren
Co-Founder, President
Mr. Heeren had been working in book industry for more than 20 years. He owned and ran a bookstore in the Netherlands and then later worked as a sale manager for Dutch publishers. He is the father of a son with autism. He has long been committed to the work of supporting mentally disabled children. Boudewijn has been working and living in China for many years and has a good understanding of and respect for the country and its culture. In year 2004, he established Inspirees International with Dr. Tony Zhou in the Netherlands.
President, Co-Founder
Tony Yu Zhou
Co-Founder, CEO, PhD
Dr. Zhou holds a doctoral degree in biomedicine and has been working and living in China and Europe for many years. Though trained as a scientist, he has been greatly intrigued by modern dance and dance therapy since 2002 and has played an important role in driving the development of dance therapy in China with Inspirees Institute he founded. Dr. Zhou served on an international advisory board for the journal Body, Movement and Dance in Psychotherapy. In 2015, he created CAET (Creative Arts Education and Therapy – Eastern and Western Perspectives), an international peer review open access journal. He is the first certified movement analyst (CMA) in mainland China trained by LIMS in New York. He coaches sport clubs in China and the Netherlands with Laban and dance therapy approaches. He is the guest professor of Beijing Normal University and group leader of Chinese Group of Arts Therapy, affiliated with Chinese Psychological Society.
CEO, Co-Founder
Joan Wittig
Program Director, DMT program
Joan is an established dance therapist in US. She was the Director of Graduate Dance/Movement Therapy Program in the Graduate Creative Arts Therapy Department, at Pratt Institute. Joan has about 30 years of clinical experience and 16 years of teaching experience. She served on the Approval Committee of the ADTA from 2005 till 2010. Joan made a significant contribution in the effort to get creative arts therapy as a professional licensed in New York State. Her work has been recognized with an Outstanding Service Award from the ADTA in 2002 and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the New York Art Therapy Association in 2003. Since 2010, Joan has been involved with the dance therapy training program development in China with Inspirees, and has travelled often to China to teach in our professional courses as well as many workshops.
DMT Program Director
David Yang
Product manager, Editor
Mr. Yang has backgrounds in international business and interests in the cultural Industries. After graduated from culture economics major of Erasmus University, Rotterdam, he merged himself in the academic and art publishing worlds. Working with multiple European publishers including Cambridge Scholars Publishing, IOS Press, Brepols Publishers, Harrassowitz Publishers, and Leuven University Press to promote and develop their product and branding presence in China Mainland and beyond. He is board member of Executive Editorial Committee, Creative Arts in Education and Therapy (CAET) – Eastern, Western & Global Perspectives.
Product Manager, Editor
Merry Chang
Sale manager
Merry is the Taiwan Representative and Product Presenter for Educational Publishing. Over two decades of experience in Taiwan’s publishing industry, with credentials such as Pearson Education, John Wiley & Sons, McGraw Hill Education, Jones and Bartlett Learning and current SAVVAS (former Pearson K-12). I am a strong community and social services professional, with IP certification from WIPO and coaching certification from Life Mastery Institute. I am passionate about creating new opportunities and exposure for innovative educational products. Whether you are a major or emerging publisher, I look forward to being your growth catalyst!
Sales manager
Marcia Plevin
Program Director, CM Program
Marcia’s background has taken her from performing artist, choreographer and dance teacher in New York city, to Italy where, she studied to became a board certified dance movement therapist (DMT), an American board certified counselor and Italian psychologist, to pioneering DMT in Italy, Finland and Turkey. Co –founder in 1993 of the training program Creative movement- method Garcia-Plevin, the book which describes the training, Creative Movement and Dance has been published in Italian, French and English. She received DMT training from Art Therapy Italiana in collaboration with Goldsmith College, University of London with a certification of art psychotherapist. She is a senior faculty member and supervisor for the Institute of Expressive Arts Psychotherapy, Art Therapy Italiana. Clinical practice in the past 20 years has been with patients recovering from substance abuse, adult psychiatric patients and with hemo-oncological unit patients on the pediatric unit of the Vatican children’s hospital. Authentic Movement teacher and trainer she has begun and followed groups in Italy, Finland and Turkey. Marcia is a recent member of the faculty of Inspirees DMT programs in China.
CM Program Director
Katee Shen Yan
CMA, Program Manager
Katee has been worked as Program Manager with Inspirees since 2011. She is a Certified Movement Analyst through Laban/Bartenieff Institute of Movement Study; and she is trained as a Dance/Movement Therapy practitioner through the American Dance Therapy Association; She is a National Certified Mental Health Counselor, professional interpreter in the field of somatics education and therapy, and a member of International Association for Creative Arts in Education and Therapy. Katee is also a contemporary dancer.
As one of the first practitioners and disseminators of Dance/Movement Therapy and Laban/Bartenieff Movement Study in China, Katee has nearly ten years of working experience in this field. She brings interdisciplinary perspective into her work with convalescent/hospitalized schizophrenics, autistic children, children with developmental disabilities, normal adults and children for dance/movement therapy and creative movement in therapeutic or educational settings. During the epidemic period in 2020, as one of the founding members, Katee organized and planned a series of online courses of “Dancing Body and Mind – a public welfare program in China” initiated by the China Dance Association Volunteer.
Katee is one of the translators and editors for the Chinese edition of two influential works which are Dance/Movement Therapy – A Healing Art written by Fran Levy, a classic textbook of dance therapy; and EveryBody Is A Body written by Laura Cox and Karen Studd, an excellent book of Laban Bartenieff Movement Study.
Program Manager