Training with Intention

Let us inspire you!

At IMA we want to share our passion for stretching, contortion, acrobatics and aerial arts with you. After years of experience as artists and trainers, we have developed a unique concept to provide an intention and ideal success to your training.

Grow Beyond Yourself

We believe that focused and challenging work with your own body is not only a great way to increase your flexibility and strength, but also to experience yourself and your body. The aesthetic aspect of body art offers a wonderful and creative form of expression for your personality. Going to your own limits and maybe beyond them, lets you master seemingly unattainable things and grow beyond yourself.

Wellbeing and Encouragement

It is our intention to create a beautiful and creative place where everyone from beginner to professional feels comfortable. Here we want to share our common passion for artistry and give our family community space for sporting, artistic and social exchange. Whether artistry is a challenging hobby, a professional goal or a form of personal development for you: You decide how far you want to go and we will support you!

Our Team

Quality is our top priority: In small groups with experienced instructors you will receive optimum support through individual feedback and targeted corrections from the basics to advanced tricks.

Our professionally trained team has acquired its knowledge in first-class education and through years of training. A permanent training guarantees you a high quality and safe training with measurable success.

We help you to achieve your training goals with our profound knowledge!

Sherry

CEO | Stretching | Contortion

Sherry has felt a strong connection to dance since her childhood and discovered fusion bellydance for herself. Soon afterwards, she also began taking acrobatics lessons. She is particularly fond of contortion and flexibility training, which she has been training with Nicole with great enthusiasm. She has been teaching since 2018 and is delighted to be able to share her passions. In her lessons, she particularly likes to respond individually to participants. It is important to her to ensure a healthy posture and correct execution of the exercises.

Nicole

Stretching | Kontorsion | Handstand | Akrobatik | Trapez

Nicole began her athletic career in rhythmic gymnastics at the Kinder- und Jugendsportschule in Leipzig. At the age of 14, she began her training as an artist at the state school for artists in Berlin. She then performed her contortion show in variety theaters and television shows around the world for more than 20 years. Nicole began teaching at an early age alongside her artistry. Today she trains both children and adults, beginners and professionals, and enthusiastically passes on her experience to them.

Olena

Aerial Hoop | Aerial Hammock | Aerial Silks

Olena Yakymenko is a graduate of the renowned circus school in Kiev and has wowed audiences at circus festivals in the UK, Holland and China (bronze medal) and at the “Traumtänzer- Best of Variete” TV festival and circus festival in Wiesbaden (best performance). With her solo performance on the ring, she dazzled in numerous variety, gala and TV shows in Europe. In June 2003, she enchanted Prince Rainier III of Monaco in Monte Carlo on the occasion of his 80th anniversary. Olena has been teaching aerial acrobatics for many years. Her most famous students include Helene Fischer.

Rosa

Stretching | Contortion | Handstand | Acrobatics

Rosa, born and raised in Stuttgart, discovered her love for circus arts at a young age through the youth circus "Calibastra". Her passion for the circus brought her to America after graduating from high school, where she worked for a year as an artist and trainer at "Circus Mojo". She then trained for several years as a stage dancer at "Balance1" in Berlin. She also trained as an artist at the IVA International Variety Academy with Nicole.

Eleftheria

Aerial Silks | Aerial Hoop | Rope

After completing her bachelor's degree in physiotherapy, Eleftheria graduated from the FLIC circus school with her solo project “KAPOTE”. She specialized in aerial rope and continued to explore movement and physicality in aerial acrobatics performance. She then further developed her skills with renowned aerialists. In recent years, Eleftheria has worked with the Italian company Circo Madera. She has also founded the show group “Less Kuerdas” with three others and is a member of a synchronized rope collective. She performs on stage both with collectives and as a soloist.

Zinnia

Stretching | Kontorsion | Handstand | Trapez

Zinnia Nomura graduated from the Hamburg Ballet School in 2014 and was subsequently engaged at the Krefeld Theater and the Leipzig Opera. She completed her circus training at the Carampa School in Madrid and in independent classes at Stockholm University. Since 2020, she has mainly dedicated herself to her own creations and is working on a circus solo piece that deals with the themes of identity, othering and pressure from social media. In 2023 and 2025, she is directing the Berlin Aerial Arts Festival with the aim of raising the profile of contemporary circus and increasing diversity in this field.

Tasnim

Aerial Hammock | Aerial Hoop

Since childhood, Tasnim has been fascinated by all forms of movement in which the human body is artistically represented. Her passion for circus developed from this and, after a detour into the children's circus, finally led her into the world of aerial acrobatics in 2019. Tasnim studies sports science at the HU Berlin and has been a teacher for aerial acrobatics and performance since 2022. Individuality is her top priority and she aspires to push creative boundaries and create new perspectives through movement and art.

Katja

Stretching | Contortion

Katja started ballet as a child and trained in apparatus gymnastics for 11 years. During her medical studies, her path led her from contemporary dance to mobility and handstand training. She discovered her great passion in flexibility and contortion and successfully completed the IMA Teacher Training in spring 2024. She passes on her enthusiasm for using the body to its full potential in her classes. She combines her medical expertise with years of training experience to provide her clients with the best possible support.

Anton

Handstand | Akrobatik

Anton Belyakov is a renowned handstand artist whose career started at the Moscow State Circus, where he became famous with the “Little Devil” act, which he performed with his father Leonid. His artistry, as in the “bathtub act” - his versatility and skill have made him a sought-after artist for stage, film, events and coaching. Anton gives handstand and acrobatic classes focusing on injury prevention and strength building and is passionate about sharing his expertise with people of all experience levels.

Anna

Pilates | Akrobatik

Anna started dancing at the age of 3. Over time, she also took up acrobatics. At 16, she began training as a dance teacher at the Erika Klütz School. Among other things, she studied Pilates and anatomy there. At 19, she began her second training as a contemporary dancer at DIE ETAGE. Among other things, she took Pilates again there and was able to take a lot with her and learn a lot over the 6 years. She has been teaching since 2018. In her classes, she takes an individual approach to each person and adapts the exercises to your level. It is important to her that everyone feels comfortable and has fun training.

Sonja

Aerial Yoga

Sonja originally comes from a contemporary dance background and completed her training as a yoga instructor in 2023. In April 2024, she completed an aerial yoga training course with Jost Blomeyer. She teaches both powerful, dynamic aerial yoga classes for beginners and advanced students, as well as gentle classes that focus on stretching and flexibility. She also offers aerial yin classes in the low sling, which are highly appreciated by her participants. She is currently undergoing further training for vinyasa yoga teachers and is expanding her aerial yoga skills through an online training course with Camille Semiotaite-Whitaker.

ABOUT THE CREATION OF THE IMA INTENTIONAL MOVEMENT ACADEMY

The IMA was established at the end of 2022 from former trainers, students and employees of the IVA Berlin, which created a place for many hundreds of people to train, teach and exchange ideas from 2011 to 2021. Unfortunately, the IVA had to close its doors for good in 2021. Many students and trainers missed a place for creative exchange and professional training and so the idea of a new foundation was born.

Starting again from scratch gives us the opportunity to learn from the past. We can build on what has proven successful and improve on others. So we started with an intention: we defined what inspires and motivates us about artistry and how we can use it to pass on something valuable to others. Based on this approach, we formulated clear goals for our future training projects: We want to make a difference with our offer and support people in their personal development..

Our focused and challenging training approach provides a wide range of opportunities to work intensively with your own body. From improving health, flexibility and self-confidence, physical self-awareness and personality development, as an aesthetic and creative form of expression, to professional training for artistry - we have developed specialized offers for all these needs.

The name was quickly found: IMAIntentional Movement Academy in reference to the IVA International Variety Academy and read differently AIMAcademy (of) Intentional Movement.

IMA - train with an intention and a goal - AIM higher!