About Katherine Adamenko
Katherine Adamenko is the founder of bend burn breathe, bringing 35 years of experience across fitness, well-being, dance, and performance, shaping how people move, train, and reconnect to their bodies.
Fascinated by the impact of movement on the body and mind, and deeply curious about neuroscience and positive psychology, her work integrates performance, creative self-expression, and embodied training into what she calls the science and art of living—the foundation of the b3 ethos.
Trained in New York City ballet studios from a young age, she went on to study dance in college within a liberal arts education, maintaining rigorous daily practice while studying political aesthetic theory, anatomy, kinesiology, dance theory and history, and discovering female bodybuilding—a convergence that profoundly reshaped how she understands the body and movement.
She established herself as a dance and theatre educator in New York City while performing regionally and in the downtown NYC theatre scene. She went on to study theatre in the UK, developing her work as a body-based performance artist, and upon returning was introduced to butoh, a Japanese dance form she has practiced for over 25 years.
She built her fitness career as a master personal trainer and group fitness instructor in luxury fitness environments, later expanding into corporate well-being within major corporations and top-tier law firms, where her work has reached thousands through programs, presentations, and coaching.
A lifelong practicing artist, her work has been presented across the U.S. and internationally, and she was recently awarded LARAC’s 2026 Independent Artist Grant.
She is a Registered Yoga Teacher (RYT-200), certified personal trainer (NSCA), group fitness instructor (ACE), and a health and wellness coach (Wellcoaches). She holds a B.A. in Dance from Rutgers University and an M.A. in Contemporary Theatre Practice from the University of Essex.
My Beginnings
As the story goes, when I was three, at the very end of The Nutcracker, ”I want to do that.” Within weeks, I was enrolled in my first ballet class—and my life in motion began.
Those early classes eventually led to training at leading ballet schools and into the world of modern dance, where I discovered a secondary passion for bodybuilding, and was even crowned Ms. Rutgers!
ADDD - maybe merge from above- that during college the story I jsut wrote and become a dance and theatre educator!!!!!!! From NDI to the aid theatre poojec t- teaching classes, holding educatinoal workshops and performances throughout my 20s really.
While an injury halted my modern dance career, I acted, sang, and danced my way through regional theatre and the downtown NYC theatre scene, to sail across the Atlantic to study theatre in the UK, and became a body-based performance artist. Upon my return, I was introduced to butoh, a slow, meditative dance form from Japan (which I have been practicing for the past 25 years).
After stints offstage in academia and the nonprofit arts world, I returned to fitness, becoming a master personal trainer and group fitness instructor. That work led to a career in corporate well-being, working across major corporations and top-tier law firms, and adding yoga and mindfulness to my teaching bucket.
I’ve honed and developed the bend burn breathe ethos for over a decade, applying it to thousands of clients, students, and employees to see it’s effectiveness firsthand—and to my own life—to live the supple, joyful, and virtually pain-free life I experience today.
This year, I turned the lights back on in the studio—and here we are.
bend burn breathe is the amalgam of a lifetime of study, training, and lived experience, drawing from movement theory and the work of Rudolf Laban, experiential learning and from pioneering dance educator Margaret H’Doubler, the dance theatre of choreographer Pina Bausch and the world butoh movement, and the pioneering women of female bodybuilding.
My Influences
My Lineage
Select teachers I am grateful to have studied with:
Dance & Movement
Butoh: Diego Pinon, Marco Nektan, Julie Becton Gillum, Ko Murobushi, Vangeline
Physical Theatre: Paul J. Curtis, Zofia Kalinka, Julio Sarkany
Ballet: Patricia Wilde, Nancy Clemmons, Dorothy Lister, Richard Thomas
Modern: Claudia Gittelman, Patricia Mayer, Paulette Sears, Don Redlich, Martita Goshen, members Paul Taylor company
Yoga & Mindfulness
Yoga: Pauline Kalish, Bridget Peters, Jael Polnac, Andrew Wren, Esther Ekhart, Jackie Prete
Mindfulness: Tracy Meyers (PsyD), Eran Vardi
Fitness
Group Fitness: Patricia Moreno, Misty Tripoli, Brian Mahoney
Personal Training: Geraldine Coopersmith, Brent Brookbush