Musings of a Dance/Movement Therapist

This blog affords me the opportunity to share some of my greatest passions with you, the reader. Among my passions are dance movement therapy and the power of dance to inspire, uplift and heal. I will be bringing you my favorite images, quotations, stories, websites and books about dance and dance/movement therapy. I will share my love for and understanding about working with people with dementia. And, finally, this will be a gathering place for stories about the Octaband, a product I created initially for people with dementia but is now being used by people of all ages and abilities all around the globe.

Rachel Morales Is Working on a New Collaborative Dance Project

Rachel Morales is hoping to document the making of a dance piece to be performed this April, 2010. She has begun working on this wonderful collaboration with the Drexel dance ensemble,12 abled-bodied dancers and 12 disabled dancers. I am so looking forward to getting to see this work, because Rachel is an extraordinarily beautiful dancer and choreographer who has done similar collaboration and choreography with children at the HMS school and a group of semi professional high school students.

Circle of Care, The Arts in Medicine supports Rachel's dance movement therapy work with children with cerebral palsy. Here you can see a brief WHYY original documentary showing Rachel's work with these children. 

Dance and Disability
Watch the Video
At the HMS School for Children with Cerebral Palsy, dance therapist Rachel Morales helps students use dance and movement to communicate. Children come alive and vibrant in dance class, working muscles, relieving stress and doing things that other children might do. Through dance performance, doctors find that they can better understand their patients both physically and emotionally, and see the whole person rather than just the disability.

Yesterday, Rachel wrote me to say, "Yesterday in group we had a lot of fun with the small octaband - exploring light and strong.  Your prop is Fantastic!"

Rare Bird of Fashion: The Irreverent Iris Apfel

Yesterday, my daughter and I went to this wonderful exhibit at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, MA of Iris Apfel's fabulous collection of vintage 1960's to present clothing, and vintage to current accessories. It is her way of putting together colors, textures, and styles that was so unique, outrageous and permissive that I loved.

Fashion editor Diane Vreeland is quoted: "It has been observed that American style, like democracy, celebrates the individual, the independent, and even on occasion, the idiosyncratic. There exists in the freewheeling American psyche an element of the frontiersman."

These are the very elements that draw me to creative movement and improvisation, dance movement therapy and expressive arts therapy as well as to the antique business, which I have been involved in for the past 40 years as well. I like character, color, and the uniqueness of self-expression which comes, not only from creating something from scratch, but also from putting together seemingly unrelated things and ideas, and making choices that are deeply satisfying. And while that may be very American, Iris Apfel's collection is built upon many of the cultures of the world.

Sweet Feet - Tap Goes Global on Vimeo

Tap, a history of Tap from the bottom up on video. "Tap has created bridges all over the world."

STOP Alzheimer's NOW

I spent an interesting morning today advocating for legislation in Massachusetts to regulate dementia care units, train first responders about dementia, and establish an Alzheimer's state plan commission. It is difficult to believe that there are currently no regulations requiring dementia specific care units to provide dementia-specific training for all residential care staff, nor that there be dementia-specific activities programming for residents in SCU's.

Thanks to the Massachusetts Alzheimer's Association for all that they do. I was particularly moved by the stories of 2 of the daughters. I, too, was the daughter of a parent with dementia.

Abstract Thoughts? The Body Takes Them Literally

Natalie Angier wrote this article on embodied cognition in Feb. 1, 2010 New York Times.

"The new study, published in January in the journal Psychological Science, is part of the immensely popular field called embodied cognition, the idea that the brain is not the only part of us with a mind of its own.

“How we process information is related not just to our brains but to our entire body,” said Nils B. Jostmann of the University of Amsterdam. “We use every system available to us to come to a conclusion and make sense of what’s going on.”

Research in embodied cognition has revealed that the body takes language to heart and can be awfully literal-minded."

"gesturing has been shown to help children master math"

"Yesterday is regrettable, tomorrow still hypothetical. But you can always listen to your body, and seize today with both hands."

I, for one, am glad that people are beginning to discover what dancers and dance movement therapists have always known.

Enjoy Closeness Again

Friends Village at Woodstown, NJ is offering free training in nonverbal communication to caregivers of people with dementia in Salem, NJ.

I will be training care partners in nonverbal communication to recognize and understand the meaning of body language and facial expressions in themselves as well as others. People with advanced dementia rely heavily on nonverbal communication because the meeting of their needs and their emotional safety depend on it. People with dementia are sensitive to approval and disapproval, support, nurturance, rejection and abandonment through tone of voice, facial expression, gesture, posture, etc.. Because our movement patterns are outside our awareness and so deeply ingrained, it takes repeated exposure to become aware and to adapt these habitual patterns. This training will help care partners focus more on relationship and less on tasks.

Training will be provided through engaging in experiential structures, role play, discussion and lecture. Trainees will be participant observers in a dance movement therapy group with people with dementia once each month.

There will be 4 classes. Groups of 8 participants each will meet for a total of 20 hours over a 6 month period. Classes will begin in February, March and April.

This program is free for residents of Salem County, NJ. Funding is provided in part by a grant from the Salem Health and Wellness Foundation.

For information, contact Patience Oakes at (856) 823-0242 or email her at poakes@fhaw.org.

Kids at Mary Cariola Children's Center Love the Octaband.

Kimberley Smith Daly wrote me to say that she has just begun using the Octaband with kids at Mary Cariola Children's Center and they love it. She has already been using it with physically and developmentally disabled adults who also love using the Octaband. You can see her previous testimonial here.

The images in this YouTube video are from photographs that dance movement therapist Priscilla Harmel took of elders at Hebrew Rehabilitation Center in Roslindale and excerpts from a video of a celebration of Dance Therapy week in Massachusetts in May 2006. Thanks to Sherry Moore for putting this video clip together. Most of the adults in the video were students or graduates of Lesley University's dance movement therapy specialization. Sherry was Production Manager of the film Twisted.

The Body Is More than a Vessel

I'm attempting to organize my papers, a grueling task, and just found the following letter to the editor which I wrote and was published in the December 12, 1995 Newton TAB.

"This letter is in support of my statement at the PTA meeting, Nov. 14, that what I want for our children as people and citizens is for them to be responsible for their health. I believe we do our children a great disservice by not teaching them about, and through, the medium of the kinesthetic sense. Because we learned to breathe, sit up, crawl, move, and stand without teaching, we didn't know that these were subjects worthy of studying. These bodies we move through are worth of being studied, both from the inside and out. Children should be studying how the human body moves and functions, and discovering their responsibilities in creating and maintaining optimal health. This includes mental health, as well as physical health.

I want our children to become citizens who live together cooperatively, to make the world a better place. It is not enough to prepare our children to go on for further schooling, so that they can get 'good' jobs, and amass more individual wealth.

I want them to be aware not only of themselves, but of those around them; to be able to recognize where there is need, and to feel within themselves the power to have a part in resolving that need. Our children will need to know a sense of personal responsibility, to know their rightful place in a society which they will have the power to affect. They will need to know the effects of their actions, whether in ejecting noxious emissions, or degrading another being, whether human, animal or plant. They will need to know, not only how to be independent, but how to be interdependent.

I believe that we, in our society, have been very selfish. We want no part of someone else's pain. The American dream has been to rise up out of individual poverty, moving up through the economic class system to a position of great wealth and power. Perhaps, it is time to dream a new dream.

My dream is based on the creative movement teachings of Barbara Mettler in Tucson, Arizona. At the entrance to her dance studio, the Tucson Creative Dance Center, built by Frank Lloyd Wright, are the Zuni words, 'We dance not only for ourselves, but for the good of the people.'

Mettler's very first movement problem is, 'Find a space where you have enough room to move, and where everyone has an equal amount of space.' That problem alone could take the next millennium to solve. Imagine the genuine respect for each individual within that configuration.

In our society, we have thus far looked to solve problems only after they have become big. One of the biggest crises facing our government right now is the staggering cost of health care for our elderly and our poor. (This was in 1995!) Our nation's health bill is currently $800 billion. And we still want to fix people with a pill, surgery or even psychotherapy, after they have become ill. 

I believe children need to be educated about how to be well. Our holistic health care providers already know how. Through attention to the kinesthetic sense, children can learn to become more aware of their emotions and alternative ways of communicating, including assertiveness skills. Children can learn to manage their stress without reliance upon tobacco, drugs or alcohol. Children can learn to nurture a healthy body image and eliminate eating disorders. By having learning grounded in the body through the medium of dance, children will learn respect and responsibility for their bodies, which are their first homes, and from there can learn more respect and responsibility for their environmental homes.

To the extent that we want to enhance our students' self-esteem we must understand that there is no self without the body. Our bodies are not merely containers in which our minds are stored.

The Newton schools already have an excellent pilot program in health education at Day Middle School. We need a comprehensive health education program for K-12. It is time for our schools to stop contributing to and begin to heal our societal mind/body split."

Awakening to Our Inner Dance

I am just rereading a former students' paper with this wonderful quotation from Diane Mariechild in her book, The Inner Dance, 1987, p. 72,

"awakening to our own inner dance and to the dance of the universe demands our courage, our willingness to dig beneath layers of pain and find the hidden treasures . . . the ability to feel."

The Death of Mother's Husband

I met Sandy Smyth at the IEATA (International Expressive Arts Therapy Association) conference this past August. Sandy wrote a book, JOURNEY to WHOLENESS through the Creative Arts; POEMS. I found the following poem within,

THE DEATH OF MOTHER'S HUSBAND

In the waterfall she hears his laughter; In the bluest sky she sees
The sparkle of his caring eyes.
She remembers him as tall, lean,
Calm and strong,
Handsome, kind, humor keen.
He was a farm-bred boy,
A Navy man with a Purple Heart,
Loving God, of modest means.
His family, pets and friends
Meant most to him.

But he most adored his second wife.
He cared for her as if she were
Made of porcelain and silk;
Yet, he coudn't break her as he held her
And hugged her warm and tight.
Their life was like the cream of milk;
Their love, like morning light.

Then, dementia slowly stole him from her;
Stole the sparkle and laughter of their years;
Left him silent with a vacant stare.
As she became the one to care,
She turned from silk to cotton,
Porcelain to stone.
Her loss was almost more
Than she could bear.
In a nursing home,
He finally turned to skin and bone
And died, alone, but not forgotten;
For she was there in heart, in mind and tears.

His journey home to Bliss was bright
And swift as shooting stars.
In the photographs, music and the wine,
She keeps their precious times alive;
The memory of one so dear loving her,
Is her heaven here.
Though feeling left behind,
She sometimes feels, in a gentle breeze,
The blessings of his kiss.