Musings of a Dance/Movement Therapist

Summer Dance Workshop in Individual & Group Dance Improv - Tucson

Mettler Studios in Tucson, AZ is offering a Summer Dance Workshop in Individual and Group Dance Improvisation on July 27-31, 2009. Structured improvisations for individuals and groups and directed exercises.

Mary Ann Brehm, Ph.D. and Griff Goehring, M.A. will provide experiences in the art of body movement, according to principles developed by dance pioneer Barbara Mettler.  These include:

• Using the kinesthetic sense as a guide for creating movement
• Exploring force, time, and space and their connections to drama, music, and visual arts
• Discovering organic form, where movements and themes evolve naturally one from another
• Unifying sound and movement
• Cultivating skills for group work  

For further information on registration, contact:
Mary Ann Brehm   323-6711 mabdance@aol.com
Griff Goehring 802 380-0068 
griff@creativedancecenter.org

  

inFluxdance ~ VOLATILE an evening of Contemporary Dance and Film

For National Dance Week, I am giving myself time to reflect upon my recent experience dancing and performing with inFluxdance in VOLATILE an evening of Contemporary Dance and Film. Thanks to choreographers, Diana Steinberg and Tanja London, and a wonderful group of dancers, Deanna Beattie, Jennifer Green, Kara Johnson, Darya Marusa Pinton, and Melina OGrady, I had a joy-filled time dancing, rehearsing and performing. And, as an older dancer performing for the first time, I learned so-o-o much.

As far as performing previously, I performed several times with an African drum and dance company. After rehearsing with the company for close to a year, doing a piece I had been doing 1 to 3 times a week for several years, I made a mistake, which I interpreted as that I wasn't "meant to be" a performer, that African dance was not my dance, and I quit the company. Until the week of the inFluxdance performance, I always thought that my mistake had been trying to perform. I suddenly realized that my mistake was not getting back on the stage.

How did I suddenly find myself in a performance? Because I felt the need to reconnect to my creative source, I responded to a notice on a local dance listserve which called for dancers and "non-dancers". I was applying to be a non-dancer, for a walk-on and off the stage role. I just wanted to be in the environment where dance was being created. Because they didn't have enough responses from other "dancers", they asked me to learn the choreography, which they adapted to movement that I could do. The choreography was both quirky and highly energetic and physical. I was fine with the quirky part.

"volatile" explores states or things that do not last but fleet. "Pastures of Plenty", choreographed by Diana Steinberg and Tanja London, takes a closer, quirky look at the American Dream on the background of today's recession, political and environmental changes. I was in the community piece, where they show the importance of people's reliance on community for support in such volatile times. I danced as part of the ensemble.

What did I learn? Many things, among them that every one of the dancers made mistakes the first night of the performance, and still at least one person in the audience was moved to tears. That one doesn't move from being humanly imperfect before a performance and suddenly become "perfect" during a performance. Amazing some of the many (unchallenged) expectations and perceptions that I got to examine more closely because of this opportunity.

Some photos taken by photographer, Julia Cumes, from the performance:

inFluxdance is a wonderful company with great choreographers and well worth seeing.

Are You a Dancer?

Read John Borstel's simple answer to this simple question. Borstel is Humanities Director for Liz Lerman Dance Exchange.

Dance Is The Answer 2009.

Celebrate National Dance Week

This is one of my favorite pieces of choreography of all time. It was seeing Judith Jamison dance in this piece 3 times in one week in 1974 that inspired me to dance more and become a dance/movement therapist. How amazing that we can now enjoy watching this on our personal computers.

YouTube - Alvin Ailey Dance-Wade in the Water from "Revelations".

Francine Godfrey Is Taking the Octaband to the Ukraine

Francine is heading for the Ukraine where she will be establishing an exercise physiology program for seniors in a Jewish elderly housing facility. Francine's exercise program, currently written in English, includes exercises with the Octaband. The program will be translated into Ukrainian. Another first for the Octaband.

Where is the dancer's focus?

I'm reading one of the chapters in Foundations of Dance/Movement Therapy,  The Meaning of Movement, as Human Expression and as an Artistic Communication, 1968, Marian Chace, with Jarl E. Dyrud and Jean Erdman.

J. Dyrud says,

"The distinction is that in dance therapy you are not trying to create artists. You are trying to create     communicators and are trying to help people engage in more meaningful dialogue. One of the unnecessary tragedies that happens with some dancers is that they become privately tied up with their own bodies and are very poor communicators with their fellow humans. I don't think this adds to the dance. We were discussing whether in fact the best artist is not the one who has the best rapport with the audience. You see some dancers who you feel are dancing with and for themselves alone, and this shuts you out, except insofar as you can identify with the movement itself, which is quite different from communicating with the dancer."

This quotation has me thinking about the qualities necessary for the performing dancer and how they are similar or different from the qualities necessary for a dance therapist or for living life well.

Adam Riccio, expressive therapy intern, uses Octaband with 1st graders referred for behavioral issues.

Thanks to Adam Riccio for sharing the many, thoroughly creative ways that he has used the Octaband with children and adolescents. Adam is a 1st year expressive therapy student at Lesley University. I can only begin to imagine what he'll do in his 2nd year.

Here is one song that Adam makes up as he goes along:

Shake, shake, shake the Octaband
Shake, shake, shake the Octaband
Shake, shake, shake the Octaband
We’re shakin’ the Octaband.

Lift, lift, lift the Octaband in the air,
Lift, lift, lift the Octaband in the air,
Lift, lift, lift the Octaband in the air,
We’re liftin’ the Octaband in the air.

Now touch your toes with it.

Touch your toes with the Octaband,
Touch your toes with the Octaband,
Touch your toes with the Octaband,
We’re touchin’ our toes with the Octaband.

Now,

Walk in a circle with the Octaband.
(Directions in a loud voice.) STOP. AND TURN AROUND.
And walk the other way with the Octaband.
(Directions in a loud voice.) STOP.
And keep walkin’ with the Octaband,
And walk, walk, walk and stop.

And give them the opportunity to do anything they want with it.
One child said, “I wanna go back and forth with it”.

So,

We go back and forth as we stretch the Octaband,
We go back and forth as we stretch the Octaband,
We go back and forth as we stretch the Octaband,
We are stretchin’ the Octaband.

And the very popular,

Stretch the Octaband out, stretch it far,
Stretch the Octaband out, stretch it far,
Stretch the Octaband out, stretch it far,
We’re stretchin’ the Octaband.

We’re comin’ closer with the Octaband,

We’re walkin’ closer closer with the Octaband,
We’re walkin’ closer closer with the Octaband,
We’re comin’ closer with the Octaband

And now since we’re so close, we’re all gonna say hi.
Hi.

Walk back out to a normal position
And lift the Octaband and wiggle it around and all that fun stuff.

Other fun things they’ve done with it. This one was really fun.

Another child wanted to roll in with the Octaband, so they wrapped it around their bodies,

Rolling in with the Octaband,
And it’s covering our tummies and
Now we’re in the center,
So you gotta roll out so you’re not tangled anymore,
We’re now in the Octaband.

Just start singing in that tune and the possibilities are endless.

Honestly, one child wanted just

How still can we make the Octaband?
It’s just so very still,
Let’s keep it very still
How still is the Octaband?
Oh, wow! It’s very still.

And of course we have to end with,

We’re shakin’, shakin’, shakin’ the Octaband
We’re shakin’, shakin’, shakin’ the Octaband
Oh, we had so much fun with the Octaband,
Oh we had fun with the Octaband.

Using the Octaband as Physical Warm Up for Creating Mandalas

Dance/movement therapist Melissa Sabatini uses the Octaband in novel and unique ways. She leads groups on adult detox and dual diagnosis units, mostly with men. She uses the OctabandTM as a physical warm-up for creating mandalas. The Octaband has a center focus, just as a mandala may. Melissa has them alternate pulling on one leg and then the other, which she calls "milking the cow". They may each turn into the center, sometimes rubbing shoulders or elbows as they twirl in or out. Sometimes she has them cross the circle 2 at a time. Or use it as a double dutch jump robe. One time there was 1 man under the center, while the others moved the Octaband down over him and up again. When asked how he felt, he said he felt "like a king". She has found that with the Octaband the men are often more willing to free dance to music. When I expressed amazement at Melissa's ability to get a group of men in a detox unit to be so expressive in movement, Melissa said "It's all in the energy that you bring and how you present it. I give them permission to express their resistance".

Dance/Movement Therapy Blog at Antioch U.

Richard B's blog provides his perspectives on dance/movement therapy.

Dance/Movement Therapy « Antioch University New England: Counseling and Therapy Blogs.