Musings of a Dance/Movement Therapist

Youtube Slide Show of Dance Therapy in Action

American Dance Therapy Association (ADTA) Informational Slide Show (2009)

The Sudden Eruption of Dancing Is a Good Business Strategy

Staff and owners of The Stone Oven Bakery and Cafe break into a choreographed dance routine during a Saturday lunch rush. If this is the place in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, the following review in 2006 seems to have been taken to heart, "Young counter staff often seems depressed, though - just floating around barely aware of the customers, and showing no signs of any sense of humor." Let every business respond to its critiques in that way, and business should be thriving.

Hooray for the role of dance in uplifting spirits.

Remembering Ted Kennedy, the Champion of the People

While I don't intend to use this blog for political purposes, as an advocate for people who cannot speak for themselves, as a healthcare worker, and as an artist, I am deeply saddened at the passing of Senator Ted Kennedy. He was an ardent champion of the people and a master negotiation. I admired his courage, his commitment, and his steadfastness, and I looked to him for his assessment of all things political. He was not a perfect man. I didn't always admire him. However, I observed him as he seemed to change and commit himself more clearly many years back.

Of the many things that I heard said about him in listening to NPR radio yesterday, was that as a senator, Ted Kennedy was  a master at the theatrical part of his job and even better at getting legislation passed. He knew the rules of the Senate and how it worked, knew how to get things done. He had confidence in his values. "He cared deeply". His influence on public policy was enormous in the areas of immigration, diversity, civil rights, women's rights, people with diabilities, the elderly, the rights of all people. He was committed to the well-being of people. As Jack Beattie of Atlantic Monthly said, "Compassion isn't soft."

Ted Kennedy felt that the Kennedy contribution was to make a difference. We are our brother's keeper. We are responsible for each other. We need to reach out beyond our own lives. He was a champion, not of liberalism, nor the democratic party, but of seeing that those of us who have take care of those who do not have. According to the Huffington Post, "Kennedy has been fighting to guarantee every American access to affordable, quality health care for forty years. Writing about that battle this summer, he called it the "cause of my life." "It has never been merely a question of policy," he said, "it goes to the heart of my belief in a just society."

Having worked for the past 30 years with people who are mentally ill, developmentally delayed, with dementia, people who can not speak for themselves, I believe that our system is disgraceful. I am not proud that America, one of the richest countries in the world, treats our ill so poorly. It has been our history that we relegate those unable to care for themselves to places far away, up on a hill, so that we don't have to look at them. Don't have to feel guilty at how they are cared for. Go into any nursing home and look at how we care for the elderly who cannot care for themselves. I know that seeing my own father in such a facility did not feel to me as though I was honoring my father, as I was taught by the Ten Commandments.

I am proud to be from Massachusetts, where Edward Kennedy has been my Senator for the past 47 years. I am sad to have lost such a wonderful role model. And I vow to recommit myself to the betterment of the quality of life for people with dementia.

Vivien Marcow Speiser Recognized at IEATA Conference

In conjunction with the International Expressive Arts Therapy Conference held at Lesley University in August, Lesley held its 1st Centennial celebration. On this occasion, Sean McNiff was honored for his visionary role as founder of the Expressive Arts Therapy program at Lesley, the first of its kind in the world. Sean brought world class teachers to teach in the program including Norma Canner, Paolo Knill, Mariagnese Cattaneo, Peter Rowan and Elizabeth McKim. Vivien Marcow Speiser was one of the first graduates of the program, a visionary in her own right. Shortly after graduating, Vivien created Lesley's Expressive Therapy program in Israel. Vivien's contributions to Lesley University, the fields of expressive arts therapy and dance/movement therapy have been many. I am proud of my friend and fellow Authentic Movement mover, Vivien, who is now acting Dean of Lesley's Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.

ADTA Awarding Conference Scholarship to Multicultural Applicant

The Diversity Committee of the ADTA is awarding a complimentary conference registration scholarship for the 2009 ADTA Conference in

Portland

,

Oregon

, October 8-11, 2009, to a deserving multicultural applicant. The Diversity Committee will determine the worthy candidate by reviewing applications. The criteria and application is available on the ADTA website http://www.adta.org/resources/upload/ConfScholInfoGuide.pdf

Application deadline is September 10, 2009.

Rachel Maddow at Jacob's Pillow " when we fight for dance"

 
“Sometimes we choose to serve our country in uniform, in war.  Sometimes in elected office. And those are the ways of serving our country that I think we are trained to easily call heroic. It’s also a service to your country, I think, to teach poetry in the prisons, to be an incredibly dedicated student of dance, to fight for funding music and arts education in the schools.  A country without an expectation of minimal artistic literacy, without a basic structure by which the artists among us can be awakened and given the choice of following their talents and a way to get to be great at what they do, is a country that is not actually as a great as it could be.  And a country without the capacity to nurture artistic greatness is not being a great country.   It is a service to our country, and sometimes it is heroic service to our country, to fight for the United States of America to have the capacity to nurture artistic greatness.” – Rachel Maddow
 
“Not just in wartime but especially in wartime, and not just in hard economic times but especially in hard economic times, the arts get dismissed as ‘sissy.’ Dance gets dismissed as craft, creativity gets dismissed as inessential, to the detriment of our country.   And so when we fight for dance, when we buy art that’s made by living American artists, when we say that even when you cut education to the bone, you do not cut arts and music education, because arts and music education IS bone, it is structural, is it essential; you are, in [Jacob’s Pillow founder] Ted Shawn’s words, you are preserving the way of life that we are supposedly fighting for and it’s worth being proud of.” – Rachel  Maddow

Dance Movement Therapy Defined

"Dance/movement therapy attends to the body and its posture and how it influences perception, tensions held within the body that might inhibit action or feeling, the awareness of the breath as it is used or withheld, and the sensory use of touch. What is significant is that it is related to the art form of dance, which supports and encourages creativity through use of time and space using the body, oneself, in an active way. Improvising movements and gestures that emerge from inner impulses and that connect to rhythms natural to the dancer lead to self-expression that may or may not be cognitively understood but that nevertheless have meaning in his or her life. Improvisations are mostly self-directed and come from the unconscious or preconscious."

This definition of DMT comes from Sharon Chaiklin's chapter in the book she edited with Hilda Wengrower and just out from Routledge,We Dance from the Moment Our Feet Touch the Earth in The Art and Science of Dance/Movement Therapy. If you want to purchase this book from Amazon, you can go to the ADTA website and click on SUPPORT ADTA BY SHOPPING AMAZON.COM! and a percentage of the purchase price is donated to the American Dance Therapy Association.

We Dance from the Moment Our Feet Touch the Earth

This is the title of Sharon Chaiklin's chapter in the book she edited with Hilda Wengrower and just out from Routledge, The Art and Science of Dance/Movement Therapy. If you want to purchase this book from Amazon, you can go to the ADTA website and click on SUPPORT ADTA BY SHOPPING AMAZON.COM! and a percentage of the purchase price is donated to the American Dance Therapy Association.

And you will want to purchase this book if you are at all interested in dance/movement therapy. This is from the very first chapter,

"Movement and breath signify the start of life. They precede language and thought. Gesture immediately emerges as the means for expressing the human need for communication. This has been true over the span of human history. Havelock Ellis writes, 'If we are indifferent to the art of dancing, we have failed to understand, not merely the supreme manifestation of physical life, but also the supreme symbol of spiritual life' (Ellis, 1923, p. 36)."

The book offers basic concepts of dance/movement therapy (DMT), the path from theory to practice, including the use of DMT with people with eating disorders, dementia, acquired brain trauma, early childhood treatment, and family therapy. This is one gem of a book.

Dance Advantage Offers Ideas for Dance Props

Dance classes (and the experience of your students) can be enhanced with the use of props and classroom aids. Hopefully in this list of products you will discover new ideas or places to shop for items.

Back to School — Props and Classroom Aids

August 21, 2009 by Nichelle  
Filed under Blog, Classroom, For Teachers/Studio Owners, In the Spotlight, Online, Product/Website Reviews

Remembering the Partners of People with Dementia

July/August 2009

Forgotten Partners: Overlooked at the End
By Florence Gelo, DMin, NCPsyA
Aging Well
Vol. 2 No. 3 P. 18

Older adult patients and their partners both deserve professional consideration related to concerns associated with patients’ treatment and care.