Musings of a Dance/Movement Therapist

Dance to Boost Your Memory

Here's a link to 20 Easy Ways to Boost Your Memory from caring.com in the April 27 issue of Mark Warner's Alzheimer's Daily News.

These five of the 20 ways suggested as things you can do to preserve your memory are a very important five of the 20 that can be found in dancing and dance movement therapy:

1. Exercise benefits your head as much as the rest of your body, a growing number of studies indicate.
2. Novelty fires up the brain as new data creates and works new neural pathways.
3. Paying attention to all your senses helps store bits of data in different areas of the brain.
4. Social stimulation lowers one's risk of developing dementia.
5. Exercises which cause communication betweeen the 2 hemispheres of the brain allows one to retrieve certain types of memories.

As a matter of fact, this was the topic of a wonderful presentation I went to by Lora Wilson Mau at last year's American Dance Therapy Association conference. Gene Expression and Neuroplasticity: Implications for Dance/Movement Therapy and Alzheimer’s Disease was the title of her presentation. Here's a quotation from Wilson Mau's abstract for the conference paper:

"Research ... supports that certain types of physical, sensory and social experiences can maintain brain plasticity and increase neurogenesis. Building on the anecdotal and clinical literature that supports the use of dance/movement therapy with individuals with dementia, this workshop introduces Ernest Rossi’s concept of “psychosocial genomics” and integrates the language of neuroscience to more concretely explain what can happen on a molecular level during a DMT session and why that may be particularly significant in the prevention and treatment of Alzheimer’s disease (Wilson-Mau, 2010)."

The entirely of the paper along with 59 other papers from the 45th annual conference can be purchased for $30 on the ADTA website. You can also find some initial info about about next year's ADTA conference.

Contact me directly if you are interested in bringing dance to people with dementia. If I'm too far away, I will find you someone closer to teach your staff and implement a program.

"If we cannot bring ourselves to dance, we become sick. Dancing heals."--Marion C. Garretty

Dance against Racism

 

Event :: Dance Against Racism

Presented by in collaboration with ArtsBoston, Boston Dance Alliance, Cambridge Arts Council, and Jose Mateo Ballet Theatre
At The Sanctuary Theatre (400 Harvard Street Cambridge, MA)
Fri, April 29     @ 8:00 pm to 10:00 pm
Join Dance for World Community and the YWCA for 
DANCE AGAINST RACISM! 
 
Friday, April 29, 2011
8:00-10:00 pm
The Sanctuary Theatre
400 Harvard Street, Cambridge
 
The evening will include youth dance performances by Chu Ling Dance Academy, José Mateo Ballet Theatre, OrigiNations, Inc., and Ritmo en Accion.
 
Performances will be followed by a facilited conversation with the dancers and audience members about race in Boston from a youth perspective.
 
The event is FREE and open to the public.
 
For more information on Dance Against Racism call us 617-354-7467!
 
For more information on the YWCA's national Stand Against Racism program, click HERE.
 
Ticket Price: FREE

Exquisite Dance ~ Can You Imagine the Neurons Lit up?

 

This is an amazing treat for National Dance Week ~ Lil Buck dancing to Yo-Yo Ma's cello!!  I can only imagine the neurons lit up in Lil Buck's brain! However, if it is true that the observer's mirror neurons also light up when they see movements which they can relate to, I'm afraid my mirror neurons are not lighting up. I can't imagine what that would feel like in my body. I'm so glad that Lil Buck knows, though.

Empress of the Universe

"If you were Empress of the Universe, what would you do? What laws would you enact?"

Those are questions that I have asked of my folks with dementia during dance/movement therapy groups.Today I am answering that question myself.

This is National Dance Week all across the United States. Why celebrate dance? Because dance is the only form of artistic expression which uses the body, the entire body, as the medium for expression. It is, and I heard Anna Halprin say again a week ago at the Society for the Arts conference, the most basic of the arts. So why celebrate dance? Because dance gives us the opportunity to use our whole selves in the service of artistic expression and has been used throughout the history of the world to help make the world a better place.

Prometheus Elders Ensemble

I used to have the Governor of Massachusetts declare it Dance Movement Therapy Week in Massachusetts as well to celebrate the work and the contributions of dance movement therapists here and across the country. For that matter, across the world. Why celebrate dance movement therapy? Because dance movement therapists are making a difference! We are dancing with people with dementia, with people who have experienced trauma, with people with autism.We are dancing with newborns in intensive care units, with people with substance abuse, and with developmental disabilities. We are dancing to make a difference, to make the world a better place.

If I were Empress of the Universe, I would ensure that dance and all of the arts were a part of every child's education. I would make sure that dancers and artists and dancers and artists who were therapists had the opportunity to receive monetary compensation for the amazing work that they/we do. Because we contribute greatly to the soul of our societies.

Dance whereever you are. Take a dance class. See a dance performance. Learn more about dance / movement therapy and the ADTA. Find a site to dance for Global Waters Dances on June 25. Come see us dance at Wise Women Conversations: Reclaiming our Elders' Stories Together at Lesley University this Friday, April 29. Download Wise women conf flier 2011. April 29 is national dance day across the U.S. Subscribe to this blog. Make dance happen whereever you are. 

Want to know more about Wheelchair Dancing? Check out this very thorough article by The National Council of Certified Dementia Practitioners. Write to me and ask about my trainings in Bringing Dance to People with Dementia. Sign up for the Nonverbal Communications for Caregivers of People with Dementia Training I will be teaching at Kinections June 10 to 12 where we will be using creative movement and dance therapy techniques to improve our communications with people with dementia.

Purchase an Octaband and bring it with you wherever you go. Laurie Lunsford of Dancing Hands did just that. She "brought the octaband home from the Society for Arts in Healthcare Convention. Our residents in the healthcare facility came alive. I gave it to our volunteer exercise person and told her to be creative with it. She had not seen the video nor did she have any instruction. She just kept them moving. The colors and designs and movement are stimulating. I don't think they knew they were exercising."

"We should consider every day lost on which we have not danced at least once." Friedrich Nietzsche 

For more wonderful quotes on dancing. But don't fool yourself into thinking that thinking dance is dancing. "Dance first.  Think later.  It's the natural order."  ~Samuel Beckett

 

Invitation to the Dance - Gene Kelly and Heather Hill

In googling Invitation to the Dance, looking for how to order Heather Hill's book, I found this Invitation to Dance, a lovely video excerpt of Gene Kelly's dance with an animated female partner.

 

Described by the narrator as “Most ambitious all-dance film ever attempted. It will always stand as an extraordinary piece of film by a master craftsman determined to share with his audience the artistry, the exhilaration, the sheer joy of dancing."

Heather Hill's book Invitation to the Dance was republished in 2009. It is a highly practical guide for staff who wish to bring dance to people with dementia which I am happy to recommend. I particularly like her concept of of mutuality between people with dementia and their care providers, acknowledging that leader and group members are “essentially co-dancers.” Yet because of participants’ disabilities the leader has to be sensitive  in “creating opportunities for success rather than failure.”

And while on the subject of tap dancing and people with dementia, I met Laurie Lunsford of Dancing Hands at the SAH conference last week.  View this photo Laurie created these for her work with her clients in assisted living. I had fun tapping out rhythms on a table, and look forward to doing it with others.

New Octaband Video Now up on Youtube and Vimeo

Tomorrow, April 13, I will be exhibiting the Octaband at the Society for the Arts in Healthcare (SAH) conference in San Francisco. For anyone who works in a dynamic way with people in healthcare, the Octaband is a wonderful tool. Whether in  a hospital, hospice, mental health cllnic, or substance abuse facility, people of all ages are highly responsive to the archetypal imagery the Octaband evokes. The Octaband also also addresses the deep need people have for connection to one another and to a larger whole.

I will also be presenting a poster with colleague Meg Chang of CIIS, "Training Caregivers of People with Dementia in Person-Centered Nonverbal Communication through Creative Dance". This presentation is based on the 9 month pilot training program I provided at Friend's Village at Woodstown, NJ thanks to a grant from Salem Health and Wellness Foundation. With a grant from the Alzheimer Foundation of America's 2010 Brodsky grant, we are creating a manual and video to accompany the training.

I will be teaching this 20 hour course at Kinections in Rochester, NY June 10 - 12. Contact me for more information.

Across The Ages Dance Projectune 17th & 18th, 2011

June 17th & 18th, 2011

Green Street Studios in Cambridge, MA

Across The Ages Dance Project's mission is to produce a concert featuring five unique choreographers, each using an inter-generational ensemble of dancers. 

We believe in the rich life experience of this mixed population, which includes dancers of all ages, and wish to create an opportunity for dancers and choreographers to come together and share their art with the larger community.

Across The Ages Dance features works by Audra Carabetta, Joan Green, Daniel McCusker, Catherine Wagner and Melody Ruffin Ward.  Across The Ages is being produced by dancers Eliza Mallouk and Marcie Mitler. A documentary film of the process is being made by Deborah Greenhut.

Our intention is to create one successful concert and in so doing, enhance the possibility of future concerts with an inter-generational theme.

Marcie Mitler /Eliza Mallouk

 Find us on Facebook: Across The Ages Dance Project

The Octaband at the N.E. Music Therapy Association Conference

"The famed Octaband" was how I was greeted by one music therapist at the New England Region, American Music Therapy Conference which is being held at Ocean Edge Resort and Golf club in Brewster, MA.

Alden Rockwell Murphy, music therapist at Connecticut Hospice, stopped by to tell me, "I and my patients and families love the Octaband. One of my most recent successes with it was working with a German patient with dementia. She loved polkas and beer songs, which I learned from her daughter. When Mrs. H and I needed a little lift, I would turn on the beer songs on my iPod. We would hold the Octaband together and we would romp through the beer drinking songs. All of her muscles became invigorated. She learned the back and forth. We were together. She was engaged in it. It was great. I love it.

OCTABAND™ from Octaband® on Vimeo.

 

Alden often plays "My Body Lies Over the Ocean" and has folks easily fall into a rowing rhythm together.

In addition to exhibiting and selling the Octaband, I have had wonderdul conversations with Mark Holdaway of Kalimba Magic. A tip from Mark's March 21 entry Practicing: Digging for Meaning:

"There is magic in music. There is a presence or a soul or a story or SOMETHING. If you pick up the kalimba and play a series of notes, it could very well just be a series of notes. But if you keep playing that series of notes over and over again, eventually they will come to have meaning for you.

When you practice by playing a riff over and over and over again, you are sculpting. You are removing what isn't meaningful to you and digging for meaning."