Musings of a Dance/Movement Therapist

Dance Therapy with People with Parkinson's & MS

Dr. Miriam Berger, Director of the Dance Therapy Program at the Harkness Dance Center of the 92nd Street Y, says

"I love the Octaband... use both the large and small size for my Movement Disorders class (Parkinsons, MS, etc). One activity they love... we put a small bean bag ball in the center and bounce (to music) and count how many times we can do it... have gotten up to 400!"

That's the highest number I've heard about. Anyone else gotten higher?

The Octaband engenders curiosity, focus and a desire to connect with others. If you work with people who need motivation to help them achieve their goals, this is the time to get an Octaband. Waiting longer will only delay their achievements.

2011 Year in Review ~ Dance for Connection

2011 has been an extraordinary year for me and my newly reorganized business, Dance for Connection. Hopefully we will have our new website, Dance for Connection, up and running in 2012. Dance for Connection has a number of aspects, which include:

Dancing with Elders and People with Dementia

Continues to be my favorite part of the work. Playing and bringing joy to elders which continues to bring great joy to me. You can hear about what motivated me to do this work and some of my early experiences at 60 minutes 

Listen to internet radio with Alzheimers Speaks Radio Show on Blog Talk Radio

 

 

 Octaband

See the 4 minute video of the Octaband being used with children and elders. Thanks once again to videographer Sherry Moore and Expressive Therapist Adam Riccio and the children and adults who participated in the video.

Check out our Facebook page and "Like" us. Maybe it will make it easier for you to communicate with us.

You can also see the Octaband video that Music Together created.

We met lots of wonderful folks at the American Therapeutic Recreation Association conference where I led a 2.5 hour workshop. We also exhibited at the New England Region American Music Therapy Association on Cape Cod, Map through the Maze Massachusetts/NH Alzheimer's Association conference, Society for the Arts in Healthcare (SAH) conference in San Francisco in June, Pioneer Network conference in St. Charles, MO in August, American Dance Therapy Association conference in Minneapolis in October.

In 2012 we look forward to seeing the protocol for using the Octaband with the elderly and people with dementia which will be published in Karen Grote's next edition of Behavioral Health Protocols for Recreational Therapy.

Relationship-Centered Nonverbal Communication Training for Caregivers of People with Dementia: An Embodied Approach

Dr. Meg Chang and I have self-published the manual to accompany the train-the-trainers for this course.

I led a 20 hour training for a wonderful group of dance movement therapists and others at Kinections in Rochester, NY this past June.

Meg Chang and I and a panel of 3 of our original trainees at Friends Village, NJ ~ Patience Oakes, Tabitha Gifford and Linda Price ~ presented on the trainings at the Pioneer Network conference. Our work was well received and we had a lot of fun.

Meg and I also delivered our evaluation research findings in poster presentations at the ADTA and SAH conferences.

Back Pocket Dancers

Back Pocket Dancers, an intergenerational dance company of which I am a member, performed for the West Medford Community Center and the Somerville Council on Aging. We're available for bookings in the greater Boston area as of Spring 2012. Check out our video by going to joangreendance.com on YouTube. Click on Back Pocket Dancers to see excerpts of DANCE ME A STORY.

Module II of the Laban/Bartenieff Movement and Somatic Studies was an amazingly wonderful experience at Lesley University. It has helped me as a dancer, dance therapist, dance therapy educator, and trainer in nonverbal communication (to say nothing of myself as a human being). I'll be taking the next Module in January. Lesley will be offering another such certification program in May, 2012.

Woohoo! What a year! What to expect in 2012?  More blogging I'm sure. More dancing, hopefully lots of it with people with dementia. Am looking into setting up some trainings in nonverbal communication on both coasts, presenting at conferences in NJ and Albuquerque I hope. And the Octaband? May it continue to provide people with a sense of belonging. That may be the most important thing of all.

Dance Therapy and Dementia

It was nice to have the opportunity this morning on Alzheimer's Speaks Radio to share some of my experiences about what has motivated me to to do the work that I do with people with dementia, specifically dance therapy, training staff caregivers in nonverbal communication, and creating the Octaband. You can hear the podcast here at 64:24.

Listen to internet radio with Alzheimers Speaks Radio Show on Blog Talk Radio

 One thing I had hoped to do that I didn't have time for was to read a poem written collaboratively with a woman with vascular dementia with whom I worked for a couple of years. I guess I'll have to write that article....

To Celebrate the Season of Lights ~ "So Here We Are" by Music Together

This is beautiful harmony, and hard to believe it was improvised. Makes me want to take a class with Music Together.

Music Together also created this beautiful video of the Octaband being used. As you can see it's fun for all ages.

Julia Priest was the first Music Together teacher I approached. She took to it immediately. This is her using it in a group several years ago.

I wish peace and light for all, humans and animals, plants, and the planet. We need it.

 

Dance Therapy & Alzheimer's Talk Radio December 27, 2011

I'm looking forward to being interviewed by Lori LaBey for Alzheimers Speaks Radio Show at 12 A.M. EST. People can call in. I'll get to talk about something I love to do ~ dance therapy with people with dementia. Tune in. If you can't make that time, you can listen to a podcast shortly after it's over.

Free Play is Essential for Healthy Psychological Development

Peter Gray makes a strong case for the importance of free play in helping young people "acquire the social and emotional skills necessary for healthy psychological development." In "The Decline of Play and the Rise of Psychopathology in Children and Adolescents" in the American Journal of Play, Gray argues for the importance of play.

Over the past half century, in the United States and other developed nations,
children’s free play with other children has declined sharply. Over the same period,
anxiety, depression, suicide, feelings of helplessness, and narcissism have increased
sharply in children, adolescents, and young adults. This article documents these
historical changes and contends that the decline in play has contributed to the
rise in the psychopathology of young people. Play functions as the major means
by which children (1) develop intrinsic interests and competencies; (2) learn how
to make decisions, solve problems, exert self-control, and follow rules; (3) learn
to regulate their emotions; (4) make friends and learn to get along with others as
equals; and (5) experience joy.

It certainly makes sense to me. It is clear to me that young people's lives are overly structured by parents and school alike.

Here is a photo of dance therapist Emma Barton using the Octaband with a group of high schoolers who are clearly playing joyfully.

Lest you think only children play:

 

So, here's to play for our health.

Adolescents with Mental Illness Love the Octaband

Jean Basiner wrote to say,

"I use the Octaband every week with severely mentally ill 18 to 21 yr olds. They absolutely love it-- it's not overwhelming for them, easy to hold with their frail hands because of the hand insert; it's colorful, and fun.  They laugh while in movement.  Great to have." 

Jean later wrote, "It's all packed for tomorrow's class at West Warwick H.S. Day Care." Below is a photo of Jean using the Octaband at St. Joseph's Baptist Children’s Hospital in Tampa, Florida from a newspaper article in 2009.

Increased Value on Something Tangibly Human Made - Dance Therapy

I was listening to Tom Ashbrook on "When Machines Do The Work" on WBUR's On Point Radio last Friday, Nov. 25.

The show was "What will be our jobs? Never mind outsourcing, it’s machines moving in on the workplace." Ashbrook suggested one of the callers' ideas might be a good one. That idea was that long-term, we should reevaluate jobs. Social workers, people who provide the interpersonal, the artistic, work in the physical world, storytellers, people who transmit joy ~ maybe these people should be more highly valued.

I think he's onto something. And I hope the time to reevaluate is sooner rather than later. The world definitely needs some re-eVALUating of priorities. I believe, and I think that at least some of the 99% who are Occupying Wall Street, Boston, etc. believe that our country's priorities have too long been out of alignment. Here are some photos of what I consider to be of value. The first 2 are from the training program I offered in NJ in Relationship-centered Nonverbal Communication.

The next 2 photos are from my friend and colleague, dance therapist Heather Hill's training workshop in Merimbula, Australia where they are using the Octaband.

Heather is world reknowned for her work and writing about dance therapy and dementia care. I am grateful to her for the beautiful work that she does. You can see that her trainees are as well.

Dance Therapy and the Octaband in the International Business Times

Cristina Merrill wrote a very nice article entitled, Dance Therapy: A Profession with its Own Rhythm in the November 18 isue of International Business Times, Business & Health Section. The article quotes a number of dance therapists, including Amber Elizabeth Gray, Christia Devereaux, Nancy Koprak, DMT student Diana Seabra, and myself. There is also a video showing a little of a dance therapy class with Koprak speaking about dance therapy.

Of course, I love that the image shown is of Koprak and students using the Octaband. The video also shows the Octaband in use in her class. My hope is that people will understand that this is only one perspective on DMT. As Koprak says, no 2 sessions are alike. Not all dance therapists use props. Working with people with dementia, I use a LOT of props, and it's because people with mid to late stage dementia need a lot of sensory stimulation to motivate them that I created the Octaband. However, I don't always use the Octaband. I use it when the group is the right size, and when I feel that the individuals have begun to express themselves a bit, but need an infusion of energy from the rest of the group. The Octaband always seems to serve that function.

I am grateful to Merrill for doing her research about the profession and interviewing a number of people. There was one statement by Ted Gansler of the American Cancer Society that I think is misleading. "Dance therapy provides aerobic exercise with its cardiovascular and metabolic benefits and can help with range of motion/flexibility and balance". Sounds to me like he is imagining what dance therapy might look like, and he sees a Zumba class or ballroom dance. Dance therapy may involve dance and exercise forms such as those. However, dance movement therapy can also be meditative. In my groups with people with dementia, I could wish that it would be cardiovascular, but I'm afraid only I and perhaps a couple of staff and maybe a resident or 2 may get those type of benefits.

For more about dance movement therapy, go to the ADTA website.

Children in Hospital Enhance Healing Process with the Octaband

Although the research is still out, endorphins are believed to enhance the immune system and personal stories certainly bear this out. Just look at photos of Sara Rubinstein's dance movement therapy group at Children's National Medical Center to see children whose attention is focused, not on illness or pain, but on playing together through the use of the Octaband.