Musings of a Dance/Movement Therapist

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!"

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.

Play Is Forever

Generations United, a wonderful resource for intergenerational programming, has a fact sheet about play highlighting the importance of play for children and older adults. Thankfully, there are people who recognize the value of play. 

The Octaband is being used for intergenerational play with great success. People of all ages love the colors, the yummy soft material, and the stretchiness. But I think most of all, people love feeling themselves both an individual and an integral part of a group. That is what led me to create the Octaband. I was looking for a way to engage people with profound dementia in play ~ and it works.

 

Octaband ~ A Way to Make Music Together Classes More Fun

Looking for ways to make preschool music classes more fun? On the Music Together listserve, one teacher recommended the Octaband.

Julia Priest is using the Octaband in her Music Together classes in Newton, MA.

Check out the Octaband Forum on the left sidebar for ways people are using the Octaband. Also check out the Octaband website where you can see how I came to design the Octaband.

Testimonial from Mother of Child on Autism Spectrum re Octaband

I had the opportunity to observe a dear friend and colleague leading movement groups with preschoolers this past week. The children and the teachers had a great time with the Octaband.

After the class one of the mothers contacted me by email. The classroom teacher had told the mom how enthusiastic her son was about participating with the Octaband!  The mother told me that her son has had a lot of trouble adjusting to preschool and complains about going to school each day and does not like to take part in activities.

She expressed appreciation that her son was able to have the experience with the Octaband that he did, saying that when he came home from school, he couldn't stop talking about how much fun it was!

Dance movement therapy with children with autism:

The mother also asked me for insights about her son's participation in the group. I told the mom that as a dance movement therapist, I was intrigued by her son's movement, which I saw as both expressive and communicative. When he first entered the room and the children were invited to join the circle, her child turned his back to the others and did a repetitive, idiosyncratic movement with his hands near his mouth. When the teacher called him by name and invited him to join the others in the circle, he was able to do so. At one point early in the group, the teacher asked each child to lead the others in the movement. This young boy began hopping from one foot to the other, rotating in a circle. When the teacher and the other children followed his lead, he seemed to become more energetic, excited and happy, with a big smile. When the leadership passed to the next person, his attention was immediately distracted by objects on a shelf nearby.

 

My interpretation of this child's movement and behavior was that he was: (1)  clearly expressing himself through movement, although the meaning of his movement was not necessarily readily apparent. (2)  highly responsive to the medium of movement and dance. (3)  highly responsive to the individual attention, and mirroring in particular. (4) He seemed to be expressing his difficulty with transitions about being an individual and being in relationship to others.

 

I designed the Octaband as a prop to encourage individuality and group cohesion at the same time. Other movement props are good for individuality or cooperation. I would guess that her son enjoyed it specifically because it allowed him to be an individual and connected to others at the same time. Children also love the Octaband because it is very colorful, stretchy and feels good to the touch.

 

 

I recommended that the pediatrician refer her son to a dance movement therapist and that she encourage the preschool to continue to provide the creative movement classes for the children. Movement is so vital for young children whose primary mode of communication is movement - which is all of them, even though some are also verbal.

 

For more about dance movement therapy with children with autism, here is a resource provided by the ADTA (American Dance Therapy Association).

Order from Amazon through the ADTA website, and a percentage of the proceeds goes to the ADTA, whose purpose is to

"establish, maintain, and support the highest standards of professional identity and competence among dance/movement therapists by promoting education, training, practice, and research.  The Association provides avenues of communication among dance/movement therapists and those working in related fields, and increases public awareness of dance/movement therapy."

For more about dance movement therapy with children, I highly recommend Suzi Tortora's book the Dancing Dialogue: Using the Communicative Power of Movement with Young Children.

Octaband Provides Respite for Dementia Caregivers

"John and Sallie voice their approval of the Octaband." ~ the caption under the photo for The Gathering Place news this month.

The Gathering Place at First United Methodist Church, Conroe, Texas seeks to help both the caregiver and the care partner, providing respite for caregivers of those with Alzheimer's.  Twice monthly The Gathering Place provides the care partner a time of fun and fellowship through music, games, exercises, performances, and a luncheon.
 

Octaband at AMTA American Music Therapy Conference San Diego 2010

The AMTA conference gave me a wonderful opportunity to reconnect with previous purchasers of the OctabandTM. One music therapist who works with children with autism said, "The Octaband provides such a nice kinesthetic framework." A woman who did her internship with people with Parkinson's said the folks with Parkinson's and the staff "love it." They are all motivated to keep the shaker eggs on the center circle of the Octaband. One woman reported using the Octaband with great success with people with developmental disabilities, ages 3 - 26. I was told that the music therapy department at U. Dayton love it. And Renata stopped by to tell me that the forensic unit in Patton California loves the Octaband as well.

Thanks to all for the feedback and wonderful ways you are bringing healing to folks with all sorts of challenges.

This photo shows the Octaband being used by dance movement therapist Rachel Federman Morales in Philadelphia with a middle school semi professional dance company and children at the HMS School in a performance, spring 2007.

Octaband Testimonial with Adults with Developmental Disabilities

Kimberley Smith Daly is a dance movement therapist who works with adults with multiple physical limitations due to TBI, CP, and the like, as well as with full bodied movers with developmental disabilities.

Kimberley reports after using the Octaband for a week,

"They truly enjoy using the Octoband, and I had a MARVELOUS break through with one young man who typically refuses to participate in DMT at all.  He is in his 20s and is very concerned with appearances, and typically thinks DMT is 'stupid'.  He has a significant brain injury which has left him with a great many physical limitations, and he relies on a wheelchair.  He participated the whole time, intentionally utilizing his weaker arm, and really pushed his range of motion.  His affect improved dramatically, even laughing out loud at times, and he engaged with peers and staff alike. It was amazing." 

Using the Octaband with People with Substance Abuse Addictions

At the American Dance Therapy Association conference last week, Mindy Bocko reported on how she's been using the Octaband:

“I used the Octaband 2 ways with adults who have substance abuse addiction issues and one way was based on something that someone was demonstrating when I came to your booth at the expressive arts conference (IEATA) and that was to have them pick an arm and say the different substances they use each time they pick an arm but to pull on one especially hard and to say which one pulls on them the most. I enjoyed that.

But what I almost enjoyed more was a spontaneous way of using this that a client came up with. And that was all of us were standing around holding an arm and he said ‘Just pass it to the person next to you.’ But  thinking of directives, I said ‘as you pass it to the person next to you, please tell them what you’ve enjoyed about them in the group.’ Boy, that went around 6 times, with people hearing positive affirmations about themself in their presence and then we circled it back in the other direction.

I loved that spontaneity. The client thought it up and it was great.”

These images of the Octaband being used are not with people with substance abuse addictions, but rather an international peace education training. Still it can give you an idea of what the Octaband looks like in action.