Musings of a Dance/Movement Therapist

2013 Korean Dance Therapy Conference

 2013 KDTA INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE
“HEALING, CONNECTION, HARMONY through Dance Therapy”
Jun 28 - Jun 30, 2013
Seoul Olympic Parktel, Seoul, Korea
Hosted by Korean Dance Therapy Association (KDTA)

Korean Dance Therapy Association(KDTA), non-profit organization, has been contributing to development of dance movement therapy in Korea since 1993. KDTA plans to host “2013 KDTA international conference” to celebrate its 20th anniversary in 2013. We believe that the conference will bridge dance therapy professions between Asia and the West as well as within Asia.

Dance/Movement therapists, arts therapists, psychotherapists, movement psychotherapist, psychiatrists, educators and allied professions will share their knowledge and experiences under the theme as follows;

• Healing : DMT for Medical treatment and Health care
• Connection : DMT for Happiness within Family, Organization and Community
• Harmony : DMT for Peace within Multi-cultural Families, School, Society

Earlybird registration until June 15.

 

Mostly People Are Good ~ Coping with the Aftermath of the Marathon Bombings

Today I am grateful once again for the role of dance, dance/movement therapy and the arts in my life as I struggle to make sense of the senseless in the aftermath of the Patriots Day bombings in Boston.

I am grateful that, as far as I know, no one I know was hurt in the bombings. Yet that very thought causes me guilt and suffering, because I am not grateful, and in fact am very sad, about the innocent victims of this hate crime whom I did not know. Boston is my city; I was born, raised and am proud to live in this city, the scene of many patriotic events. I am pretty devastated that such a terrible display of cowardice should have caused so many people such pain and suffering.

To cope with my feelings of despair and discouragement (read that away or separated from the heart) I vowed to use my art (dance) and craft (dance/movement therapy) to remain connected to my heart as I taught the students in my 2nd year supervision class in dance/movement therapy at Lesley University.

In classes, we shared the feelings each person brought, whether about the Marathon Bombings or about other events in our lives. We shared these first through words and then through movement. We used the Octaband to feel through the fabric the innumerable ways we affect one another, whether through owning or disowning our "stuff", turning our backs on one another, detaching from feelings, leaning on one another, etc. We stretched, tangled, and turned as we shared deeply. In the end, it seems over and over again that it is our connection to one another that helps us to survive such blows if we can allow ourselves to reconnect to what hurts.

This image is not from my classes, but an international peace education conference.

The outpouring of support from friends and colleagues around the globe reminds me of how very wonderful people are, in fact. Networks through social media also provide lots of support. I would like to share some of these beautiful and inspiring images here:

"Brazilian lyricist and novelist Paulo Coelho once wrote, 'The most important experiences a man can have are those that take him to the very limit; that is the only way we learn, because it requires all our courage.'"

The author of the article, Dr. Jeffrey Perrin, was speaking about Nando Parrado who "is a motivational speaker, writer, successful businessman, television producer". Dr. Perrin: "Only a small number of individuals have confronted the most severe and unqualifiedly desperate situations that stretch the limits of their psychological resolve." That may be true; however, the number is much greater when one considers that those who do survive such severe and desperate situations affect those in their sphere of influence, whether they do so with grace or suffering. Nando Parrado will address Lesley University's Boston Speakers Series on Wednesday, April 24, at 8 p.m. at Boston Symphony Hall.

Debra Cash via the Dance Action Network shares the video Where the Hell is Matt? 2012 saying "the people dancing all over the world remind us that mostly, people are good".

The Business Insider shares stories and photos of "People Being Awesome After The Attack On The Boston Marathon". One such report is of Marathon Runners who crossed the finish line and continued to run to Mass General Hospital to give blood to victims.

On Sunday, April 21 there will be a special drum circle in Jamaica Plain for the Boston community to honor and begin the healing process in the wake of the Boston Marathon explosions. Find out more.

Dance/movement therapist, friend and colleague Heather Hill from Australia sent me photos of beauty "In dark times". Here's one:

I am deeply grateful to remember that people care, that the good significantly outweighs the bad. And I wonder, if the people who perpetrate such crimes felt cared for, seen and heard, would they no longer commit such atrocious crimes? Or are their minds so disconnected from hearts and bodies that love doesn't matter? I believe that a movement such as dance/movement therapy provides as a profession, that helps people connect to their suffering and integrates body, heart, mind and spirit ~ if there is any chance for such a hope ~ this could be a path toward healing. See www.adta.org for more about dance/movement therapy.

The Present Moment ~ Learn from Janet Adler or Eckhart Tolle?

What is wrong with this picture? Googling "Eckhart Tolle" provided 5,790,000 results; googling "Janet Adler" 15,500.

Motivated by a desire to get rid of books and other things I no longer need, I look once again at Eckhart Tolle's A New Earth: Awakening Your Life's Purpose. Tolle is greatly lauded by Oprah Winfrey: "Eckhart's simple spiritual teachings in A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose were the focus of the groundbreaking webcasts he did with Oprah back in 2008." Groundbreaking indeed! For her, maybe. Not for me.

I don't like to write in my books. I grew up with a reverence that I still can't shake. However, when I was reading A New Earth, I couldn't help myself. I was irate that Tolle was being held in such high esteem when his understanding was so shallow from my perspective. Some examples: "[I-thought] becomes identified with a gender, possessions, the sense-perceived body, a nationality, race . . ."  My note in the margin: "Not the correct order of self-perception. I is first sense-perceived body, before it has a name", etc.

Tolle speaks of identification with the body: "Firstly, the body is male or female". Seems to me that perception is incorrect. While we may be male or female from the beginning, I believe that our first sense of ourselves is oral. Firstly, we are beings who have mouths. Babies explore what something is by putting things in their mouths. Babies exploration of bodies seems to happen first in looking at and moving their fingers and toes. I notice from about 3 months old that if I move the part of the body babies (who do not know me) are moving, they are fascinated. It's quite some time (2 to 3 years) before our sense of ourselves is grounded in our genitals. So firstly, I would say we are animals.

Tolle described himself at 25 y.o. as "an intellectual in the making, . . . convinced that all the answers to the dilemmas of human existence could be found . . . by thinking." Watching him on Oprah told me that he may have changed his thinking, but he had not yet integrated his body into his thinking. He spoke with chest concave, gesturing from his elbows out. No posture gestures mergers evident in his live presentation as he spoke about being in the present moment.

Perhaps what disturbed me most in reading is Tolle was something that he may have been right on about. "No ego can last for long without the need for more." I think it enraged me that it was he, clearly unable to be in the present moment in his body, was the one invited to be a guest on the Oprah Winfrey show to talk about being in the present moment. She who can and has done so much to change the world can not see the value of being in and speaking from the body. She is blinded by the words.

By contrast, Janet Adler is the person from whom I have learned the most about being in the present moment. I had the opportunity to be in an Authentic Movement group which met annually with Adler in western Massachusetts for about 5 days in the autumn every year for about 4 or 5 years. These descriptions of Adler's book Offering from the Conscious Body speak my understanding of the moments of grace which come from being in the present moment in an embodied way within a community of witnesses:

"The exploration of the direct experience of healing and of the divine through the witnessing of movement becoming conscious."

"Offering from the Conscious Body reveals both the theory and practice of a unique body-based process that is cathartic, creative, healing, and mystical--as presented by Janet Adler, the presiding voice in the field. This Western awareness practice encourages the individual to experience the evolving relationship with oneself, another, the collective, and the divine through the natural impulses of conscious movement, compassionate witnessing, and clear articulation of experience."

So why is Tolle and not Adler made more famous by Winfrey? I think the answer comes from Tolle's understanding of the ego - his ego, not Adler's, needs more. Janet Adler, this so very wise woman, began her training by telling us not to put her on a pedestal. She has done all she can to remain on and in harmony with the earth. She does not need to be recognized. She needs to be in the deepest relationship she can be with what needs to come through her embodied experience of the world.

Sure would be wonderful if Ellen DeGeneris would invite a dance movement therapist to be on her show. I think she would get us. It wouldn't have to be Janet Adler.

Pathos, a Poem to My Father

It's 10 years since my father died. Today I found a poem I'd written to help me cope with his decline resulting from vascular dementia. I share it here:

Pathos

Pathos. Pathetic. Sad.
My dad. Sitting
in his dirty blue jacket.
An unlucky penny goes into his pockets
Goes down - all the way
And out
And back up again.
Know anyone who can sew pockets?

Sitting in his cap. In his recliner. Waiting.
Whatcha waitin’ for Dad?
Ride to the Center.
On Saturday?
Yuh. They started coming on Saturdays.
Starting when Dad?
Last week.
They didn’t come for you last Saturday, Dad.
Silence.

The guilt is wrenching.
Tearing at my wings
My broken wings.
I can’t fly
Can only sit and cry.

I am grateful to be able to use the arts ~ poetry, dance, visual art, song ~ to help me process and feel feelings I would otherwise bury. Expressing through the arts helps me be more human and more humane.

Dance Movement Therapy Is in the Air

What does dance movement therapy for healthy aging look like? This lovely article by dance movement therapist Wendy Elliott will give you a picture ~ Moving Our Spirits: Healthy Aging Through Dance-Movement Therapy, Group class gives senior women an outlet for expression, interaction and connection.

"Dance-movement therapy creates a container for elders to experience pleasure, joy, depth and play through the body. It is in this very ancient form of human interaction that we come to reconnect with ourselves and others."

and

"Sometimes grief is in the air. How could it not be? Given the full lives each of these women has gone through, moments of sadness, longing and loss are likely to come up. When this happens we respond by reaching out, holding hands and supporting one another, creating a space to verbalize this loss and to look around and know that connection and care are available."

Dance/Movement Therapy is provided by graduate level trained therapists who have learned, and continue to learn, to see and hear their clients ~ not just their words, but what they are saying through their bodies and their movement. The therapist uses her body and movement, what we call kinesthetic empathy, to receive the clients' messages. We relate on a body to body, heart to heart, mind to mind, and spirit to spirit level.

Is There An Evidence-Base For Embodied Training? The article, "The Science of Embodiment: Is There An Evidence-Base For Embodied Training?" seems to think so.

"In the British National Health Service Professor Helen Payne has done work showing how dance movement therapy (DMT) – a form of embodied practice – can help alleviate MUS. It’s my sense that dance movement and body psychotherapy are now establishing the validity of their work as cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) has done."

Yesterday I was blessed to have the opportunity to learn from veteran dance movement therapist Susan Kleinman about DMT with people with Eating Disorders. She made it look easy, but let me tell you, it is not. She was masterful. She didn't dig for depth; she let stuff surface. I learned many lessons in the 2.5 hours that she led us, and on many levels - personally, professionally, as a teacher, a workshop leader.

Tomorrow I'm off to the New England American Dance Therapy Association conference in Keene NH. I am excited that some of my former students and supervisees will be leading workshops, sharing some of their hard won knowledge. I know that I will learn much.

I guess this is what is meant by an embarrassment of riches. I'm happy to share them. Interested in becoming a dance/movement therapist? The world needs you. Find out more at www.adta.org.

AMA Recommends Dance First before Medication

According to Conscious Dancer Magazine:

"In a surprise statement today, the American Medical Association did an about face on the pharmaceutical industry, and recommended that before prescribing anti-depressants or mood-altering drugs to people of any age, and especially youth, that a program of holistic dance/movement therapy be implemented first and evaluated before trying medication as a last resort. The new initiative, called "Dance First", is a call-to-action for everyone in the health care industry and dance/movement fields to be proactive, and is timed to take advantage of the auspicious nature and spirit of levity that surrounds April 1st... ;-)"



"On that note, meet this weeks MoveMap members of the week, Dr. Danielle "Dani" Fraenkel and Jeffrey Mehr, our dear friends and founders of Kinections Dance/Movement Therapy in Rochester New York. They are the creators of LivingDance~LivingMusic™ and also contributors of a great article on The Power of Breath in Conscious Dancer #20."

 So - silly me. I didn't realize I was that gullible. The first paragraph was an April fools joke. What is surprising is that I know that common sense doesn't make its way into the medical profession very easily. The fact is that until millions of dollars are poured into research, our eyes and ears can tell us that dance and dance/movement therapy is an effective anti-depressant, but that doesn't "hold water". Yet, how can it not be! Try skipping, dancing, singing joyfully on a regular basis and see if you can hold onto your depression. Better yet, try it with a dance/movement therapist.