Unrelatedly

[muchabstracted]

Reading about dance therapy makes me want to find a good dance therapist and start having sessions. Were I less lazy (or, alternatively, less involved in trying to finish said reading) I would quote some of the articles that lead me to say this.

Comments

[prosewitch.livejournal.com]

What is dance therapy? It sounds exciting! :)

[muchabstracted.livejournal.com]

It does, doesn't it? I can't give you a very good description, because I don't quite understand it yet, and there are a few different types. Some of it seems to be movement as mirroring your relationship with body, people, and environment; some of it seems to be locating feelings within your body.

Here's a lengthy quote from Daria Halprin (Chapter 7 of Foundations of Expressive Arts Therapy, edited by Stephen K. Levine and Ellen G. Levine), which seems to summarize the theory behind it.

Movement is the very basis of life. This simple reality is reflected in the natural world, in the internal world of our physical bodies, and in our everyday social world...The body is full of information about who we are, how we feel, and what we think -- a living body anthology.
When we hold all these stories on an unconscious level, when we have no opportunity to creatively explore and express our stories, the body starts screaming out in one form or another, emerging as physical, emotional or mental distress. Usually, we act and live as if our bodies, feelings, and minds are separate. We live in a house divided. Jimake Highwater writes: 'The main reason we lose our aesthetic capacity is because we attempt to hide our feelings, so we lose our body language and that makes the creative response impossible' (Highwater 1987, p.1). Movement is the body's mother tongue, a powerful and universal language. Made conscious and creative, movement is a language for the body and soul to speak through, a bridge to the interior world of self and between self and the world; it is a way to build bridges and begin dialogues between the separated parts.

[rymenhild.livejournal.com]

Sounds quite a bit like what prosewitch does already, actually.

[muchabstracted.livejournal.com]

Hmmm, given that dance therapy is still therapy, my guess is a dance therapist has a different focus from what someone might do as a dancer and a theorist. But I'm sure there are significant similarities.

[prosewitch.livejournal.com]

Not entirely... I'd bet a dance therapist gets paid more than I do. ;p

[meghatronn.livejournal.com]

Dance therapy is awesome! I'll probably describe it poorly here in writing, but I once did a really fun activity with it. We had to draw a "Life Map" or a pictoral representation of some segment of our lives. Lines, curves, swirls, whatever that showed the direction in which we felt we were moving. We then had to take said map and create a dance to go demonstrate it. That was a very insightful exercise. Literally.

[muchabstracted.livejournal.com]

That's awesome! Maybe, in lieu of paying for dance therapy, I'll do some of these exercises instead... *is cheap* (AKA *gets the salary of a non-private-practice social worker*)

[meghatronn.livejournal.com]

Frugal and wise. Let's be strengths-based :)

[muchabstracted.livejournal.com]

*grins*

Social work in jokes are the best.