The Aseemkala Initiative: Exploring Healing for Women of Color Through Stories in Traditional Dances Shilpa Darivemula, MD, MS, PGY-21, Bhatia, MD, PGY-12, Sriya , MBA3, Kritika Amanjee, MBA3 Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center1, Johns Hopkins Medical Center2, Albany Medical College3

Why traditional dance for Traditional Dances The Aseemakala Initiative Model for women’s healthcare? Nguillatun of the Mapuche Gnaoua Lila of the Amazigh Khmer Classical Dance of the Khmer Traditional Dance-Based For centuries, traditional communities around the world have Healing Nature Through Dance Trance for Mental Health Care Epic for Community Healing used dance to heal themselves, their homes, and their lands Empowerment for Women 1,2. Medicine, however, focuses on the disease and patient as the center of the treatment model, relegating other factors to Music 2 Rhythm, Lyrics, the periphery . This pathology-based focus forms the basis of Voice, Instruments many arts-based therapies used in medical settings, such as Dance Movement Therapy. Sacred Community Space and Social Order special arrangements of altars and dance Gender Recognition, Traditional dances involve local traditions and religion, stage, pre-dance, post-dance prayers Division, and offering a strong framework to address social issues through Celebration. performance. However, traditional dance limits itself in the Community Health/Family stories narrated and remains understudied in public health Health: Women’s health- spiritual, physical, and mental is within the larger community and dance medicine fields. Connecting traditional dance health Women’s Physical Health. Mental/Spirit structure to DMT’s freedom to self-express to heal can ual health is Incorporati within. Spirituality improve health outcomes for women globally. on of the Plants, Elements Environment, special foods, blessed Cosmos, Religious water, communal eating, Stories, Trance Access to quality healthcare is a basic human right denied to dancing barefeet many women around the world. Barriers to care include Cultural inequities in resources, instability due to ongoing conflict, and Movements Above: Khmer Dance Class by Cambodian Living Arts, Inc. Mudras, Waist disempowerment of indigenous cultures. When medicine Above: Photo of Nguillatun in Lonquimay with Romero Gnaoua Dancing in Khamlia, Morocco. Bottom: Show by Kampot Traditional Dance School Movements, Footwork Family; Bottom: Rayen Huenepi a singer and dancer’s Taken with permission. Taken with permission creates solutions to address the lack of care, they often photo. Taken with Permission. neglect to consider the voices of the women they aim to help. To find true health equity, we at Aseemkala believe we need to start at the source---listening to the women as they tell Telling Stories of Health their stories with their music, language, and movement. Danced Based Medical Narratives Exploring Health Equity Equity Through Traditional Dance Sundari: Celebrating Chinnamasta’s DNR Order: Bhairavi’s Addiction: How Women Transforming in Birth Choosing End of Life Care Physicians Battle Addiction Our bodies tell stories in sickness and in health. Too often, these stories go unheard. At Aseemkala, we believe the catalyst for change is sharing these global stories through global traditional dances. For many women around the world, traditional dance remains a space where their knowledge and roles are celebrated—even as their circumstances and society complicate their access to care. Our mission is to reframe disempowering medical narratives in the context of traditional arts to remind women about their inherent potential as healthcare changemakers.

Our work focuses on three areas.

• Choreography and performance, creating a laboratory About the Aseemkala for innovative dances that mix narrative medicine and cultural mythology to explore social injustice. Initiative • Preserving knowledge on traditional arts through research and expert interviews. • Choreography based on • Choreography based on the We are a group of female artists and physicians who use our • Choreography based on the embryological development difficulties around end of life care current epidemic of physician traditional dances to perform stories of healthcare inequity. We • Connecting medical professionals to transformative • Celebrates the complexity and choices suicide and addiction, and the are activists who believe that diversity in healthcare stories performance-based medical storytelling in a traditional beauty of fetal development and • Performance on nonverbal fear around seeking help should be represented by diverse women through diverse the process of labor communication between • Performance on the physician as arts medium by way of workshops and lectures. traditional dances, empowering unique women while reminding • Explores the idea that all births physician and ICU patient and the a patient and pressures to not the medical community about the shared goal of improving the are challenging and all births are complexities of surrogates reveal vulnerability or seek ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS human condition equitably. natural, requiring transformation making these decisions support of both mother and infant • Explores ethics and importance • Explores the need for change in I would like to thank the Thomas J. Watson Foundation, Inc. for presenting me with the of shared decision making medical culture to support Watson Fellowship for the 2013-2014 year. I would also like to thank Margaret Tongue, physicians Arhant Rao, and Union College for their support. References available upon request.