Is Dance Movement Therapy of Any Value to Student Dancers

IS DANCE MOVEMENT THERAPY OF ANY VALUE TO STUDENTS

OF DANCE ?

Jill Hayes

Summary

This article provides an analysis of the response of three cohorts of dance students to their participation in an experiential dance movement therapy

(DMT) group.

Introduction

Between 1997-1999 I undertook doctoral research with this question in mind : could DMT be of any value in the education of dance students ? In 1996 I piloted an undergraduate module in DMT at a small university in the south of

England, which I have since continued to teach and modify. The module is part of the vocational strand of the degree in dance and is optional. During the research years, before they made a commitment to the module, I took the opportunity to talk to students in order to clarify the nature and purpose of the experiential group and provide them with an educational rationale. By giving them information and time for reflection, I sought to empower them in their choice.

The group lasted for eight weeks in 1997 and 1998 and for ten in 1999 due to change in the university’s term structure. Individual and group semi-structured interviews took place after the group had finished and further group interviews took place three months later. These interviews were intended to allow students to express their response to the experiential group.

Gathering the data I facilitated the group and carried out all of the individual interviews so my personal investment and consequent bias ( wanting positive feedback ) were inevitably an issue.

I did various things to try to gain a balanced picture of what happened in the groups and of the repercussions for the participants. First I emphasised that the group was for the participants’ own explorations and that the interviews were optional; also that for the research to gain validity their honest accounts of process were essential ( they did not need to ‘do well’ in the group or in the interviews to pass the module; assessment was based on a separate component ).

Second I employed an independent interviewer to conduct the group interviews which were then transcribed independently for my analysis so that I could not identify the speakers. I hoped this would give the students an opportunity to speak more freely, without the hidden dimension of wanting to please me as tutor. Third, once I had created my theories, I took them back to the students for reflection and comment.

The nature of the groups

In the DMT groups I emphasise being in the moment with all our human faculties. I encourage participants to notice but not try to change their experience. I ask them spend time with :

1. Sensation ( for example, awareness of tension, relaxation, heaviness,

lightness, fluidity or disjointedness, rhythm in relation to body, breathing and

movement)

2. Emotion ( awareness of mood )

3. Imagination ( awareness of images and flights of fantasy; stories and

reflections which can occur spontaneously during movement ) With the intention of providing a safe environment in which to notice these things and more, I aim to provide conditions of worth as described by Rogers

(1957 ). I believe that therapy is about encouraging people be who they are inside; I want people to express congruently what is inside so that they can be fully present in the world and therefore connected to other people and to their environment. This belief comes from my own felt need to do all of these things and it feeds my intention to be non-judgemental, congruent and empathic

(whether I am able to achieve this is of course another matter and one which is discussed in the findings ).

The groups always begin with a movement warm-up. The participants can choose music or silence. I provide a broad range of music from which they choose and participants sometimes bring their own. In the warm-up I am aiming to encourage relaxation and fun because I believe that a relaxed body is more able to breathe and move than a tense one. It is more able to able to open up and explore. It is more able to sense itself and other people. Having fun together opens up channels of communication, people are immediately connected through eye contact, smiling, rhythmic movement and body contact. This shared time builds trust. It is the circle of community to which we all return at the end of the session. The aim of the warm-up is also to facilitate individual and group focus for the beginning of the exploratory process ( which follows on from the warm-up and is usually the longest part of the session ). I believe that focus comes from awareness, so whilst we are stretching and swinging in rhythm with each other in a circle, I ask people to notice sensation, emotion and imagination.

The warm-up builds its own momentum. I try to facilitate this by looking for emergent movement ( individual and group ) and affirming it so that it is woven into the group warm-up.

When the group is ready it ‘takes off’ and launches itself into the space with a variety of movement metaphors and themes, which are then played with by moving, making pictures, dressing up, singing, making music, sometimes by being still. This part of the session is called the process. The space is transformed into a creative cauldron : massive spider webs can appear across the room, spun by participants from a ball of grey wool, effigies can be made from cloths and cushions, babies can be born from balls and scarves, participants can become babies inside a big sheet of lycra ( known as the ‘stretch cloth’ )

….anything is possible in the realms of the imagination.

This process as I see it is about allowing people to ‘give birth to their images’

( Rilke ) and to give them life through movement play ( the movement metaphor). In my experience, when we move we feel ( as Anna Halprin said in conversation in 1990 ) and movement, feeling and image seem almost to be grafted one onto the other, so that embodying an image can give us access to emotion or images can surface when we dwell in our emotion and movement.

With forty minutes left out of ninety, I always indicate that it is time for closure, so that everyone can have ten minutes to withdraw from their imaginative involvement with thematic material and prepare themselves for thirty minutes of verbal reflection on and analysis of process. We sit in our circle again and I ask the question ‘What did you notice today?’. Everyone is encouraged to share their perception of their own experience and of the group process and to make their own sense of the metaphoric content. ‘I was hiding under the green protection’ might be met with ‘I saw you cutting yourself off from the group’, so that different perceptions of the metaphoric content mingle and awareness of its significance for self and others is broadened.

Dance movement therapy : of what value?

Critical analysis

Shared vulnerability

Several students found the sessions too open-ended, not enough structure, not enough focus. They felt ill at ease with the purpose of the group which was to notice and explore feelings and images as they moved. Particularly in the initial sessions they felt awkward and embarrassed to do this work in front of others ; only very slowly did they let themselves enter into a world of movement play.

I suggest several reasons for this response.

First, the youth of the students ( predominantly in their early twenties ) is significant. Young people are often on the threshold of intimate relationship or longing for but frightened of intimacy. Exploration of feelings in a group is not an easy task for anyone. It requires a level of trust that others will not use their knowledge of our inner life to have power over us and it requires a level of confidence and security that in sharing our inner life we do not diminish or threaten ourselves. Vulnerability and intimacy is a challenge to us all in whatever context we find ourselves. It could be argued that the time of life of these students ( a time of transition from puberty to adulthood ) makes the experience even more scary and overwhelming.

Second, people seem to enter experiential groups with a variety of expectations.

Some see them as learning groups in which they will be shown how to do something and do not agree with the concept of letting themselves be the focus.

Thus a tension evolves between those participants who want to lose themselves in the flow of experience, share it and analyse it and those who do not wish to do this because they want their learning to be more tutor-led.

Third, the level of trust needed for shared vulnerability is difficult to find.

Dynamics amongst group members and between me ( facilitator ) and group members are significant here. In cohorts one and three, group members had known each other and worked together for three years, so that dynamics had already been established. In some cases these dynamics were founded on mistrust. In these instances wariness and hiding were far more in evidence in the movement play than openness and flexibility. Mistrust was also apparent in the reluctance to reflect on the emotional and social significance of movement.

My relationship with the groups felt different in each case because I changed during the three years and each group was different and responded to me differently. Whilst most group members in all cohorts spoke of the trust they placed in me as facilitator, this research has led me to examine in depth my relationship with them, and as a result I would like to devote a separate section to this aspect of the experiential groups.

The relationship between facilitator and participants

In the arts therapies ( Chodorow, 1991, Meekums, 2002 ) as in verbal therapies (

Clarkson, 1995 ) the relationship between therapist and client is considered to be both vehicle and container for therapeutic movement and change.

My own evolution as a dance movement therapist and as an arts therapist ( this research has played a big part in this evolution ) has shown me how significant a factor in therapeutic growth the therapeutic relationship is.

To give the reader some background : in cohort one I was thirty-seven and had just one little boy aged two, in cohort two I was thirty eight with two little boys ( a three year old and a baby ), in cohort three I was thirty-nine with those two little boys a little bit bigger and about to conceive a third little boy. As I write this article I am forty-three and have four little boys. So, as you see, this period in my life has been about reproduction and nurturing.

It has also been a time of challenge of who I am and how I am with others. I have been challenged both at work and at home with being self-focused, disconnected from others and keeping myself closed whilst encouraging others to be vulnerable. These challenges have hurt but I have tried to reflect on them with an open heart.

Now I will try to show the reader how my development as a maternal figure and how elements of my being such as ‘keeping myself closed whilst encouraging others to be vulnerable’ affected the process in the three research cohorts.

I feel inspired when I read Peggy Natiello ( 2001 ) :

The practitioner must constantly work on the development of self and of certain qualities that nurture an authentic connected relationship. Some of those qualities are openness, honesty, humility, realness, respect for the client, the ability to put one’s views aside and step into the world of another, the willingness and capacity to let go expertise and control ( p38 )

I think that the words in this quotation which mean most to me are openness and letting go control. I know that these are things which are often difficult for me and that they are the key to a more real and flowing relationship with others.

When I began these experiential groups I did not think that they were about the relationship between me and the students. I wanted to set up a permissive environment without a choreographic agenda in which students could explore their movement in terms of feeling and image because I believed that this corresponded to the relaxation or incubation period ( Meekums, 1993 and 2002 ) of creative process. Thus I wanted to see if playing with movement in a relaxed environment would affect creativity. In a sense I was trying to re-create the working environment of the Tamalpa Institute ( founded by Anna Halprin ) where I had studied in 1990. But the structure I chose was different to Tamalpa where individual and pair work was favoured over group work and tasks were directed by the facilitator. I chose to use the group as the catalyst for the movement work (movement arising spontaneously from being together ) and I was part of the group, so some movement arose as a response to me.

When I look at the videos of cohort one, I see a lonely me and a self-conscious me, wanting to be part of the dance but wandering through it, excluded. Even with the introduction of props ( more familiar territory, my background in the arts is predominantly drama ) I am not a fully integrated part of the group. I am watching, trying to hard to be a therapist, trying to reflect some of the group metaphors through my own movement.

Contrasting with this I can remember a significant moment for me was when I moved into a partnership with someone, back to back, and we moved together for a long time. When we shared our perceptions at the end of the group, I was so glad when my partner said that she had been feeling lonely and felt I had given her security and companionship and I shared with the group how I had been feeling the same. This moment of openness and giving up control was one of the healing moments in the group…it was after this that some people ( who I felt were giving me their trust ) began to speak about being true to what was going on inside. Yet what if my partner had not spoken first, would I have been brave enough to admit my own need for security and companionship as facilitator of the group? I doubt it. It was hard to take of the expert’s hat. Be that as it may, I can see now how such moments of shared vulnerability were vital to the group process.

I think that I have learnt that I do not have to withhold my feelings when they are about my being with another. These feelings are part of the process between me and those with whom I am working. They lead to connection and shared growth and that this is true in the therapy process as much as it is true outside of it.

Looking at the videos of myself with cohort two, I see a looser, less inhibited me and a dynamic evolving between me and the group as mother hen with her chicks ( this image was given by students ). The atmosphere is more relaxed, there is lots of laughter, I am much more central in the movement. This is perhaps due in part to the introduction of props and arts materials early in the group’s life ( as opposed to half-way through in cohort one ) but it must also be due to my being much less afraid of being present in the medium of dance and movement as a result of experience in the groups and having children (generally being much more physical in interaction ).

Yet there were also sessions in the first half of this group’s life where most of the group was dotted about the edges of the room, not moving, staring out of the windows or chatting, whilst I danced with a few. Sometimes individuals verbally rejected the purpose of the group : it was wasted time when they could have been in the library and at other times hostility seemed to be expressed through loud banging of percussion instruments. I responded to this by letting it be, not interacting with it. Perhaps if I had expressed my feeling of being rejected, we could have moved into a more real relationship with more candid communication. In cohort three I have a different picture again. Sometimes I am on the edge, flitting about, trying to participate, joining in with games and feeling unfulfilled.

Once I work with one person who wants to work with me. We are in the centre,

I am moving behind her, we are like a mother-child dyad. Two others dress up and parade in front of the mirrors close to us, one walks sadly round and round us trailing behind the long green stretch cloth, others run around screeching and whooping. It feels like mother, child and sibling rivalry; needing parents and rejecting parents all at once. I shared my feeling of being the mother, but no-one responded to this and I felt rejected. Yet I did not share this feeling of rejection and I wonder what would have happened if I had been brave enough to do this.

As it was I never felt really connected to the group when it was together apart from when one person was brave enough to share his vulnerability. Some people in the group often spoke towards the end about lack of trust in the group and the need for people to let down their guard. I realise now that I was also party to this it was not just a reflection of the group’s shared history.

Now I can appreciate the problematic nature of the dual relationship I had evolved in this research. As facilitator I was learning about the value of a real relationship and although I did not express my feelings of rejection, participants no doubt picked them up on some level. How difficult for them therefore to be candid to me as researcher about aspects of the DMT group of which they were critical. Even in the anonymous interviews with the independent interviewer, they might have been wary of hurting my feelings. I have learnt how difficult it is to be honest without moulding another’s response; relationships need much cultivation before the partners can feel free to express without subtle forces of control and manipulation of the other slipping in. Personal growth

The benefits in terms of physical, emotional and mental well being of participation in the DMT groups were strongly emphasised in all cohorts.

Students felt more relaxed in their bodies and more able to focus on their work as a result. The sessions helped them to let go of anxiety and stress and cleared their minds. They felt able to reflect on the week and to get things into perspective. Being in the moment gave them the impetus to start afresh when they walked out of the door.

Many students felt they were able to release their feelings in movement and play, and some spoke about their process of identifying feelings and staying with them, moving with them and noticing how they changed as a result of this embodiment. Some people shared their feelings, whilst some preferred to keep them private and to reflect on them in journals.

Some students reflected how the perceived support of the group had helped them to accept their feelings. Others described how they had worked with feelings creatively and the art form had somehow contained them and made them safe.

Nearly all students spoke about the increased intimacy in the group and expressed surprise, even amazement, at this event. They believed that this closeness had improved group relationship generally, both inside and outside the group, and that this effected their choreographic work together.

Many students believed that their self-confidence had improved as a result of the group and that this in turn enabled them to enjoy their dancing and to appreciate other people’s dancing. Self-confidence and group cohesion seemed to combine to create a new affirmative response to dance, moving away from the rivalry which had previously been apparent.

Creative growth

In many ways personal growth was connected to creative growth.

* Increased confidence led students to try out new ideas in their choreography, work with media they had not worked with before, stay with their ideas in the face of tutor criticism.

* Work with feelings through movement in the DMT group sometimes became the starting point for a piece of choreography.

* The process of relaxation and focusing was felt to be valuable for performance as well as for choreography.

* Free flow movement found in the sessions was thought to have made an impact on performance

* Improved group relationships were thought to have led to cohesion in performance and in choreographic work together ( cohesion was noted by Lea

Anderson, resident choreographer )

* Being able to play was considered to be of value because it had given birth to

metaphors, images, ideas, relationships between people, music and props which

might not have happened in the conscious mind.

Some closing reflections

I think what I have attempted to do in this article is to let the reader into some

of the complex processes I have experienced in doing this work. I have

represented the criticisms of the DMT group as well as the positive outcomes. I

have created some analysis of the response to the groups, referring to human

vulnerability, life stage, varying expectation and trust. As a sequel to this I have offered my thoughts on relationship, trust and process. It seems that although I

have indicated that sometimes the fragile nature of trust and relationship in the

groups led to alienation from the purpose of the DMT group, at times trust and

relationship were felt to be strong enough for participants to relax and allow

movements, feelings and images to happen spontaneously, and that this process

benefited them personally and creatively. I therefore believe that dance

movement therapy does have something to offer in the education of dance

students and goes some way to addressing the psychological goals of dance

training as recommended by Julia Buckroyd ( 2000 ), these being :

 optimum emotional environment for the facilitation of learning

 maximum development of the creative and expressive potential of the

student

 facilitation of the student’s autonomy and responsibility

← enabling the student’s development through adolescence to maturity.

References

Buckroyd, J ( 2000 ) The Student Dancer. London : Dance Books

Chodorow, J ( 1991 ) Dance Therapy & Depth Psychology. London :

Routledge.

Clarkson, P ( 1995 ) The Therapeutic Relationship. London : Whurr Publishers

Meekums, B ( 1993 ) ‘Research as an act of creation’, in H. Payne ( ed )

Handbook of Inquiry in the Arts Therapies ; One River, Many Currents. London

Meekums, B ( 2002 ) Dance Movement Therapy. London : Sage. Natiello, P ( 2001 ) The Person-Centred Approach : A Passionate Presence.

Llangarron : PCCS BOOKS.

Rogers, C ( 1957 ) ‘The Necessary and Sufficient Conditions of Therapeutic

Personality Change’, in H. Kirschenbaum and V. Land Henderson ( eds ) The

Carl Rogers Reader. London : Constable.