Women's experience of 5 Rhythms dance and the effects on their emotional wellbeing Sarah Cook, Karen Ledger and Nadine Scott 2003 Written by Sarah Cook, Karen Ledger and Nadine Scott Published in 2003 By: U.K. Advocacy Network 14-18 West Bar Green Sheffield S1 2DA Tel 0114 2728171 Fax 0114 2727786 Email [email protected] Dancing for Living Women’s experience of 5 Rhythms dance and the effects on their emotional wellbeing Copyright © 2003 Sarah Cook, Karen Ledger and Nadine Scott ISBN 0 9537303 3 6 All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, or stored in any retrieval system of any nature, without the written permission of the copyright holder, to whom the application should be made in writing. Every effort has been made to ensure the accuracy of the contents of this publication. However the U.K. Advocacy Network cannot accept liability for any errors which may occur. Further Copies are available from UKAN at the address above. Printed in England by: Alphagraphics Weston House, West Bar Green Sheffield, S1 2DA Tel: 0114 2750076 Fax: 0114 2750350 1 Contents Page Introduction 3 Research Methods 4 The Participants 9 Our Experience of Dancing 5 Rhythms 11 Transformation Through Dance 14 Effects on Day to Day Living 16 What Helps People to Take Part 18 Personal Accounts 20 Discussion 22 References and Information 26 Acknowledgements 26 Appendix 1, The Dance Workshop Flier 27 Appendix 2, Teaching 5 Rhythms 28 3 are so loaded with different meanings, or Introduction when examined, are unclear. Dancing for Living is a research project People used different terms in different funded by the Mental Health Foundation contexts. 'Mental health' was seen as a who were given money by the Community formal and institutional term, which might Fund for a project called Strategies for be used by people familiar with psychiatric Living; this is about exploring alternatives services. Some people felt uncomfortable to more conventional methods (psychiatry with the term because of stigma about and medication) to coping and living with being mad or being called 'mental'. mental distress. 'Emotional wellbeing' was a more informal term, and could be about day to day This particular piece of research was about feelings. investigating 5 Rhythms dance and how it affects women’s mental health. This is a We wanted to recognise the importance of form of dance that moves dancers through our holistic nature and not use terms that 5 Rhythms: flowing, staccato, chaos, lyrical split the person into unrelated parts. and stillness1 as they dance their feelings 'Mental health' can be seen as the part, to the music. linked to physical health, about dealing with stress in life, looking after ourselves and The topic for the research was chosen by dealing with people; but it can not be one of the research team, who had found it separated from the body and spirituality. useful for her own mental health and Emotions can build a bridge between the wanted to see if it could benefit others. conscious mind and the body, reaching into The research team was made up of 3 our vulnerable places. How we feel also women who had all experienced mental relates to how our mind works, how we distress and used mental health services think. Spirituality can also be a unifying themselves. factor, helping us become whole. 1. The creator of 5 Rhythms dancing was The other important point made was that Gabriel Roth who wrote: being in a complete crisis or a 'spiritual emergency', or feeling unable to cope, can "Disease is inertia. Healing is movement. be healthy and should not be labelled as Shamanic work is about dancing from within. If wrong, ill or unwell. A crisis or feeling sad you put the body in motion, you will change. may be a time of important change, when You are meant to move: from flowing to we may emerge as a different figure, a staccato, through chaos into lyric and back into stronger person. As one person said: stillness from which all movement comes. If you let your heart be moved, be open to the risk "Emotional wellbeing and mental and adventure of feelings, letting them work health is not about being happy all through to completion, you will change. Tears the time, stable and responsible. turn into smiles, anger into embraces….The Its about being real and alive and spirit in motion heals, expands, circles in and out of the body, moving us through the layers of having a sense of who I am, and consciousness from inertia to ecstasy. Open to being able to let go of who I am" the spirit, and you will be transformed." (Roth (Kit). 1989) We could not find one term that was satisfactory to us all but agreed to each use Terms our personal concepts to express ourselves. During the research we discussed with the participants what we meant by terms such This research gave people the opportunity as 'mental health'. to experience dance and to see if it could make a difference to their wellbeing. This It was agreed that choosing terms was report will talk about the methods used, the difficult as words such as 'mental health' people involved and what we found out. 4 We believe that the results that have been Research Methods discovered in this project suggest that it's an important initiative to replicate. Research Questions. Combining the role of researcher and We had three questions that directed the dancer made for a more relaxed research: atmosphere and enabled our participants to be more open and honest with their 1. What has been our experience of answers. dancing 5 Rhythms? 2. What effect does 5 Rhythms dancing There is the argument that to mix the roles have on our mental and emotional of researcher/participant could cloud the wellbeing? resulting report, so to counteract this we 3. What helps us to take part? actively invited views from the participants that may be different from ours. We did this by employing a range of different Study Design research methods so that each person The design of this research project was set could express her views in a way that up to be participatory: all the researchers, suited her. We also tried to involve the dancers and the dance teacher both everyone in each part of the research. We danced and took part in the research. As all answered our questionnaire all three researchers had experienced anonymously; we all took turns to answer mental health problems at some time and the same set of questions in our peer pair the aim of the project was to assess and interviews and we taped the three focus evaluate whether 5 Rhythms could have an groups where each group was asked the impact on emotional health the researchers same set of questions and everybody's were the ideal candidates to dance. The answers were taken into account. Lastly overlapping of roles was an initiative that and maybe most importantly we sent the the Strategies for Living project team felt draft report to the participants and then important at breaking down power barriers. held a further meeting, in which we invited Flowing May I respond easily to the music (Jay) Favourite flowing can be gentle and happy! (Isolbelle) Flowing nice and easy, let go of body tensions and physical discomfort and pain (Christine) Sometimes finding flow is difficult (Ella). Flow! I flowed for my mother Vivid image I have seen. flowing .. I twirled for her harmony and pure energy – a I stretched for her light, a joy, an explosion of pure I reached for the sky for her energy and being (Flora) And when I looked back at her She was looking the other way! 5 every participant, including the dance mental health issues. We also used our teacher, to criticise and comment on our networks to find participants, such as analysis. This feedback was then through First Step Trust Sheffield, (an incorporated into the final report. employment project) and local 5 Rhythms dance groups. Selecting the participants The dancing side of the project was The researcher who won the Strategies for obviously an attraction in itself but this was Living Award advertised for co-researchers combined with researching a worthwhile in local newsletters and venues, familiar to cause - to evaluate/assess an impact on mental health service users. Three women emotional health. Added to that we were responded and started the training on able to tell our dancers that the findings of research methods that was provided by our research would be published with the Strategies for Living. One woman withdrew help of The Mental Health Foundation due to personal reasons. She was greatly which was impressive in itself. This meant missed by the others. This left a research that we had many enquiries and actually group of three, one experienced researcher had a reserve list for the 20 places for the and two new researchers. introductory workshop. We then invited members of the public to Data Collection volunteer to come to four dance workshops and take part in the research (see The data we collected came from several Appendix 1. The Dance Workshop Flyer). different sources, they were: We did not invite people as patients of the NHS or as service users. We decided to • Diaries: Each participant received a select women only as we thought it would large note pad in which she could write feel safer and more comfortable to dance in or draw anything she felt relevant to the a single sex group, especially for women research.