[Adta] Dance therapy in Australia article

[Rena Kornblum]

Hi everyone,
I had no trouble access Heather's article and am attaching it and 
enclosing it in this email for those who might not be able to get to it. 
It's a wonderful article and I am so thankful for the bibliography as 
well. I was not able to paste the photo in the email text and I don't 
know for sure if it came with the attached document. But everything else 
is here I think.
Again, thanks for sharing the article Heather. It is articulate and clear.
Rena Kornblum

Making our mark -- an introduction to dance therapy in Australia by 
Heather Hill

Arts Hub Australia Wednesday, January 17, 2007

Dance-movement therapy as a formal profession began in the United States 
in the 1940s, when professional dancers were invited by psychiatrists to 
work with groups of returned servicemen recovering from war trauma and 
other patients in psychiatric hospitals. In the 1960s the American Dance 
Therapy Association was formed.

In Australia, dance-movement therapy grew out of dance in education and 
creative dance and the early Australian pioneers were already working in 
the 60s. The Dance-movement therapy Association of Australia was formed 
in 1994.

“Dance-Movement therapy combines the creative process and the study of 
human movement into a holistic approach that draws upon the elements 
inherent in dance” (DTAA).

In writing about dance-movement therapy, it is inevitable that one must 
start with answering the question “what is it?”

People outside the profession may hazard the guess that it is therapy 
for dancers; many others simply stumble over the word “dance” and get no 
further. Indeed, because of preconceptions about the nature of dance, 
many dance therapists have chosen to use the word dance-movement in 
order to more clearly delineate their profession.

So how best to explain dance-movement therapy? And how can we connect 
dance/movement with therapy?

Well, in the first place, it is necessary to understand “dance” in a way 
which is much broader than normally recognised in our society. As a 
society – Western 21st Century urbanised – we tend to think of dance as 
a technical form, mainly for performers with young, lithe bodies, or in 
a social context for people who “can dance”. In our culture people are 
divided into dancers and non-dancers. Yet, other historical eras, 
everyone was a dancer. While one might ask “what do you dance?” it would 
be nonsensical to ask “can you dance”, as nonsensical as asking “are you 
breathing?” If you’re human, you dance. As one write


While dance-movement therapy in Australia is a small profession, its 
members have spread far and wide.


r (J.L. Hanna) says, “To dance is human”. Historically and even in many 
cultures today (eg. Africa), dance is absolutely part of being human. 
People dance to express their joy, their grief, to educate and socialise 
the young into the life of the community, to bring people together, to 
connect. Dance is a human activity of expression and communication.

This brings us to a fundamental tenet of our belief system as 
dance-movement therapists, namely that we are all embodied persons, that 
is, that we live and function through our bodies. The body affects mind 
and feeling, and mind and feeling affect the body: they are integrally 
connected. This goes against much traditional Western thinking with its 
separation of mind and body, although recent neuroscientific research is 
tending to support an integrated view of mind/body (which we 
dance-movement therapists knew all along!).

For the dance-movement therapist then, in working with a person’s body, 
s/he is working with the whole person - mind, body, feeling.

Dance involves movement, but is not only movement. It goes beyond the 
functional to the aesthetic. And by the aesthetic, I mean it is movement 
done with feeling and with involvement in the movement, and it is done 
for the sheer pleasure of doing it rather than to achieve a functional 
goal. Dance is also about creating form and making meaning. As such it 
touches the human, the person, and this it shares with all the arts. 
Although the arts tend to be viewed as peripheral in our society and are 
certainly last in line when it comes to government support, it is in 
fact the arts that people turn to in times of difficulty or suffering, 
for example, one of the first things the Jews did when they were forced 
into the Polish Ghetto was to establish an orchestra.

And the connection of dance and movement to therapy? Given the above 
understandings, it should become clear that dance-movement therapists 
work with people in their totality using their prime mode of being in 
the world (body movement) and tapping into core elements of dance such 
as meaning-making, sensitivity to the quality of movement, connection to 
feeling. Some of the areas of human functioning they may work with are:

# relationships
# self-esteem
# mother-infant bonding
# community health
# body image
# educational contexts
# traumatic injuries; medical problems; rehabilitation
# mental health conditions

While dance-movement therapy in Australia is a small profession, its 
members have spread far and wide. There are no dance-movement therapy 
positions advertised in the newspaper, so every job has had to be 
created by enterprising dance-movement therapists. They are now working 
in diverse settings: special developmental schools, rehabilitation 
centres, hospitals (medical and psychiatric), aged care facilities, 
prisons, psychiatric clinics, community health centres and in private 
practice. There are several dance-movement therapists who have written 
masters theses, journal articles and contributed chapters to local and 
overseas books. We may be a small profession but we’re making our mark!

Go to www.dtaa.org the website of the Dance-movement Therapy Association 
of Australia, which includes information on training programs in 
dance-movement therapy, professional development workshops, 
publications. The Association publishes a Quarterly journal with quality 
articles, both local and international, and updated information on dance 
therapy events in Australia and overseas.

Dance Therapy Association of Australia
Books & Papers For Sale

The following books and papers are available from the DTAA.

# Growing Older Dancing On (2003)
Jenny Czulak Riley. Cost: $32

# Come and Join the Dance: a creative approach to movement for children 
with special needs (1989)
Jane Guthrie with Jan Roydhouse. Cost: $13

# Dance Therapy Collections 1 (1992)
Editors: Robyn Rawson & Elizabeth Loughlin. Cost: $11

# Dance Therapy Collections 2 (1999)
Editors: Jane Guthrie, Elizabeth Loughlin & Dianne Albiston. Cost: $20.00
Sets of 10 or more available for training institutions at $15.00.

# Dance Therapy Redefined (1994)
Hanny Exiner & Denis Kelynack. Cost: $66

# How the Arts Make a Difference (1992)
Editor: Warren R. Lett. Cost: $11

# Invitation To The Dance: Dance for people with dementia and their 
carers (2001)
Heather Hill. Cost: $29.95

# Advances in Dance/Movement Therapy: theoretical perspectives and 
empirical findings (2006)
Editors: Sabine Koch and Iris Brauninger. Cost: $66

# Freedom to Move: Movement and dance for people with intellectual 
disabilities (2003)
Kim Dunphy and Jenny Scott. Cost: $66

Papers
Various papers are available for sale through the Association and past 
editions
of ‘Moving On’.

Costs for papers and articles: approx. 10 cents per page for 
photocopying + cost of postage and packaging. In Australia: $1.20. 
Overseas: Asia, N.Z. $2.60: UK $3.80.

Mailing Address: DTAA Books, 49 Thomas St. Hampton 3188, Victoria, 
Australia.
Fax to: (61 3) 9598 0636
In general - Postage and handling for DTAA Books: Melb Metro $6.50, 
Country Victoria and Interstate $8.50, Overseas $15.

Saves postage and handling by having Books sent to conferences and 
workshops. Contact: Kim Dunphy.

More information available on our website: www.dtaa.org



Heather Hill

Dr Heather Hill works in the Department of Psychology and Disability 
Studies, RMIT University. She has taught various courses in dance 
therapy and is the author of Invitation to the Dance: Dance for people 
with dementia and their carers (Stirling University Books).

heatherhill at hotkey.net.au



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