Dance therapy: An idea whose time has come

“To understand what I am saying, you have to believe that dance is something other than technique. We forget where the movements come from. They are born from life.  When you create a new work, the point of departure must be contemporary life…not existing forms of dance.”
Pina Bausch (choreographer)

Tripura Kashyap opens her new book, Contemporary Dance – Practices, Paradigms and Practitioners with this quote from not only one of the world’s greatest contemporary dance choreographers but one who shifted perceptions of dance in India for artists and audiences, thanks to the actualized dream of Max Meuller Bhavan’s Dr Georg Lechner. She addresses the historical, theoretical, philosophical and practical considerations of contemporary dance in India. It is readable, thorough and full of practical advice for teachers, performers and anyone interested in a solid overview of its past and present.

In her dance journey, exploring her own movement preferences and themes developed outside the parameters of her Kalakshetra Bharatanatyam training, Tripura also became interested in dance as a form of therapy for people with disabilities. Studying Dance/Movement therapy at the Hancock Centre and Contemporary dance at the University of Wisconsin, Madison she discovered that it was the informal, non-traditional approaches in dance, which helped people, with and without disabilities, to evolve personal styles of expression and communication. With an M.A in Psychology alongside modern and creative dance techniques, Tripura brought Creative Movement Therapy to India in 1990.

From the loneliness of a solo pioneer in the 1990’s, today there is a directory of art therapists, an upcoming 5th international Creative Movement Therapy Association of India (CMTAI) conference  and many dance therapists she has taught and inspired have gone to the U.K. and U.S.A. for training – and returned!

Pune University offers a diploma course in dance therapy with a waiting list, thanks to Artsphere’s support and hopefully there will an MA offered in future. Of course, the challenges of lack of recognition as a profession and poor funding plague the torchbearers.

The focus on creative movement for special education as well as psychopathology in children and adults does not dilute the needs all children who shockingly spend their time in school disconnected from kinetic learning opportunities. In Delhi, at the Bhoomika Creative Dance Centre, Tripura offers movement training capsules over six months - a total of 40 hours training spread out so that special education and regular classroom teachers can try an activity for body coordination, trust building, etc. out during the week.

Her first experience of simply walking, moving freely in space at her first creative dance class at the University of Wisconsin poignantly mirrors the self-conscious limitations of all who have not had a creative movement experience or at least a Thich Nhat Hanh inspired “walking meditation”.  

“Judith, our teacher asked us to scatter, find an empty space and move freely in our own ways across the space in silence. I froze, because firstly, my body did not know how to move freely and secondly, I had never danced in silence before. As I looked around, I saw the other dancers moving in abandon, without any recognizable movement patterns. After a few hesitant steps and movements, I too began to move and gradually forgot myself in this spontaneous dance. I felt at one with the space, with my dance and the others around me. It was as if a whole range of movements (physical as well as emotional) trapped inside my body emerged and exploded out into the space. For the first time, I felt that dance could become an incredibly cathartic expression and not just an artistic or aesthetic experience.”

A definite challenge to bringing her creative dance therapy movement home to India was that everyone, from teachers, special educators to school age children “preferred imitating structured movements that were taught rather than making up their own. This seemed directly connected to teaching methods in our education system that prompted rote learning rather than a creative approach to academics.”

She needed to coach participants to be spontaneous with both body and movements, shifting between a dance teacher of steps to one who could free untapped creativity. Elements of classical dance, such as memorizing musical notes by matching hand gestures to the sa-re-ga-ma and stories and certainly folk dances can play a part in dance therapy, but fundamentally one cannot limit what is needed to one style of dance. The approach must match the situation, for instance dance therapy for the blind might start with running to feel comfortable with space.

When I taught Creative Movement and Puppetry classes for the primary and middle classes at the American Embassy School, New Delhi from 1975-78, activities were often integrated with the literature and social studies classes. When parents approach me to teach classical dance to very young children, I recommend that its far better to take creative movement classes– drawing alphabets with elbows and other body parts, imagining walking on and through water, bubble gum, ice and custard and becoming animals, toasters and clouds. The developmental progress of a child learning classical dance from age 2 till 8 or 9 will not be significantly different than what is learned starting at 8 or 9.

In her handbook on creative dance therapy, my body, my wisdom, Tripura includes guidelines for both creative participatory activities as well as from Indian movement traditions. These include: Memory, statues and movement, Walk and Freeze!, Movement drawings and Body trust. The sample India movement traditions adapted for dance therapy naturally include yoga asanas, but also folk dances of north, south, east and west: Kathak footwork and Bharatanatyam hasta abhinaya, the Karma dance of Madhya Pradesh, Manjira Garba and Diyaa dance of Gujarat, Naga Bamboo dance, Kummi fromTamil Nadu plus Kollattam andDollu kunita  from Karnataka.

When classically trained dancers participate in teacher training see the fun, freedom and creativity of non-dancers, they open up. With instructions to “move like before you began to dance”, Tripura blindfolds dancers and puts on music from around the world to get them to use their bodies in different ways- hips moving to African music, hands to the sitar.

I heartily agree with her that contemporary dancers who extend their dance beyond the performance space to educational and therapeutic settings with children and adults with disabilities, even corporate settings to help professionals de-stress and get in touch with their creativity and problem solving skills will remain constantly nourished. These outreach experiences help choreographers remain open and receptive to all artistic and human experiences that come across their way.

Anne Riordan (American Movement Therapist/Dance educator), argues that creative dance engages with the physical, psychological, mental, emotional, creative, social and spiritual layers of individuals. When undergoing movement experiences based on these layers, children heal, change, grow and also learn to let go their hyper-active and surplus physical energy.

While I believe all dance is therapeutic for both artists and audiences, expanding support for professional movement training and practice can help people with developmental, medical, social and physical impairments. It should be used as co-curricular in educational settings, as adjunctive therapy in hospitals and special schools included as part of recreation and exercise programs at orphanages and old- age homes.

To quote Victor Hugo, “You can resist an invading army; you cannot resist an idea whose time has come.” I’d like to believe that recognition of the value and scope of dance therapy is an idea whose time has come.

Sharon Lowen is a respected exponent of Odissi, Manipuri and Mayurbhanj and Seraikella Chau whose four-decade career in India was preceded by 17 years of modern dance and ballet in the US and an MA in dance from the University of Michigan. She can be  contacted at sharonlowen.workshop@gmail.com