Winton-Henry Research Paper

Our lives are remembered by the tempo and rhythms in combinations to give a certain mood. Or as stated by Moore (1984), in life there are tempos and rhythms, within and without we are made up of life’s tempo and rhythm. As explained in class Laban/Bartenieff theories on movement and later refinements of language of movements give teachers, directors and actors a common language to not only describe certain movements but also give concrete ways to explore the way our bodies move to help express an actor’s actions and character. Working with teens that might not have total control of their ever-changing bodies this will be an outstanding way for them to experiment and not feel self-conscious about “dance”. Using the body to express oneself or a character has always been on my short list of first things to teach. It seems so

Outside of medicine, I spend my leisure time dancing and choreographing. My love for dance and music stems from my early childhood. I recall listening to Disney songs and “choreographing” dance moves – moves that appeared as uncoordinated, but exquisite loose wiggles. As a result of my parents’ high expectations and strict upbringing, dance was an important activity because it served as a safe haven away from the stress and pressure I felt as a child. Dancing was, and is still, my source of joy and amusement.

4. Kealiinohomoku. “An Anthropologist Looks at Ballet as a Form of Ethnic Dance” Pg 533

Many people are under the false impression that dance is just a hobby that requires very little effort. As a dancer myself, this is something I completely disagree with, as well as the members of the YWCA School of Dance that I had the pleasure of interviewing. There is more to dance than what meets the eye. As a previous member of this studio, I was fortunate enough to observe this community in action making note of the literacy practices they use within the different classes. This experience guided my introductory research, which was to identify and eliminate any stereotypes associated with dance.

The Soul in Motion African Dance and Drums performance was one of the most enlightening dance experience I have ever witnessed. The program from start to finish told a story of special events, ceremonies and celebrations that occurs traditionally in West African cultures. From the very start, with starting late as my dance instructor pointed out, to the chants sung during a family reunion between the founders, everything connected from start to finish. I attended the February 26th showcase at Joe’s Movement Emporium in Mount Rainier, MD and will share some insights I found form this showcase.

Dance helps people become connected to their body. Jamie Marich, a counselor and founder of the Dancing Mindfulness community, states that, “Dancing isn’t about escaping the stressors of daily life. Dancing offers us a way to embrace them. By being

Isadora Duncan became known as the pioneer of modern dance all because she despised ballet and yearned to move freely. She longed to move like the ocean, swaying and crashing however she wanted. With this in mind, she set out to create her own form of dance in which she would enjoy doing as well as teaching. There were social, economic, and cultural influences on Isadora Duncan which affected her lifetime achievements. In order to spread her passion for dancing, she teamed with Gordon Craig and “abolished the literal, the fuzzy, and the superfluous from the theater and replaced them with the evocative, the selective, and the expressive” (Blair 400).

This love of dance started when I was three. My mother had brought me to the Ozark Dance Academy. I can remember exactly how i felt. Remind you I was roughly three foot and everyone had already formed partners. I couldn’t even see over the bar. We all know that the short quiet one is always left alone. My teacher Mrs. Julie had grabbed my hand, walked me to the middle of the floor, and whispered into my ear “dance like you are the only one here.” The music clicked on, heart pounding in my ears, I started to dance. I feel like everyone was slightly impressed. Moving to the music with all of this passion made me feel like I was dancing on air. All of my nerves went away. Later that day after my class had ended Mrs. Julie walked me over to my mom and said something I will never forget. “Why don’t we put her into basic point?” I Grace Van Helden, only being three was about to be in a class with five and six year olds. Boy was i smiling.

Dance in and of itself, represents release, self-expression, and joy. Dancing causes our thoughts to simplify, to focus on our bodies and our movements, instead of the more complicated stressors of life. An interesting point to note…depressed individuals tend to have a curved back, which brings the head down so it is facing the ground. Dancing lifts the body to an open, optimistic posture. Since dance can be both an outlet for creativity and a method for achieving a peaceful state of mind, many therapists accept that dance is an effective treatment for anxiety and stress, which in turn affects the severity of depression. While the medical field of dance (movement) therapy has only recently been recognized as a form of treatment for depression, dance (movement) therapy has been used for centuries to improve the mental and physical well-being of a person. Dance (movement) therapy uses dance to help individuals achieve emotional, cognitive, physical, spiritual, and social integration. Beneficial for both physical and mental health, dance (movement) therapy can be used for stress reduction, disease prevention, and mood management. The researchers Leste and Rust (1990/1984) assigned patients with anxiety disorders to spend time in one of four settings: a modern dance class, an exercise class, a music class, or a math class. Only the dance class significantly reduced anxiety. Specific to this paper, dance (movement) therapy uses all

Dance therapy is a kind of psychotherapy that uses movement to promote the social, mental, emotional, and physical improvement of an individual. Dance is the most important key of the arts it involves a direct expression of someone’s self over one’s body. It is specifically a powerful medium for therapy. Dance therapy is the use of movement to recover the mental and physical health of a person. Dance therapy is the use of movement to recover the mental and physical health of a person (Dance, 2013).. It emphasis on the connection between the mind and body to support health and healing. Dance therapy can be deliberate as an expressive therapy. Clinical reports propose that dance therapy may be effective in refining self-esteem

Following Duncan, Humphrey developed a dance technique of fall and recovery to metaphorize human situation, expressing her concern for social justice. Also known as “the arc between two deaths,” the theory of fall and recovery is a reaction to space and gravity (Au 120). “Starting with basic physical resources like breath, weight, balance, and spatial orientation, the dancer moves between the ‘death’ of stasis and the activity of maintaining balance. As the body approaches an extreme of off-balance, it reverses or rebounds into another risky trajectory” (Siegel). The human body’s response to gravity in her dances produces expressive movements. For Humphrey, movements should be foremost of all the elements involved in a dance production.

Communication is one of the basic elements of any society. In order for any a human being to survive they must communicate meaning that humans are very sociable. Communication is something that we have been learning since we were kids. It has become natural to communicate in all situations. We’ve learned to communicate in writing. Due to technology becoming more advanced we not only write in the form of letters, but now we can send and write to communicate to other people by text messaging, emailing, public speaking, and non verbal communication. We have also learned to smile when we are happy, cry when the tough gets going, and scream when danger is near. Throughout the years we have become more aware of the things we say. We don’t scream fire in a room full of people or we know that we don’t talk to our teacher the way we would talk to our friends. As we get older we become apart of different groups. Without notice we become accustom to the rules, the way they communicate, and the ideas and interest of the group, also known as a discourse community. I myself belong to a discourse community. At the age of five, I discovered my passion. I knew then exactly what I know now, that I am in love with dance. Dance helps me express myself in ways that I could not even imagine being capable of doing verbally. It is my escape from the rest of the world because it puts me in a place where I am completely comfortable. I don’t know where I would be without it.

The journey of healing is not a linear progression, but rather a process. The reality of having anxiety, major depression, or PTSD, or some combination of these, is that we are too often trapped in our own minds, feeling disjointed from the world and disconnected from our own body. Making art as a way to tell one’s story can be therapeutic for anyone struggling with their emotions, but dancing is uniquely suited to help survivors have a means to tell their story while also becoming reacquainted with their body again.

Recently I attended a Dallas Neo-classical ballet dance “Horror Series,” at Sammons theater in Dallas. There were six dances in total starting with Silent Hell, Insanity, and Carrie which was the end for Act I. Act II then kicked off with In Your Sleep, The Quickening, and ended the show with the “main event” of the night Dracula & Mina. The performance was a mixture of both visual art and dancing. The art used in the concert gave dancers the advantage to express their feelings and translated their emotions into visual movements. The melody of this concert is to allow spectators to have a closer sight to the lives of the characters providing the audience with a closer look than usual, thus providing a special technique to embrace dance before sensing the healing power of dancing by showing diverse perspectives of humanity.

Dance became my ‘happy place’. There, in front of all the crowds of people at the football or basketball games, I was no longer the shy little girl who was embarrassed to speak for fear of being made fun of. My self-image of being a scrawny, crooked toothed, flat-chested little curly mop-head didn’t matter when I was performing. I was so good at it, that I was able to show off those skills with confidence. This form of dance saved me from a life of cowering in the corner or in the shadows of my peers.