That dance as a domain has therapeutic qualities is a prevalent belief in dancers and non-dancers alike. It stems from the idea that art essentially is a medium of expression, one that has often superseded verbal language. The danger here lies in the fact that we end up taking the dance for granted, that it is set to heal and that, as artistes, we yield this power. This is a problem that Dance and Movement Therapy (DMT) has had to encounter, since the time it has gained momentum as a tool of recovery from a number of mental and physical health problems. As dancers, it is important to recognise the difference between the meditative qualities of dance that one experiences and prescribing dance as a healing process to non-dancers. Artistes find expression in bodily movements, and rightly so. To impart that sort of knowledge into the world is a wonderful thing, only that it must be done rightly, keeping the pedagogy in mind. As more dancers undertake this social responsibility, it is important to demystify the phrase ‘dance as therapy’, so that we develop a better understanding of these realms.
Dr Urmimala Sarkar, Associate Professor, School of Arts and Aesthetics, Jawaharlal Nehru University and Vice-President, World Dance Alliance – Asia Pacific, says that a dancer must unlearn more than learn before venturing into the field of DMT. She points out that dance has becomes a means for the creation of a perfect body. “Sometimes we focus on the process, but, the product is the ultimate outcome. It comes with the assumption that dance is a field where you need to have certain abilities or skills to be able to be a part of the community. And because of this, many dancers who work with differently-abled bodies constantly look for a product. They focus on developing a skill rather than an agency,” she says.
Urmimala Sarkar
DMT, on the other hand, comes with the notion that there should be no pre-existing judgement of what movement is dance. “Moving is my right. Movement becomes dance when we add a level of optimum skill. There is obviously a judgement involved as to what movement is dance enough, skill enough, and the distinction between good and bad. But in DMT, there is no assumption of where I could go with a movement, or where I am going to reach. It is the experiencing that creates the experience. The experience can be individual, of an ensemble, of different parts of the body, of moving together, of existing more confidently in a space, or of my own relationship with the space. It is about using one’s body to address one’s issues. There is no reference to what you understand to be a good movement. The product is not good dance but the person’s agency,” says Sarkar.
Despite the gravity of this, dancers tend to include the word therapy in their workshops, often treading into the paths of working with the differently-abled population or people with mental illnesses. “DMT predominantly requires clinical practice. You might end up introducing more trauma by working with the people you are not skilled to work with. It is not about dancing but facilitating these bodies to move,” cautions Sarkar.
DMT is taught in many universities world over. But in India, Tata Institute of Social Sciences in collaboration with Kolkata Sanved and Centre for Lifelong Learning is the only place where one can get diploma in DMT. It is conducted in Mumbai and Kolkata and a joint-diploma is offered at the end of the course.
Dancer Tripura Kashyap is one of the first as well as one of the few people in the country to be certified in DMT. Trained at Kalakshetra, Kashyap later worked with the iconic Chandralekha before moving to the US for her training in DMT. After returning to India, Kashyap began working with different kinds of people like those on wheelchairs, differently-abled, people with hearing and visual impairments and other diagnostic categories. She asserts that every time she has used dance according to individual needs, the benefits have been immense. But, what stands out is her work with school children and teachers, wherein, step by step, she hopes to bring about a change in the way we look at dance beside other subjects. As an art form, therapeutic dance allows children to give expression to their bodies, which becomes the extension of the self. Children are able to nourish their bodies as well as themselves through the dance.
Tripura Kashyap
Talking about dance in the academic curriculum, Kashyap insists that it needs to become a cross-curricular activity, rather than an extra-curricular activity. Her workshops for school teachers and special educators have enabled them to approach their subjects and pupil with newer perspectives and world views. Says Kashyap, “The problem with our approach to dance is that it is extremely performance oriented and not process oriented. If you focus on performance, you only elaborate the memory and sequencing skills in a child. The main objectives of dance in education are to focus on physical and mental fitness, work on the socio-cultural awareness and understand how the sessions are a microcosm of the lives we lead, understand the aesthetics of the art form, reinforce educational concepts through dance and so on. When I began conducting workshops with special educators, many teachers also began coming. They told me that even if a child is not differently-abled, there are issues like hyperactivity, lower attention span, lack of social skills and fitness which need to be addressed. These strategies help my teachers conduct their classes in a better way by using their bodies in a much more animated and dynamic manner because they learn through their bodies.”
Painting myriad emotions
She shares the experience from one of her sessions, “Children at the Baldwin School, Bangalore, used different body parts as paint brushes to colour the imaginary bubble-like canvas around their bodies. At the end of the exercise, they were guided into reflecting verbally what they had painted. One child had painted colours of the rainbow around her to create happiness; another felt he was part of a Holi celebration and threw colours in space; yet another painted a ‘fantasy cave’ in which he wanted to stay forever. Effective therapeutic techniques and approaches to encourage children to think, feel, learn, memorise, express and communicate through their bodies need to be continuously articulated by dance educators in their sessions.”
Spelling out the nuances of a typical course, Kashyap says, “If you think about it, movement is primal to human beings and that is why, during the course of the therapy, we develop a personal movement vocabulary that addresses our problems individually. There are several stages to a course. It begins with Movement Building, moves to Exploration, Expression, Resolution and finally Integration. Movement is also cognizant. We create something called a Movement Activity Basket which has different heads. Each head is like a capsule replete with hundreds and thousands of games and activities that address particular skill sets. And as you progress with different groups, you begin creating movements spontaneously.” A typical course would last anything between six to nine months before completion.
“Many children I have worked with have coordination issues. Sometimes, they have splits in their bodies, and are unable to coordinate the right to left. The therapies have helped them increase concentration, polish social skills and even communicate better. Anyone from the age of four to 80 can benefit from them,” says Kashyap. Kashyap’s Dance in Education workshops for teachers deal with going beyond the functional use of the body and making it as creative as possible. It facilitates educators to connect dance to academic subjects and understand the dance pedagogy. Often, there are short choreographic presentations for children.
Dance has become another space of competition, due to a lack of understanding that the process or experience counts more than the product itself. Often, this approach has increased the trauma for young children in schools.
“Everything is an ability which is certified in our books. Institutions put it in place, parents carry it out at home and they both feed into each other constantly. While it is important to understand the possibilities of DMT, one must not undermine the importance of knowing what to do. Creating university spaces or departments is something that we should look forward to and work towards getting more structured. It is good to have enthusiasm, but it is important to have training,” sums up Sarkar.
