National College for Community Dance
DANCE, HEALTH AND WELLBEING Pathway to practice for dance leaders working in health and care settings
By Miranda Tufnell
Handbook published by Foundation for Community Dance for people leading dance in community settings and contexts.
!"#$%#$&' Foreword
3
Acknowledgements
4
About Miranda
5
Introduction
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()*$'"#%'!"#$%+$' A guide for dancers working in health 1 My story
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2 Background thoughts on health
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()*$'$,"'(*)-$.-%'/#",0%12%'' 1 The body as movement
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2
What kind of dance?
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3
What can movement bring to health?
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4
Setting up a project
21
5
Establishing a group
23
6
Working one-to-one
27
7
Getting going
28
8
Choosing what to do in a session
31
9
Finding a voice: movement, metaphor and story
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10 The need for stillness
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11 Combining movement with other arts: a multi-sensory approach
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12 Meeting a variety of needs
44
13 Skills for practitioners
46
14 Evaluation
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15 Funding
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16 Appendix 1: Sample questionnaire
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17 Appendix 2: National policy issues - statements from Kate Gant, Mark Webster and Mike White
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!"#$%$&#''%!#"($)('% Case Studies 1 Poem by Sue Field
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2 Lucinda Jarrett: Moving into being
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3 Lisa Dowler: Working with children in hospital wards
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4 Amanda Fogg: Movement sessions for people with Parkinson’s Disease
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5 Richard Coaten: Working with older people with Dementia
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6 Kate Flatt: Working with bereavement counsellors
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7 Jasmine Pasch: Working in a school for children on the autistic spectrum
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8 Cath Hawkins: Working with children in an Oncology ward
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9 Lucia Walker: Working with children dealing with the death or terminal illness of a parent 84 10 Karen Adcock Doyle: Working with children and families affected by trauma and abuse
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11 Jeannie Donald-McKim: Moving imagination workshops with people with Multiple Sclerosis
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12 Joe Moran: Working with dance, health and wellbeing
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!"#$%&"'%(")*+,),(&"-./(0"&*"$,%1&$2"" " W hen we are not well, the body becom es
concern is not ‘cure’, but bringing about easier
som ething unpredictable and som etim es
conditions in body and soul. Listening to the
feared for how it m ay react: violent
body-as-movement opens a door into
shaking, dizziness, sudden spasm s of
constellations of memory, feeling, story and
pain, inability to breathe. Then there is
dream, the wider field of our experience, at play
the sham e of not being able to cope with
within our tissues that can transform how we
everyday tasks, of being easily and often
feel and bring us back to feeling at home in
suddenly overwhelm ed. The rawness of
ourselves. It is this expanding of attention
living with chronic pain can stress the
beyond illness that the arts brings about. In this
body so utterly that the only way to cope
they strengthen our capacity to meet and adapt
is to narrow focus and lock bodily
to change.
attention. Moving the body moves the mind, so that we see Most of us feel at a loss when we are ill. Despite
and feel differently. Having an alive, creative
living in a culture in many ways obsessed with
relationship to our bodies opens a door into
‘the body’, we tend to live on automatic pilot,
unseen and often neglected aspects of who we
ignoring how the body feels and taking its
are. Movement, sourced from inside – through
functioning for granted. Only when we lose our
breath, sensation, impulse, memory and story –
health do we realise that we are strangers to our
can enable a body in pain to gain a measure of
physical selves, confused and fearful of
control and thus of more ease. It offers a way of
unfamiliar sensations of pain or discomfort.
becoming more perceptually active in sensing our selves both physically and emotionally.
The arts cannot solve our problems, but they invite us to question, to explore and thereby to
In engaging our senses and imagination, dance
discover other aspects of who we are.
evokes images and metaphors that in turn open
Dance/movement has the capacity to bring us
up the stories we tell of ourselves. Dance can
into a more personal and imaginative
move us from the passivity of being a ‘patient’
relationship with our bodies (whatever state we
into active participation in restoring our own
are in). In this as dancers working in health, our
health.
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and concerns as this is human work as much as it is dance work, and grows from a mutuality of
Tim e and trust lie at the heart of this work. As an artist, taking tim e to tune to another’s story, their ‘body-story’ beneath the words, feeling for the direction in which a session m ay need to go, is a delicate and challenging process requiring every tool in your im proviser’s
seeing together, sharing the art of living! Feeling recognised, a sense of being ‘seen’, underpins the success or failure of a session and this is something we as artists are uniquely placed to do. Keeping in touch with your own creative self is vital if you are to find the means to support another person to find theirs.
box. It calls for bodily empathy and the capacity to
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identify imaginatively with a wide range of individuals – also the utmost sensitivity to their
Touch is also a precious skill in giving support to
fears and vulnerabilities. It also calls for joy, wit,
those who have very restricted movement.
humour and trust in the process of life itself in
Touch is the most fundamental of our senses
order to listen through the pain for clues as to
and thus it is vital that we, as dancers, familiar
how to draw another person into a creative
with touch, are sensitive to another’s
space. All this requires going slowly, carefully,
boundaries. What comforts one person may feel
listening deeply with every cell of your own body,
intrusive to another. Touch, like movement, is a
and yet keeping the field of your attention wide,
language, it can stimulate fears, shame and
gentle, spacious – listening for response in
uncomfortable memories.
whatever form it comes to guide your process – above all, taking time.
We need to listen, and read the signs of what is appropriate, and where possible engage another with both permission and a choice of where and
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how they would like touch.
Each of us has a unique blend of skills that we
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bring to our work. It is helpful to stay connected
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to the wider field of your own interests, passions
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A Foundation for Community Dance Publication
The Foundation for Community Dance is the professional organisation for anyone involved in creating opportunities for people to experience and participate in dance. The National College for Community Dance is FCDâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s home for professional development pathways for people delivering dance in community settings and contexts. It delivers courses, seminars, flexible online learning opportunities and advocates for professional development opportunities UK wide and internationally for dance leadership in the community.
Foundation for Community Dance LCB Depot, 31, Rutland Street, Leicester, LE1 1RE Tel: +44 (0)116 253 3453 E-mail: info@communitydance.org.uk Web: www.communitydance.org.uk Company limited by guarantee, registered in England and Wales no. 2415458 Registered Charity no. 328392