The academic year in Montreal began with a wonderful and generous seminar offered by Dance Therapist Joan Chodorow who was here with several colleagues to present at and participate in the Jung Society Congress in Montreal on August 2010. Members of the creative arts therapies community met at Concordia University's Creative Arts Therapies Department where Joan offered a seminar on the work of Trudi
Schoop and a discussion on Trudi's large contribution to Dance Therapy and to Authentic Movement. She also discussed with us what it was like to study with Trudi and Mary (Whitehouse) many years ago.
Joining Joan was several of the Dance Therapy/Jungian presenters from the conference: Dance Therapist Debby Thomas; Renate Oppikofer, a senior Jungian analyst in Geneva who studied withTrudi; Tina Stromsted DMT and Jungian analyst in San Francisco;and Margarita Méndez, dancer, choreographer, psychologist, Jungian analyst, editor and now director of the analyst training program in Caracas the Venezuelan Society of Jungian analyst 22od. It was wonderful and we look forward to the return of Joan to Montreal.
In Late September Amber Grey was the Key note speaker of the conference of the Association d'Arts Therapeutes du Quebec. She also offered a full day work shop on
THE BODY AS VOICE: DANCE/MOVEMENT THERAPY, TRAUMA, AND THE RESTORATIVE PROCESS
The following is a description from the workshop:
Trauma is not an event, but an experience that lives in the body. After the body
registers a traumatic experience, it immediately activates its own process of
returning back to a state of balance and equilibrium. If this is not possible,
because of inadequate internal or external resources, the trauma continues to reside
in the body, and informs and shapes the individual’s perceptions and experiences.
The body is the site of all human experience, from the mundane to the sacred and
from the pleasurable to the terrifying. Resilient bodies literally and
metaphorically process life experiences fluidly. Trauma, however, imposes a block or
barrier to the body’s innate ability to integrate experience and therefore
challenges the inherent fluidity and grace of the body. Trauma can freeze the body
in time and space and thus prevent or impair movement and subsequent reorganization.
Body as Voice workshop participants will practice accessing the body as a powerful
resource in literally “moving through” trauma. Beginning with science and research
based trauma theory and its connection to the inherent wisdom of the body,
participants in this workshop will learn the importance of “resourcing” as a way to
facilitate the restorative process. In addition, the importance of culture as both a
resource and a paradigm to guide somatic and expressive arts
interventions will be highlighted. This workshop will begin to prepare participants
to integrate the strength-based Center-Post Framework (“CPF”) into their clinical
practice with survivors of severe trauma and humans rights abuses in order to
facilitate the restorative process.
Amber Elizabeth Lynn Gray, MPH, MA, ADTR, NCC, LPCC, has over twenty-five years
experience in human service and working with displaced people, refugees, and
survivors of human rights abuses, and over 13 years experience working with
survivors of civilian and combat-related war trauma, torture, domestic violence and
ritual abuse. Her expertise is in integration of creative arts and body-based
practices and methods into clinical, psychotherapeutic and healing practices. She
has extensive experience developing community based, culturally congruent treatment
models for trauma recovery that reinforce individual and communal resilience.
Through the application of somatic psychology and creative arts psychotherapies she
offers steps towards trauma recovery. She provides training and consultation
nationally and internationally. In addition, Amber E. Gray is the originator of a
trauma & resiliency framework named “The Center Post Framework” (“CPF”) which
integrates Somatic Psychology, Dance Movement Therapy, Developmental Psychology,
Body-Mind Centering, the Polyvagal Theory and creative arts modalities into the
healing process with survivors of extreme trauma. CPF is built on years of clinical
and program experience with survivors of torture and war from many areas and
cultures and honours the healing traditions she has learned in Haiti.
For more information please visit: www.aatq.org This event also was a major success. We also welcome Ambers return to Montreal.
In November of 2010 Lucie Beaudry brought the film BREATH MADE VISIBLE a new film on the life of Anna Halprin to Cinema du Parc in Montreal. BREATH MADE VISIBLE un film sur la vie de la danseuse et choregraphe americaine Anna Halprin, aussi reconnue comme une figure importante en danse-therapie. This was another important event for the community.Pour plus d'information:
Lucie Beaudry
info@luciebeaudry.com
www.luciebeaudry.com
I continue to teach in the Creative Arts Therapies Department at Concordia and work at the Centre for the arts in Human Development (www.cahd.net). A major project over the past four years for me has been the Parkinsons Dance Project/Parkinsons en Mouvement where we offer several dance classes each week as well as a group for voice and singing. I would love to hear from anyone involved in Dance and Parkinsons. I will post more on that project later in the month.
More soon and look for posts from accross Canada!!
Joanabbey Sack
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