by Irene Chiang
Sept. 2005
(Instructor: Jeanne Castle, BC-DMT)
Before coming to this workshop, I’ve taken Wesley Institute's Dance/Movement Therapy program in Calgary, Canada for seven weeks, and one of the courses was DMT Theory. In this course, we’ve learned each DMT pioneer’s approaches, and my group presentation happened to be Mary Whitehouse. Although I have a relatively clear picture on authentic movement, we only spent one class on Whitehouse and a not too long experiential. In additions, according to our lectures and reading, the “dyad”(in a group, not the therapist/witness and client/mover relationship) format wasn’t really emphasized. Therefore, this workshop offered a more in depth experience and understanding on how authentic movement is being applied on actual practice.
The group dynamic wasn’t too active in the beginning probably because of language barrier and the fact that authentic movement is such a new concept for most of us. I think it’s like the first therapy session that both parties, the therapist and the client, need time to get used to each other, and when they reach the same rhythm or energy level, they could head together to the next stage of exploration and co-creation. Fortunately, explanation, compassion and people working together to interpret the lecture/instruction later improved such situation.
During the movement experience in the later half on the 2nd day, I originally planned to move a bit and sleep through because I didn’t have enough sleep the night before, but later decided to switch from a mover to a witness so that I wouldn’t miss most of the process. I made the right choice. There was a point when two people humming and one crawled in to cry, and this gradually became the compassionate interaction among five or six people. Dance therapy was actually presented in front of us. As previously, I could empathetically sense the strong emotional intensity, meanwhile keep cool and witness the whole process without emotionally involved. Yet, it’s like a unique and touching episode of human interaction that will stay in our hearts for a long, long time.
I’m glad to participate in this workshop because it provided me the opportunity to meet many wonderful people with common interests and mutual compassion, and I’m also happy to see DMT is getting more and more attention and popularity in Taiwan. I believe that we can all expect a beautiful co-creation in years to come.
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