Scoring the Dance Ritual

I

Check in

---------------

II

 

Unit: The Circle

 

Theme: Scoring

 

 

Introduction

 

As an alternative to set choreography, Halprin has developed unique methods of dance scoring. Her dance scores communicate the essential spatial, temporal, and physical instructions for each performance work. These two-dimensional renderings of her movement ideas and choreographic structures are designed in ways that inspire users to apply their own creative sensibilities to embodying and carrying out their instructions. Halprin’s dance scores are simultaneously structured and fluid. They exist as records of Halprin’s creative activity and serve as the impetus for new productions.

 

----------------

III

 

Learning Objectives

 

• Understand the concept of dance-ritual
  
• Explain how dance can be a healing resource
  
• Gain an awareness if the importance of dance for community healing
  
• Experience planned  movement, or score, as as a tool to lead community healing
• Reflect on the movement experience as a group
  

 

---------------

IV

 

 

Main Lesson

 

 1

 

The therapeutic Encounter / The Therapeutic Presence

Dr. Aditi Nerurkar is a Harvard physician nationally recognized stressed expert and modern day burnout. In this podcast, she

 

1. (17:00 - 22:45)

2. (35:00 - 41:10)

3. (48:00 - 54:04)

4. (56:44 - 57:58)

5. (-1:40:00 -1:43:26)

6.(1:43:29 - 1:44:59)

7.(1:45:00 - 1.49:35)

8. (1:50-1:51:44)

9. ( 1:51:51-)

1. Professor's Reflection on true resilience vs. toxic resilience:

I think that the artistic process, specifically within the frame of DMT, can offer clients the space and time necessary to recharge and become truly resilient as opposed to toxicly so.

 

2. Professor's Reflection on therapeutic encounter:

I think the therapeutic encounter is enhanced when using DMT. It depends, of course, on the therapeutic presence of the therapist. Dr. mentions eye to eye level, mirroring and being authentic as key elements in the development of therapeutic presence and subsequently the therapeutic encounter. The circle provides an environment in which the therapeutic encounter can take place. The therapeutic session rooted in creative movement, chants, mirroring and kinesthetic empathy makes DMT an ideal way to develop a therapeutic relationship.

 

3. Professor's Reflection on acronym MOST (Motivating, Objective, Small and Timely):

"What matters most to me" as opposed to "what's the matter with me" is a way to re-frame one's internal dialogue to find out what is one's most goal and create a road-map to find out the best way to get there. This gives one something to look forward to, a measurable goal, that may surface, in regards to DMT, during a movement session.

 

4. Professor's Reflection on moving:

Dr. Nerurkar says that movement can decrease your stress. When one feels stressed one wants to be still, yet sitting can increase one's sense of anxiety. Thus, sitting can have a great impact on one's mental health, whereas movement is the antidote to that. For instance, a simple walk can help. In our DMT practice dance and movement is key in decreasing our clients' stress. Also, mindfulness and walking meditation can be introduced as part of the therapeutic approach.

5.Professor's reflection on Six areas that make a long and meaningful life. 

Dr. Nerukar's prescription is to bring those 6 areas into one day even if it is for a minute or two to have a sense of meaning and purpose. The six areas are a) childhood (spend a few mi. everyday in a sense of wonder and play), b) work (doing something whether is payed or not that provides you with a sense of accomplishment, c) solitude (spending some time alone), d) vacation (spend some time during the day doing something you love), e. family (spend time in community with people you love), f) retirement (spend some time during the day thinking about what worked and what did not.These are recommendation therapists can give patients as part of the therapeutic approach.

6. Professor's Reflection of What we have missed and Media Diet:

In reference to popcorn-brain and brain-drain, Nerukar advises to have a media diet. There are 3 ways to instill this media diet into one's life to help with scanning and scrolling. First, limit the time you spend on the phone engaging and consuming bad news, 20 min. a day, set a timer if you have to. Second, create geographical limits, keep you phone 10 feet away from your work station, if you can, 10 feet out of reach and at night, off your night stand. Third, create some logistical limits in terms of organization and planning of your day. Creating this digital boundaries in regards to one's use of one's iPhone will improve our stress and mental health. These are also recommendation therapists can give patients as part of the therapeutic approach.

7. Professor's Reflection on the Cycle of Trauma:

Nerukar cites Roxane Cohen Silver, a psychologist in California, to say that one's risk of PTSD increases when you consume graphic images even if what one is consuming is happening elsewhere. Any conflict, any climate disaster consumed via graphic images and videos increases one's own risk of PTSD even if one has not have any direct trauma. It stimulates one's primal urge to scroll more, because one does not feel safe. This is a common response because of out own biology of stress, click bait and doom scrolling are powered by the same biology that governs the fight or flight response. Data shows that this increases your PTSD and mental conditions later in life. Thus, when you client shows up for therapy due to a specific trauma, the therapist has to take into consideration that the cycle of trauma has other ramifications often ignored by therapists.

8. Professor's Reflection on hyperconnectivity and loneliness:

Feeling a sense of connection and community is different from being hyperconnected.  One can be hyperconnected via electronic devices and disconnected from others. Loneliness is an pandemic according to Nerukar. It decreases your life-span. It is essential to be connected to a community to in avoid stress.

9. Professor's Reflection on internal experience and external presentation:

Narukar talks about what she used to think was true; that internal experience and external presentation were supposed to match up. This however, based on her own experience, is not true since people look a certain way (happy, smiley) while struggling inside. Thus, she is kinder than necessary since everybody is fighting a battle one may not now about. This discrepancy, in DMT is seen through the body. The body does not lie. The inclusive frame created in dance/movement therapy allows for the therapeutic relationship to flourish no matter how you present yourself or how you feel inside.

2

Scoring

 

 3

Free Movement

4

Dance Ritual

 ANNA HALPRIN "Circle the Mountain": 

Community Healing Through Dance - 1985

Question 1

 Individual Work

After watching the videos, write a response to whatever part of it impacted you the most.

 (Specify the min. in the video that you are referring to)

 

 

 ---------------------------------------------------

V

A Note to Remember

-------------------

VI

Case Study

Bios

Josephine Landor

 

A native of Madera in the San Joaquin Valley, Mrs. Landor studied art at the California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland, where she was a student of her husband-to-be, Walter Landor. They were married for 55 years, until his death in 1995.

 

Together they formed Landor Associates, a firm that later designed the familiar logos for Coca-Cola, General Electric, Shell Oil, British Airways, Dole and General Motors' Saturn Corp.

 

In addition to her talent as a painter, Mrs. Landor served for more than 50 years as the artistic director for the Anna Halprin Dancer's Workshop, helping design the scenery and costumes worn by the dancers.

Source: https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/Josephine-Landor-2956867.php

Anna Halprin

Anna Halprin (born Hannah Dorothy Schuman; July 13, 1920 – May 24, 2021) was an American choreographer and dancer. She helped redefine dance in postwar America and pioneer the experimental art form known as postmodern dance and referred to herself as a breaker of the rules of modern dance. In the 1950s, she established the San Francisco Dancers' Workshop to give artists like her a place to practice their art. 

 

Exploring the capabilities of her own body, she created a systematic way of moving using kinesthetic awareness. With her husband, landscape architect Lawrence Halprin, she developed the RSVP cycles, a creative methodology that includes the idea of scores and can be applied broadly across all disciplines. Many of her creations have been scores, including Myths in the 1960s which gave a score to the audience, making them performers as well, and a highly participatory Planetary Dance (1987). Influenced by her own battle with cancer and her healing journey, Halprin became known for her work with the terminally ill patients as well as creative movement work in nature. 

In 1978, together with her daughter Daria Halprin, she founded the Tamalpa Institute, based in Marin County, California, which offers training in Life/Art process, their creative methodology. Halprin has written books including: Movement Rituals, Moving Toward Life: Five Decades of Transformational Dance and Dance as a Healing Art. A documentary film about her life and art, Breath Made Visible directed by Ruedi Gerber, premiered in 2010.

READING

LINK:

 Making Dances that Matter: Resources for Community Creativity

Read the introduction to this book.

 

Group Work

Summary 2

 Summarize the points that resonate with your own ideas about dance as a healing resource. 

Question 3

On page 3, Halprin expresses one of her central intentions when creating dances. 

How does her intention apply to the use of dance for community healing?

 

 --------------------------------------

VII

Activity

 Group Work

a) Put yourself in the position of a dance/movement therapist and thinking of a community you would like to work with, write an  artistic statement of intention.

b) Based on your statement of intention create a dance-ritual score.

 c) Enact the score by performing your ritual-dance.

d) Give your dance-ritual a title.

 

--------------------

VIII

 

Glossary

 self-efficacy: knowing that you can do it as you inner critic starts silencing.

popcorn brain: it is a biological phenomenon coined by Dr. Levi, a psychologist, which means that one's brain starts to pop due to over stimulation when spending too much time online.  It is an affection that nearly everyone has currently. When one feels stressed we are prone to popcorn brain given that the amygdala (that part of our brain in charge of survival and preservation) feels safe when are scrolling and scanning for danger (now a days these are the bad news on TV, social media, etc) due to a primal urge to do so.

internet addiction disorder: Different from popcorn brain, internet addiction interferes with one's life.

adaptive stress: This is good stress. Our goal should be, not to live a life without stress, but to live a life with healthy manageable stress. It is to move away from bad stress and close to healthy stress.

maladaptive stress: This is bad stress.

neuro-consolidation:When we are on the go, constantly moving, we are not always learning. As information is floating in the brain until the brain lays down and cements that information to knowledge. Neuro-consolodation is the process of cementing new information. Taking a break helps neuro-conslidation.

microbiom: An Eco-system of healthy bacteria that govern the gut-brain connection. Composed of trillions of healthy bacteria and microbes in one's gut. The microbiom helps to regulate glucose. There are more serotonin receptors in our guts that our brain. The microbiom can be reset through sleep, rest, pre and probiotic foods,

psychobiom: a dedicated group of healthy bacteria in one's gut whose sole function is to manage mood and other mental health.

serotonin: the happy hormone.  A neurotransmitter. 

expressive or therapeutic writing: setting a timer for 20 to 25 min. and write about a traumatic event that happened to you. It helps with mood and sleep and anxiety and irritability. It helps with cognitive re framing. 

brain-drain: what happens to us in terms of our brain power as a result of using the intelligent phone even when is close by but not in use because of its "sheer potential for destruction."They are not benign devises.

click-bait: (on the internet) content whose main purpose is to attract attention and encourage visitors to click on a link to a particular web page.

doomscrolling: Doomscrolling or doomsurfing is the act of spending an excessive amount of time reading large quantities of negative news online. In 2019, a study by the National Academy of Sciences found that doomscrolling can be linked to a decline in mental and physical health.

 -----------------------------

IX

 

Sources

Anna Halprin Digital Archive

https://annahalprindigitalarchive.omeka.net/exhibits/show/mapping-dance

 

------------------

X

 STUDENTS' WORK

Scoring