Healing through Dance
Laurie Corzett
La danse, c'est le mouvement, et le
mouvement, c'est la vie.
("Dance is movement, and movement is
life.")
--Ludmilla Chiriaeff (Founder, Les Grands
Ballets
Canadiens)
What is is about dancing, in a group, with
an intimate other, or
alone, that can give us that mystical rush
and promote wellness on so
many levels? Is it the pre-cognitive memory
of the rhythm of the
heartbeat keeping us safe? Is it the
emotional-spiritual connection
to the natural world we feel when moving
pleasurably in our animal
body? Is it some atavistic source of
healing from our primal days?
This is my quest -- to discover the healing
properties of dance and
how to best use and promote this simplest
and most profound gift of
our physical being.
Throughout our history, dancing has
functioned as a healing and
balancing component, a form of social
communication and transcendent
spiritual ritual. Though patterns and forms
vary, expressive
rhythmic movement is a very basic means of
relieving emotional
tension and has from the beginning been
associated with religious
ritual and healing. We celebrate by dancing
at weddings and
festivals, and join others in dance as the
quintessential romantic
experience. Dancing alone, feeling the
rhythmic sway and getting in
touch with the extension and contraction of
muscles in a pleasurable
context, is uplifting, healing. Dancing
definitely helps to bring up
my mood and promote more sane reflection.
When I can get so caught up
in the dance that I no longer feel separate
from the music and can
move within it, it seems to free something
very profound within me.
I have been working with dance as a
self-healing resource and looking
intuitively and through on-line research to open my
knowledge and
understanding into the possibilities
and realities of healing through
dance.
My work is based on the intuitive
feeling I have been developing
for quite some time about dance.
There is something very primal,
very basic in regard to our species and
dance, involving healing
in the holistic sense and the intrinsic
energies of life/form/time.
In every culture there has been
an emphasis on dance in not only
entertainment,
but as a healing force. And, then,
entertainment is of course part of
healing and cultural
unity.
In my search I am finding a wide variety of
healing modalities,
spiritual activities and holistic therapies
based on our natural
expression of energies through dance, as
well as community and
individual art projects promoting
creativity and wholeness.
