Third Meeting Tuesday Group

This was a successful session.  Everyone was there, more or less on time.  Everyone was engaged in the activities.  Partners were able to move together and the whole group was able to complete a creative study together.

We began in our circle with a focus on parts of the body.  I made suggestions such as, "Let's move our hands";  and I gave observations such as "Oh, so and so is doing a head movement.  Can we all do that?"  I also spent time on "loosening up" - shaking the hands, throwing away the arms, the legs and so forth until one participant said, "I'm nervous." 

I asked her to tell me more.  She said she was afraid her head would fall off.  I told her that I had never seen that happen and had everyone feel their necks and the solid connection made by muscles, skin and bones.  But my student was very certain her head could fall off.  She told me she had seen a movie where someone's head came off "and their hands and feet, too." 

I wasn't sure what to do, so I talked with her a little more and finally got clear that she had seen a horror movie and it was hard for her to get the images out of her mind.  We talked about the difference between a made up story that was scarey and the real world.  I had the group alternate tightening and loosening different muscle groups. Then we felt around the joints, squeezing with our hands and saying, "That's connected" or "That's solid" or "That's not going anywhere." 

We moved on from there without more comments on the disintegrating body images; but I was intrigued.  This was one of those moments where the line between dance and dance therapy blurred - I knew I had to address my student's very real anxiety; but I did not feel I should delve deeply into her issues around body image, or that I should explore possible trauma issues from viewing violent images.

Our exploration of legs and feet (still seated) somehow got us into rocking and I used that to transition to rolling.  I had people roll onto their fronts, backs, or sides.  We spent time in each position finding ways to move.  Then we rolled to our fronts and tried to move around the room.  I didn't call it creeping or crawling or slithering because I wanted to see what the group would come up with.  We eventually got up to hands and knees, including the woman who had been unable to do so in the first group.  She quickly reverted to a kind of "hands then legs" hitching movement which we all copied; but this was progress.

When we stood up we focused on walking for a good part of the class.  I had people walk with partners.  I asked them to show me walking side by side and one behind the other.  In partners we took turns being the leader and changing the size of our steps, and then the direction in which we were walking.

We all followed one person who made up interesting ways to walk.  She is a very creative mover and often does so much movement we can't keep up as a group.  I coached her to take time to notice if the group was really doing her movements.  She was much more successful after that in keeping the group with her.

We finished with a group position dance.  One person begins this dance by going into the center of the circle and putting him/herself into a shape that can be held for a long time.  The next person who joins is given the instruction to position him or herself beside, behind, in front, over or under the first person.  This continues until everyone is arranged in relationship to everyone else.  Then, beginning with the first person, we leave the group position one at a time until the last to join is alone in the center of the circle.

By this time we were at the end of our session.  As I said at the beginning of this post, it was successful; but I also felt a bit flat.  We moved together.  We completed many activities, but the sense of having an art experience was missing.  My goal for the coming week is to get that creative spark back in there.

Comments

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How fun! I linked to this on last weekend's weekly roundup and am just now getting around to letting you know. (I guess we were busy celebrating Easter!) Thanks so a lot for sharing!