TANZ THERAPIE

 Deutsche Gesellschaft für Tanztherapie - DGT

^{WHAT DOES DANCE THERAPIE MEAN TO ME ?}

^{■ Demand for Authenticity}

^{The question which is to be answered at the end of the first module of Dance Therapy Education of Deutsche Gesellschaft für Tanztherapie is looking for very subjective answers. The interest for the subjective approach of all the participants with very different backgrounds is what I appreciate. The answers but also the question itself, in its simplicity and demanding for authenticity, I do appreciate. The very personal histories with very different qualities seem to be like different lights which are to lighten the concept of dance therapy in an own manner and so build up a rich total picture of dance therapy. This demand seems to me very adequate to the very wide potentials of dance in which I believe that it can give important supports to the other disciplines, other part of lives which seem to be at first sight far away from dance. So I would like to share with this paper my very personal approach and touch to dance therapy. Similar to searching in the micro cosmos for the macro cosmos. Yes, I do believe in dance, but what is the very personal history of me which this belief bases on?}

^{■ The Belief in Dance}

^{I decided to attend Dance Therapy Courses even though my professional background is not in a therapeutic field. It was the period short before I would began my PhD Research Project in Helsinki in the interdisciplinary field of Architecture, Dance and Adult Education: 'Body – Movement – Space : Thinking with the Moving Body'. It was for me the necessity of being in a practical world which deals with dance. During the last years, because of maternity and family reasons, my life had carried me once again far away from dance. It was astonishing for me not have lost my dreams about the research, which is about dance, over couple years, even though I would describe myself as a person with a short breath. My aim was to make a research in the fields of Movement, Space and Self-Realisation. I believed in the power of dance and the potentials it can support other disciplines. Even maybe more. I believe in that it is not only the capability of dance but also the responsibility of everyone who is engaged with dance to support other disciplines, bringing dance more and more as a part of our all day and professional lives. This belief might be very deep anchored in my being, and the experience how dance supported me my life long through tough times, which caused me to be very insistent for realising the Research Project. Even though I couldn’t find the academically support in Germany, over years looking for, and my familiar situation didn’t really support the idea of go on studying, I couldn’t give up this dream. What would it mean to let this research as a dream and not looking for how to realize it? Why was it such difficult, almost impossible? I knew if I wouldn’t go on insisting with my insights, I wouldn’t fulfil my responsibility for this life. The reason why it was such difficult, was also the reason why I had to follow my responsibility as a mover. Dance is not a discipline where one can earn easily good money. It is not easy to finance your life with dance. So it is not attractive for many people from a pragmatic world view to work with dance. This was the reason why I couldn't decide easily for dance when I was a young girl. But also 'now' I had to trust into my belief more than the circumstances allow and my people can understand. Is this not what I am concerned about and what I mean to have to work for? For the dance which has more space and more power in our society. In societies. Is the reason why I couldn't find the people easily in Germany over years who can support me in this certain interdisciplinary research field that dance is not acknowledged in it capacities what it can offer to the world, to lives, to many different disciplines?}

^{It took its time to find the right person as supervisor. As I met Mrs. Eeva Anttilla, professor for Dance Pedagogy in Theatre School of Helsinki (TEAK), I felt myself with my very interest understood. The support of Mrs. Laura Gröndahl, professor for Stage Design in University of Art and Design (TAIK) in Helsinki, helped me to open the official door to a research. The solution to get two people together for supervising an interdisciplinary doctoral research was needed. The point was that this solution could be brought in an other country, where I was not living. The dance therapy education was in that point the very important support for me, close to the location where I am living. Since I needed it to be in ‘Movement’ for working, thinking and reflecting my thoughts which were in process.}

^{■ A Point to Attach}

^{As expected the first question which I began to deal with, at the beginning of my dance therapy education, was the concept of ‘health’ or the contrary: the concept of ‘sickness’. What does it mean to be sick? What does it mean to be sick for a personal body? What does it mean for a society? A society with its sick persons. Persons in sick social circumstances. Values. Degrees. Who has the power to define, to say the rules. These questions conducted me to the concept of 'Helping'. What does it mean to help? Who can get help? How to get help? How to give help?
I tried to think in analogies and metaphor to get close to these concepts, to understand and apprehend them. Even I liked the intellectual journey about and around the concepts of health and sickness, I didn't come far with. Since I couldn't find a point which I can attach with something from my very personal history.}

^{The very subjective is important for me. With the very subjective one can find the access more easily, but also more intense to different themes which doesn't belong directly to the own story. 'Health and Sickness' were seldom an important theme in my life. The only thing which I could relate to the very conventional concept of 'sickness' was that I remembered myself many times saying, that if I would not able to dance, I would for sure get sick. Mentally sick. I believed that I couldn’t bear my mental health if I wouldn’t encounter somehow the ‘dance’; the free, expressive and modern dance. The dance which has improvisation in the core of its producing. For me the dance was the way of making order in my mind. To clean up thoughts and get rid off unclean stuff in the space of thoughts and feelings.}

^{■ Where do I Come From}

^{Where a person is coming from, which personal history he had experienced has a great influence to how he looks to the future, with which priorities he is handling in here and now.}

^{So I would like to begin with some information about myself, some fragments from my personal history for make you understand my belief in dance. At first sight they may seem not to be related to each other, but I guess if you let the information free in the space and give a bit more time as you think that is to be given, the relation of each part to an other will begin to appear. This character of working: letting the concepts, fragments, experiences etc. undefined, unordered, without putting them too quick into certain drawers, letting them free in the space of consciousness without defining a certain time for the urge to categorize, till the relations appears of their own, is for me also a quality how to work with choreographic techniques.}

^{If I look back to my past and imagine changing any parameter, I don’t have the feeling my history would change fundamentally. I would be somehow the same person with similar properties even I may have gained different experiences in the course of my lifetime. I believe that even my relationship to my parents or to my sisters didn’t have such a pregnant influence on my personal being, as dance had and has. I guess that without having the opportunity encountering dance in my childhood and the passion to dance which grew up in me, I would not be able to be myself. I can even not imagine that I could exist in a psychological healthy state. With this expression I may give you a picture of myself as a passionate professional dancer. That is not true. I have a double-going vita. The main vita is the one which is defined from my culture and family which I was born into, which don’t really know what dance is, at least not in its wide spectrum; and which didn’t recognize what dance means to me. I could never have the power to show them who I am and what I want in relation to dance. Not my family, neither the culture I was born into really accept dance as a serious discipline which may be suited for my capacities, even they lived many times how passionate I was working for the dance projects which I realized, and how fulfilled I was the time after. I was a successful student; this made it more difficult for me to live dance as the main interest which could define my main vita. Being good in Mathematics and Physics caused everyone, who has a saying in my life, to be sure that dance is not profitable for me. But I was looking in every phase of my life, in every city which I moved to, in every different condition for the possibility to dance. It was in normal case not a lot. Dance, especially modern dance was in Turkey at that time something rare, almost unknown. Except the one dance group in Ankara which was working in dusty and cold spaces under the tribunes of a huge football stadium, I didn’t encounter another possibility since 1997. These were students and ex-students of Middle East Technical University who danced over years Turkish traditional dance and arrived the point to think about producing dance of their selves, being creative instead of working on the same dances, similar choreographies over years. They had the possibility to find books about modern dance working techniques and read them without banging the wall of a foreign language. Because the university they were making their studies had English as the main teaching language they were able to understand these books, which are for a lot of Turkish people not really accessible. I guess that many things changed since that time; even what internet can offer in case of access to information is immense, which were at that time not to imagine. At that time I was living in the campus of a boarding school, a scientific elite high school, which had the target to educate the scientists of the future of Turkey. I don’t know how I got the information about them. I just know that two years long, every Sunday we were going with the bus at 07:00 o’clock to the Ankara city for beginning with the rehearsal at 10:00 o’clock. We worked till evening and came back with the bus at 19:30. There were no other possibility to go to the city and come back from the campus we were living. Many days during the winter we were looking for an entrance of an apartment house where it was a bit warmer as outside, for the time we had to wait till the rehearsal. As the cash machines began to be used in Turkish banks and the girlfriend of me became her first bank card we graded up one step to the comfort. Since the spaces for the cash machines provided us warmer places to wait during the very cold winter sundays. I am very thankful to this girlfriend, whose name is Nurper, who accompanied me by my passion during these two years. Maybe I wouldn’t have always the power for passing the couple winter hours of the cold Ankara’s continental climate. We were in this dance group relatively young, we were not university students neither a part of the working life, so they were taking a special care of us and had a kind of sympathy. I remember that we liked this situation. They were all friends with the same political ideology tied together; we were in their eyes children far away from all the political motions. They wanted to share all their knowledge with us, and let us take a part in their zeal for dance. Once one showed me where the centre of their community was. I have been just one time in that apartment for hearing a concert which they realized. It was a very modest apartment, the walls were full with hundreds of books, with posters and music instruments hanging on the walls. It is to be known that the culture of using libraries is not very spread in Turkey. Neither is the quality of many public libraries are sufficient. The times where the government searched houses for illegal books, where illiterate parents burned the books of their sons and daughters in the bathroom ovens, for protecting their children from the jail, is not a rare story. It is a part of our history. Being arrested and may be tortured because of having alternative thoughts or books.}

^{After these two years I began my architectural studies in Istanbul. I left Ankara. So I didn’t have furthermore contact to them. Years after I met a friend of me, who was living in that quarter where the association was. We passed in front of this building. He told me, as I spoke about my admiration to the two years which was a great chance for me, that the location of a community which was in that building was bombed. I guess that they were attacked because of their political approach. I have no more idea about these people who were very important for me to find out how important for me dance is. They built up such a strong base in me for the modern dance. With them I learned to use the movement as the possibility to look in myself, to move in the world of feelings, thoughts, senses etc. and search for their articulation. By hindsight the whole story seem to me like an urban fairy tale and they are for me like the good spirits who touched my life and disappeared without causing any damage.}

^{■ Dance, the Archaic Vent}

^{Before the time I worked with them, before I began with the Boarding School, I was living with my family in East of Anatolia. After having lived five years in Germany we had come back to East of Anatolia, where my parents are from. At that time dance was just a kind of archaic vent for me. Many nights, I was dancing in our room, which I shared with my sister, and don’t remember when I felt asleep. There was not really much place in between the bunk bed, two tables, book shelves and the wardrobe. There was a small carpet and this was somehow enough. It was always somehow enough and ok. Even then when I was not allowed to dance or move myself dancingly because of being with other people, I danced in my imagination or let the world around me dance. I loved to dance just with my breath when I got an acoustic or visual impulse and was sure that dancing would be out of place. It was not difficult for me to find a way, having the faith, for any relation to dance. My urge for dancing was always somehow contend, with even little. The main thing was that dance was always, even humble, a part of my life. I am glad that no one in my family articulated not even once a word about they think that it is a strange thing what I am doing. It was very important for my parents how I behave myself in public spaces but in the private they let me feel free. I know that even this is not self-evident in a culture where I am coming from, so I consider myself as one of the luckiest.}

^{After having lived five years in Germany, we went back to East of Anatolia. I was at that time eleven years old. Being dropped in a society which is very different from Germany was not such amusing to get used to. It might be also difficult since I was about to turn to a teenager soon. The problems I had was that I couldn't understand the values and habits which were build up on a very different world view. My parents are quite open minded, they grow us up in a free way. But as we were back in the conventions of the Est Anatolian Culture they had no problems with adapting themselves to this, for them old known structure of values. But for me it was an amazing difference, a very dangerous gap.}

^{Once I was riding with the bike to my grandmother, for bringing to her yoghurt. The police wanted me to stop. I was a bit nervous, but as he asked me if I am not ashamed of what I am doing, I was like dumbed. As many times, I had again this feeling. I was not really understanding, about what he was speaking. The police asked me to get down from the bike and walk with the bike aside. It was a very long walk, during I tried to understand what was the problem about. I was something like eleven, I was getting a young woman and riding a bike was giving an erotic image to some people in this society. And as I had to experience, also the police had felt to speak with me and warn me of the consequences what my behaviour can cause. That I should be ashamed of riding a bike with my age and should prefer to walk.}

^{Couple years later it was not seldom that boys, young men in groups were following me from school to home. Now, with my age, with the relatively secure society I am living in, in Germany, this idea seem to me even funny. But no, at that time it was something which made me feel anxious. I was not able to walk comfortable in public spaces. I was not walking I was running in some way. When I came home very often I was sweat as I had made sport. It happened also couple times, even maybe more than couple times that one allowed himself to grab my breast, my sex or my bottom. And every time when something like this happened I was even not able to cry or give a reaction. Since I was afraid to be seen as the one who is guilty. The reason that the guys wanted to touch me might be that I wore a trouser or a t-shirt which is a bit shorter as it had to be. What did I do again which was not ok? Anyway, the only support which I had at that time, was the dance. The moments I was allowed to be myself and dance till I woke up in the morning. The dance helped go on staying by myself, not to loose the trust in me. It was continuously working for me to heal the wounds which were continuously produced. So I can clearly say now, that the admiration which I have for dance, bases on the very important support it gave me over years during my youth. Dance, as my best friend, was the therapist in work for me over years. And this I arrived to recognize while I was participating the dance therapy education. I had found out that my admiration to dance bases on a therapeutic character with which it supported me for a long time.}

^{■ The Very Beginning}

^{The first thing which I can remember related to dance is that I was battling my parents for getting the permission to participate a dance class with the age of seven. At that time we were living in Germany because of the profession of my father. They had reasons which were speaking against my wish. I was giving promises against every justification they were bringing which was against. I wanted so much even I didn’t know what was waiting there for me in these classes. So I began to take dance lessons. Jazz Dance. Once a week. Every Monday. It was my day. I prepared almost every second week a solo choreography for these classes. I searched for music on TV and used my father’s cassette player to record pieces. The whole week long I heard many times the pieces, took the decision for which piece I want to make a choreography, and lived maybe every moment of the week for developing my solo performance. At home, at school, with friends or alone. Always. It was the background music of my live. This period last couple years till we moved back to Turkey. I am grateful to my parents for that they let me convince them.}

^{Everything between this first remembrance about dance and my dissertation project which has the movement in its centre, are experiences, projects which constitutes my double-going vita. A long time it was almost impossible for my 'nice girl' being to take a decision and evolving being a dancer to my main vita. But then, when I arrived in my life the state that I had the necessarily craft to take a decision for being a professional dancer, I knew that this way was not mine. It was clear to me that I need to have more dance in my life, much more, and it would be better if every work related with dance don’t cost me so much uncreative energy to realize. It is and was my wish for the society I am living in, that our all day lives is saturated with many times more dance. The latest recognition I arrived in relation to dance is, that the main thing in dance which attracts me are the qualities dance can bring up in evolve in other disciplines. I believe that there is a lot of steps to work for.}

^{■ Dancing Architects}

^{The belief in dance that it should accompany us in our lives, much more necessarily in the age of images, brought me to work on a project which searches the dance as a supporter for evaluating and differentiating the spatial perception. I guess that if I had made my studies in Physics I would made a research about how dance could support a certain theme in physics. If I would made my studies in medicine I would look to bridge these two disciplines. As I made my academic studies in the field of Architecture it was easy for me to see the weak points of the art of spatial production which can be supported by dance. I was able to see very clearly during my studies in architectural academic level that the contact between dance and architecture may support qualitatively the contemporary architectural worldview. As I experienced during my architectural education in three different universities, three different countries, that every faculty has it assets and drawbacks, but what common is, is that they all have a deficiency in the Leib centred space production. I believe that bridging Dance-Performance Studies with Architecture has the potential to build a support in this point of deficiency. Just in this point grew up my motivation for my artistic dissertation research project.}

^{With my diploma project, which I realised 2004 in the interdisciplinary field of Architecture and Dance at University of Stuttgart/ Faculty of Architecture, I aimed working on what I thought that is essential for spatial producing qualities: The consciousness for the central position of the Movement of the Leib in Space Production. So I began to work with four dancers on the concept of Space. The Leib of the dancers and their movement was my medium for studying the concept of space. Experiencing the Leib in Movement we searched for making the spatial perceptions visible. As an end product the performance 'Gedichte eines Körpers im Raum – Poetry of the Body in Space' formed out. During this one year I began to coin together movement, dancing and choreographing exercises which have the potential to support spatial perception and spatial thinking, and let the dancer experience the space through movement of their Bodies. The target was to reach a Leib with a differentiated spatial knowledge. A spatial thinking Leib.}

^{The attained richness of different modern and post modern dance choreographing and performing methods do, as I believe, have the qualities to give such a support. The question for me now is to bring together the right exercises in the right order or right combinations which can support this aim. In this point I knew that I have to activate myself in a practical field which is dealing with dance, using dance as a tool.}

^{■ Schubladieren}

^{I asked myself at the beginning but also during the education period many times, why I had chosen Dance Therapy and not Dance Pedagogy which might be closer to Adult Education because of the concept of ‘educating’. It was very clear for me, that the concept of ‘pedagogy’ would put my interest very quick into a drawer where I wouldn’t want to land. But dance therapy was also not the exact field where I could place my interest. And probably not where I could find the exact support which I need for my research. I was looking for the dance which supports people in their development, in their socialisation, in their thinking, producing and being creative. Was there a field which is already established, just in that manner I am looking for? I don’t think so, at least I didn't find it. And I also believe that it doesn't really have to. Since dividing and naming disciplines may be in one manner an effective way of dealing with recourses but on the other hand, I believe that it is the way how to build up drawers. Having too many drawers may cause thick walls in between. “Schubladen – Schubladieren” That the different fields which deal with dance are not such specialized and differentiated has an advantage: it is that the fields are not divided into many parts, which could be cut and separated from each other. It is a phenomenon that the divisions may foster specialisation but also cause separation, which builds up thick borders in-between disciplines. Borders which may very easily become the quality of rigidity, cause isolations and so cutting up the possibilities nourishing disciplines in interdisciplinary contact. For me even the difficulties of my interdisciplinary research interest is an example for the walls, which get easily thicker as needed, and cause unnecessarily separation which may even harm a society. I might have not found the just discipline which I need for my Research Interest, but I believe that I profited very much from the flexible borders of the different disciplines which deal with dance. This situation allowed me somehow to develop my ideas in an integral or even holistic dance landscape. This allowed me asking questions which may seem to be far away from each other, but after couple steps which caused me to recognize how they bring up new concepts and insights. Since even the relations might have long distances, it doesn't mean that they have qualities to support each other.}

^{■ 'Therapy' is not just Therapy}

^{The other thing is that I arrived to understand 'therapy' not just as 'therapy' in its conventional definition. And the 'therapy' in its qualities of supporting a self-evolution, self-awareness, self-reflection is just what I was interested in. Therapy, integrated as part of our all day lives, which can be seen as a prophylactic attitude before appearing of the psychological problems, and the physiological problems based on the non-satisfied psychologic necessities. At this point I had to think about the anecdote about the tea-men of the in ancient China. The tea-man, whose job was to keep the people in a healthy condition, had to be paid who were healthy. As soon as one was sick he didn't need to pay for his tea. The thought is that it was his responsibility to keep the people of his society in a good health and as soon as one of them was sick, it was his responsibility to help him gain health again. I would love to see our responsibility, who know the contemporary character of dance, who are dealing with dance, our responsibility for our societies in a similar manner. We should feel to have the responsibility for the people of our society. With my personal history and point of view in relation to dance I tend to think that as soon as we do feel this responsibility we can begin to think about how to integrate dance more and more in our lives. As something special but also as concepts supporting our all-day-lives, our relations in different qualities.}

^{My interest is about an integrative practical field which is dealing with dance, and which is using dance as a tool. Instead of that dancer are being used by a discipline which is called 'dance'. Further more, I believe that 'dance' which uses the 'dancer' is used very often by different interests like advertising, event-making, showing up, career-making, image-making ...etc. So I cherished my choice to have began with dance therapy, as one of the fields dealing with dance which is for the person who is dancing. It is clear that this opposition is not to be considered as black or white. But being aware of this opposition made me understand why I didn't build up my life as a dancer after I arrived the craft for being able to do that. I didn't want to be used by different interests of our society. I wanted dance to be the medium to show me ways to get into relations. Relations which can be of one with himself, with an other person , with other people, but also with the world around, with the objects and with the spaces we are living in. A medium which offers possibilities to touch the life. Which opens poetic ways for embodying myself into the life. For me is dance the most poetic way to move into a relation. Which I consider as very effective. Effective, not in a pragmatic way which uses something for an other aim, but for letting a person arrive to get the most he can do for himself, for his relations. The relation of one to himself can be differentiated to his thoughts, to his feelings, to emotions, to his body, but also to all of them in variations. Also the relation of one person to other people has a bride spectrum. It can be seen just as a bodily communication, but also a spiritually, intellectually, communicative coming together, interacting but also searching. My dissertation research project is about the searching, reflecting possibilities one can have in relation to himself, to the others, to objects, spheres and spaces around. My interest for a specialisation is just in that point, where a 'healthy' person can get support for himself with being anchored through the movement of his body to the life.}

^{■ What do I have in my Bag}

^{Coming to the end of my paper, I would like to give couple examples with which ideas in my bag I go from this education:}

^{During the first workshop, as we were working with the 'earthing - grounding' of the body I encountered one of the important themes. Earthing - grounding the body has the quality to bring one more easily to 'now' and 'here', which is a very important quality I was looking for as a part of my research. This certain quality I got aware of by the help of dance therapy had given me the help to work with he following methods of making choreographies: imagination, association and phantasy. The concept of the 'grounding' the body, which dance therapy is working with intensively, made me aware of the importance of possessing oppositions in creative processes. So I began to give more and more attention to the grounding as the counter-point for imagination, association and working with phantasies. The consciousness for being equipped to bring the dancer to 'here' and 'now' while asking them to go intellectually, spiritually far away gave me the security to have build up a secure environment for the dancer.}

^{Secure space. Secure environment. Feeling secure. Feeling secure and developing Trust is the second point I got support from dance therapy. How important the feeling of Trust is for being able to get into a relation. Or how much it defines the quality of the relation. How to develop a space of trust? How to know to develop trust to the own person, to the own decisions, ideas, wishes? How to develop trust between the people who are sharing the same space, same target, same motivations? In this point Dance Therapy gave me enough possibilities to facilitate building up the feeling of trust by the dancer, since this is one of the main themes dance therapist should work with.}

^{The other important thing I know that I will profit is the awareness of the self organising qualities when people come together to dance. This was a concept I was not really aware of, and I didn't really work with, since I had never worked with more than four dancers in a group. But I recognized soon in the group we were working with during Dance Therapy Education, that there is something very special how people organize themselves in a very organic way. How the participants contact each other and separating. How they use time and space for building up relations in different qualities. Actually I am not far with the ideas in this theme, but I mean that the seed has been given to me by the education I got during this two years.}