Tag: dance therapy

Marian Chace: America’s first professional dance therapist

“The body never lies,” Martha Graham famously said. With these four words and her stage work, Graham brilliantly countered the fixed belief that the body and mind are separate entities. Inspired by this revolutionary view, Marian Chace (1896–1970), who briefly studied with Graham, began exploring the mind-body interrelationship on a very different stage—the wards of […]

This Dance Teacher Is on a Mission to Bring More Dance to Hospitals—Even in a Pandemic

As COVID-19 persists, dance teachers everywhere are adapting their classes for online platforms. One such teacher, Birmingham, Alabama-based Melissa Turnage, is finding it especially vital. “I have been banned from the hospital for the last six weeks,” she says. “If there is a need, you just have to figure it out.” Turnage is a dance […]

Movement as Medicine

Three graduate dance-therapy programs One of dance movement therapist Ande Welling’s most memorable patients was a man with severe brain damage who had stopped speaking. Through movement exercises, she was able to help him reengage with those around him. “I held his hand and we moved together, created squeeze dances with our hands and sometimes […]