Movement with Elders
Documenting my Creative Movement Workshop at the Park Slope Center for Successful Aging
Creative Aging workshop participants collaborate on creating a dance
Last year I received a grant to create a film with Rebecca Oviatt from Beccavision about my work teaching creative movement for elders. This year we came back again with some of the same folks and some new ones too and we delved a little deeper.
Our workshop is focused on empowering ourselves by finding greater ease and freedom in both our movement life and our brains. In order to get there, we mix modalities of creative movement, fitness, choreography and the magical frame of EFT or Tapping. We use Tapping, an effective energy medicine technique, to reaffirm our positive thinking, aligning our energies as a community, and encouraging self- confidence. Each of these disciplines challenges the brain in a different way, which enhances the joy and positivity of the learning experience.
Class participants were visibly more open and free in their movements from the class. Folks, particularly those who took the workshop the second time around, participated with more confidence, creativity, and willingness to experiment with movement.
When you move in an enjoyable way, your body releases stress and you gain a sense of freedom.
As we feel more empowered to move, we build a supportive community in the room. We’re all encouraged to share, take risks and to be willing to try new things. No one is judging. We watch, dance, collaborate and find joy in our shared experience.
We cannot ignore the astounding health benefits and the youthful attributes that exercise and dance brings. This is well documented. But there’s more..movement has an innate therapeutic effect on the body. When we move in an enjoyable way, our body releases stress and we gain a sense of freedom in our movement. This sense of freedom is a powerful act for the body. That’s why, teaching dance to elders is an act of empowerment for the person dancing, guiding and for everyone in the room who witnesses it.
Partners hold hands in the dance they’re creating. Connecting/collaborating with others is a key benefit of creative movement.
This year we focused a little more on spatial awareness, so we walked around our dance space and experienced what our bodies felt like in the room. As we get older, our bodies tend to contract, we round our shoulders forward and view a smaller field of vision around us. When we open our bodies to the space, see around us, breathe deeply, lengthen our spine, and look each other in the eye, we begin to change how we feel, and how we connect more openly and less fearfully to those around us and to the world.
Sometimes we look at art and read poems and make dances from what we see and the words we read. How can we translate that image or those words into movement? In small groups, they figure it out and create a collaborative study. We learn from watching and working with each other. It takes time and courage.
This group is open and ready to move which is great. But of course we know it can be intimidating to participate. Honestly, asking ANYONE including some dancers to move any way they want to can be challenging and frightening particularly in front of others. Yet also very freeing-- and creative. When everyone moves together, we bring joy in the room, and we all benefit from it.
Each class ends with gratitude and a thank you circle. Our class is taught with love and they respond. When we feel safe and loved by others, we grow. And hey… we can all use some of that.
Excited to see the film? Fill out the contact form on this site, and you’ll be notified when it comes out!
#creativeaging #creativemovement #tapping #eldersmove #joyinmovement
