Dance and Movement Therapy
Meet Sarah Vella
Sarah Vella is a dancer/choreographer and therapist from Malta based between Berlin and Malta. Sarah has completed her BSc. (Hons.) in Speech and Language Therapy from the University of Malta, her Diploma in Dance Studies at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Dance and her Dance/movement therapy education at Tanztherapie Zentrum Berlin. She also obtained her Heilpraktiker für Psychotherapie in 2019. Sarah’s artistic practice spans from creating her own work, performing for others to collaborative creations. To date, she’s been involved in several dance projects for stage, film, opera, fashion and site-specific works as a dancer and choreographer.
photo credit: Josef Degabriele.
A little bit about myself
Dance has been a big part of my life since I was a child. I started dancing at the age of 3 and haven’t stopped since. Apart from bringing joy, dance has always helped me to overcome certain obstacles in my own life. Therefore, I always believed in the power of dance, most importantly, in the healing power of dance.
After finishing my Communication Therapy degree from the University of Malta, I knew it was then time to pursue my dancing career. I moved to London and studied at Laban Conservatoire of Dance.
After that, dance brought me to Berlin, where I worked and still work on various dance projects. I am very grateful and thankful to have been doing this for a few years now in Germany and abroad. However, I felt that something was missing and I still wanted to spread the joy of dance with others in a different way – a way that connects to them more directly.
That led me to enrol in a dance/movement therapy course, which I completed in 2018. As a speech and language pathologist, I have ample experience working with individuals with ASD and I wanted to take my work with them a step further. Therefore, for my final thesis, I researched the effects of dance/ movement therapy with children with ASD and since then, I carry out groups and one-to-one therapy sessions with this target group in Berlin and Malta. Apart from that, I also offer therapy to parents and caregivers of children with ASD. I also work with individuals of all ages and other diagnoses.
The dance/movement therapy studies were a great way of joining my therapeutic background as a speech therapist and my dance training and experience together. These studies have also opened up new opportunities for me and brought me to work in mental health clinics, rehabilitation centres, private practices, special schools and with various community groups of different ages.
I currently continue to work as a dancer, dance/movement therapist and speech therapist in Berlin and abroad.
What is dance/movement therapy?
Dance/movement therapy (DMT) is the psychotherapeutic use of movement and dance to support the intellectual, emotional, and motor functions of the body. As a form of expressive therapy, DMT looks at the correlation between movement and emotion. It offers individuals of all ages and abilities a space to explore what drives them, assisting people to develop self-awareness, sensitivity to others and also to find a pathway to feeling more comfortable in their own bodies.
A therapist will use movement as an outlet for the mind and body expression and this sets it apart from traditional oral therapies.
DMT helps a client achieve emotional, cognitive, physical and social integration. Some benefits include stress reduction and mood management. It could also help improve body image and self-esteem. Founded within the idea that motion and emotion are interconnected, this creative expression can also help improve communication skills for better relationships.
DMT can be adapted to a variety of settings and is a tool beneficial to anybody and everybody. Research has found that using dance movements as a form of therapy activates several brain functions at once: kinaesthetic, rational, musical, and emotional making it one of the most beneficial therapeutic tools.
The sessions can be held one-to-one or in a group setting and they vary greatly depending on the dance/ movement therapist and the client as well as their wishes and needs.
How does it help children with developmental difficulties?
It is great to see how research is starting to show how an early intervention programme including expressive arts, is fundamentally productive for children with autism and other special needs and the outcome can (and does) drastically benefit the child’s needs.
In addition to simple, enjoyable exercise and social interaction, movement helps to develop essential skills and positively affects presented challenges:
Some of these positively affected challenges include:
Social and life skills
Self-esteem, self-awareness and self-determination
Body awareness
Ability to communicate their needs and desires
Speech, language and communication
Gross and fine motors skills/planning
Proprioception, balance and spatial orientation
Sensory processing and integration
Physical health and wellness
Anxiety and depression
The shared experiences during DMT sessions lead to the client/child and therapist to engage in movements that interact and regulate each other, meaning the therapist gains a level of control over the client via movement, and vice versa. This nonverbal interaction is based on their trusting relationship and can change behaviours and lead to further self-expression and awareness for the individual.
Sessions for children have been described (though not necessarily) as using props, music, spoken words, or singing. Also here, a session can be with a group or an individual. It can be very structured and predictable in activity, or completely free form, following the wishes and the needs of the child.
An example
Without the ability to empathise and understand other peoples’ emotions, feelings, needs and ideas, children will become isolated adults. For children with severe autism, the focus on self often appears to completely exclude other peoples’ feelings and needs, so we must find a way to help them to connect with others. I would like to share an example of how social interaction can be improved through the use of dance/movement therapy. This involves a non-verbal child, 7 years old, on the spectrum. To protect this child’s identity, his initial S. will be used.
At the initial stage of the sessions, S. found it hard to engage and he isolated himself from the group for the first three sessions. This was understandable since he was not used to group settings and to be included in social groups with children around his age. He has a younger brother, but he was only a few months old at the time and although S. was attending a mainstream school, he still stayed at home for two days during the week. He was busy with the environment, the interior of the room and the space and he took very little notice of the people around him.
Since S. showed deficits in imitation, he needed to be empowered, imitated and accompanied in his behaviour before he could begin imitating himself. It is only from such a positive relationship that the motivation for imitation could grow. Imitation is the foundation for much of social development and communication and the method of establishing contact via the imitation of actions can be described by the term mirroring, also called empathic reflection. Here, as the therapist, I was literally reflecting or recreating S.’s body shapes, movements, vocalizations, and rhythms. This does not necessarily always mean the exact imitation, but a resonance as an expression of deep emotional acceptance and communication.
Through repetition of a variety of mirroring exercises, S. built up the motivation in himself to join.
Mirroring was intended to help S. understand where he was physically and emotionally by being able to visualize his own body. By meeting him at his own level of functioning and attuning to him, a relationship was established and the space for change and endless possibilities opened up. With a developing awareness of the self, came an increased awareness of others. It was great to see how his social skills grew and helped him move from an isolated, anxious individual to a motivated, friendly child, open to new environments and situations.
Where can people find this in Malta?
It is great that, nowadays, there are many organisations doing a wonderful job including dance and the arts to help individuals with special needs lead a healthier, more positive life.
Having said that, I feel it is important to make people aware and to differentiate between a creative dance session/dance class and dance as a means of therapy (as mentioned above). The goals and techniques used are very different and dance/movement therapy can only be carried out by a qualified dance/movement therapist.
Unfortunately, it is difficult to find this service in Malta. The number of qualified dance/movement therapists here is very limited, even more so, dance/movement therapists that work with individuals with autism.
I am hoping and also working towards making this type of therapy more accessible to this client group. I come down to Malta as often as I can and when I do, I offer dance/ movement therapy sessions at TAASC Remedies clinic in Birkirkara. The hope is to make this service of dance/movement therapy accessible in other settings and to a wider range of individuals, of all ages and needs, across the island.
Website: www.sarah-vella.com
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