"Skimming The Surface", Expressive Movement workshops led by Dance Entropy’s Artistic Director Valerie Green, have continued to thrive during Covid lock down and ongoing as this interactive program was instantly made virtual in March. The program has been offered for free to participants, and made possible by generous support of NYC Dept. of Cultural Affairs and The New York Community Trust- NYC COVID-19 Response and Impact Fund. This virtual workshop created a safe container to tune into one’s emotions while releasing and processing feelings through movement, in a supported space of community.
We recently asked one of our ongoing virtual participants, Misa Kelly, to expound upon her experience with this workshop:
Misa’s Hawaiian ancestral in flow name is Dylan Iolani Wahinialoha Pu'u, which inspired her art created from the workshop.
‘ In my journey of tending a trauma-related medical condition, I’ve worked with a lot of different healers and tried a lot of different modalities, and I have observed things come to us when we are ready. Given that I’ve known Valerie on a professional level, as a dance maker, and organizer, somehow, I never would I have guessed that Valerie would enter my life as a healing facilitator at such a pivotal time in my life. My professional work as a multi-modal maker, and my healing work was entirely separate in terms of human relationship, and although Valerie and I had discussed respective healing journeys, it was a delightful surprise to discover our relationship was shifting, with me discovering myself in the care of her healer process.
Valerie’s framework, of tending a “global trauma”, through this work is some of the most important type of work occurring at this time, and of course, a creative visionary such as Valerie would have the heart and intention to tend this wound with the depth and breadth of integrity that she does.
The times we are living in, in my view, challenge stability on a personal, communal, and global level. Entering into Valerie’s process through her Therapeutic Expressive Movement workshops have been a golden elixir in the continuum of not only growing in these challenging times but also, the nuts and bolts of maintaining stability when one continues to cope with a health condition (PTSD.) Valerie’s zoom workshops have been for me an anchor firmly attached to the collective unconscious ocean floor that has served to stabilize my body as a boat within these turbulent waters.
In these Zoom sessions, one is met with clear objectives, boundaries, and the creation of the critical ingredient for healing—safety. What I have observed, is that each workshop has helped me to shift something within and to process on both a personal level and a community level: COVID19, #blacklivesmatter, political insanity, economic turbulence, and my own PTSD triggers, such as depression that comes each year with my birthday.
What I especially appreciate about these workshops is the depth and breadth of knowledge by Valerie offered to the community. Not only her decades of experience as a teacher, but her personal lived experience, and her own healing journey with an awareness of the impact of trauma on one’s life, and the tools and resources that can promote balance and well-being. Her investment in educating herself beyond dance alone into training in a tandem healing modality, bring this to the space, with her generosity of heart, her curiosity, her zeal for excellence, her genuine care, it is a no brainer that something miraculous and wonderful is there for the participant willing to enter into the workshop flow.
Each workshop is different, with a few tools that might be revisited, but it is as if somehow, as the healer that she is, she senses within the community’s collective sub-text, what it is that we need to process and be a part of this exciting opportunity to manifest something beautiful from the throes of chaos and change.
I love the multi-modal aspect of the offering, how we not only move and use our bodies in a way accessible to dancers and non-dancers alike, but the opportunity to share in form of our personal stories and reflections about our experiences, journaling, and in our last session, incorporating expression through drawing in a workshop where we danced our self-portrait.
Following is a poem that emerged from one of our writing reflections:
“I swim in the swift rivers of my blood, the viscera swirl in turquoise light with tinges of rose madder and burnt umber bringing to the surface the froth that seeks to be scooped up and tended.
Come hold my hand little one and nestle in my heart for but a moment and let the body feel the wonderful expanse of play from horizon to horizon. Together our eyes ride in the tail of the comet as the golden honu comes to us. We ride on its back to paradise and back, in the swirl of the goodness of moving.
I invite you to ride in this story and to rest, and dream, and sleep.
Find safety and deeper release in your dreams.
You’ve worked so hard.
Now it is time for joy.
Be in your radiance.
Be in your core.
You are of value.”
“The Golden Honu (turtle)” -Misa Kelly