Creative Bodies in Therapy, Performance and Community: Research and Practice that Brings us Home

221 Pages·2022·7.384 MB·English

by  Caroline Frizell, Marina Rova

Creative Bodies in Therapy,
Performance and Community
Creative Bodies in Therapy, Performance and Community champions several di-
verse and innovative approaches in the professional engagement with the
creative body as a catalyst for change in therapy, education, somatics and
performance.
With contributors from the wide-ranging fields of performance and visual
arts, psychotherapy, dance and somatics, this book articulates practice-based
experiences in a creative language. The readers are invited to move from the
process of reading, into the experience of being in and making sense of the
world through a moving body. The book meanders purposefully through
practice-led embodied approaches in research that generate new knowledge,
methodological frameworks that have emerged in response to the needs of
different contexts, as well as offering a window on first-hand experience as
practice.
The book will appeal to a wide range of practitioners and trainees in Dance
Movement Psychotherapy, arts therapies, counselling and psychotherapy, so-
matics, community practice and performance.
Caroline Frizell, PhD, is senior lecturer and researcher at Goldsmiths,
University of London, as well as therapist and supervisor working indoors
and out. She is committed to posthuman, eco-feminist perspectives, working
at the intersections of Dance Movement Psychotherapy, ecopsychotherapy
and critical disability studies.
Marina Rova, PhD, is programme convenor, lecturer and researcher at
Goldsmiths, University of London and co-founder of Arts Minded CIC. Her
work is nourished by embodied and relational approaches to knowing and
being-in-the-world and led by a curiosity about the developmental, existen-
tial and socio-political contexts that shape our narratives.

Creative Bodies in
Therapy, Performance
and Community
Research and Practice that Brings Us Home
Edited by
Caroline Frizell and Marina Rova
Cover image: Yannis Kapsaskis
First published 2023
by Routledge
4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
605 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10158
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2023 selection and editorial matter, Caroline Frizell and
Marina Rova; individual chapters, the contributors
The right of Caroline Frizell and Marina Rova to be identified as
the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their
individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections
77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or
reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical,
or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including
photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or
retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks
or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and
explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Frizell, Caroline, editor. | Rova, Marina, editor.
Title: Creative bodies in therapy, performance and community:
research and practice that brings us home / edited by Caroline
Frizell and Marina Rova.
Description: Abingdon; New York, NY: Routledge, 2023. |
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2022028200 (print) | LCCN 2022028201 (ebook) |
ISBN 9781032119809 (paperback) | ISBN 9781032119816 (hardcover) |
ISBN 9781003222484 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Creative ability—Research.
Classification: LCC BF408 .C6924 2023 (print) |
LCC BF408 (ebook) | DDC 153.3/5—dc23/eng/20221017
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022028200
LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022028201
ISBN: 9781032119816 (hbk)
ISBN: 9781032119809 (pbk)
ISBN: 9781003222484 (ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/9781003222484
Typeset in Bembo
by codeMantra
Contents
List of figures vii
Acknowledgements viii
List of contributors ix
Foreword xii
Dr. Jill Westwood
1 Arriving, becoming and arriving again 1
CAROLINE FRIZELL AND MARINA ROVA
2 Check-in, please! Exploring movement check-ins as a
tool for embodied psychotherapeutic practice 12
HEIDRUN PANHOFER
3 Arts-based research and self-reflexive autobiographical
performance 24
DITTY DOKTER
4 Kinaesthetic entanglements and creative immersion in
embodied performance 36
MARINA ROVA
5 The cat, the foal and other meetings that make a
difference: Posthuman research that re-animates our
responsiveness to knowing and becoming 50
CAROLINE FRIZELL
6 Offerings tells the stories of our lives in movement 62
SARAH BLACK-FRIZELL AND ANGELA PIERRE LOUIS
7 Lives transformed through dance: The art of dance as
a catalyst for personal transformation 76
ELLEN STEINMÜLLER
vi Contents
8 Breath, belly and back. Dropping into body as ground 87
PAUL BEAUMONT
9 ‘Is that yoga or are you just making it up?’ 101
HELEN POYNOR
10 Being seen and seeing self: Explorations in the creative
process in performance and therapy 109
CLAIRE BURRELL
11 Finding my way home: An embodied journey to
building an inclusive dance community 122
JULIET DIENER
12 Dancing in the kitchen: Using creativity and
embodiment to promote a decolonising approach to
psychotherapy 131
ARCHANA BALLAL
13 Sing your way home: Designing a creative group
intervention in the women’s prison as a Dance
Movement Therapist in Singapore 143
AGNES LAW
14 Borderlands: Exploring creativity as a practice of
liminality in the arts therapies 152
MARINA ROVA AND MARRIANNE BEHM
15 Indominus Rex; developing mentalisation with
offenders through externalisation and creativity in a
Dance Movement Psychotherapy group 162
DAWN BATCUP
16 Dancing with Stephen: Reconnecting with the body in
a search for closure 171
GORETTI BARJACOBA-SOUTO
17 The matriarch and the mollusc and all things in between 180
CAROLINE FRIZELL AND HELEN POYNOR
18 Happening upon a cobweb 191
CAROLINE FRIZELL AND MARINA ROVA
Index 199
Figures
i Seven Sisters. Jill Westwood, digital photograph (2018) xii
ii Hybrid Creature. Jill Westwood, Digital Photograph (2015) xiv
iii Dissolving into the Earth. Jill Westwood, digital
photograph (2020) xiv
iv Baby Pan. Jill Westwood, digital photograph (2020) xv
1.1 The Universe. Artwork by Yannis Kapsaskis, age four years 2
2.1 Embodying different themes through movement 19
3.1 Photograph of Ditty Dokter’s performance 27
3.2 Photograph of Ditty Dokter’s performance 29
6.1 Composite image of home. Photograph by the authors 63
6.2 Composite image of home. Photograph by the authors 63
6.3 Composite image of home. Photograph by the authors 63
6.4 Isabel jumping over Sarah. Photograph by the authors 66
6.5 Sarah hanging from door frame. Photograph by the authors 69
10.1 ‘Going’. Photograph by Nicola Field 113
10.2 ‘Lost without you’. Photograph by Claire Burrell 117
18.1 Breaking the house because it is so windy 197
Acknowledgements
We acknowledge, with gratitude, the authors who have contributed to this
book. We have been inspired by each and everyone of you, as representatives
of a professional field of dance and somatic practitioners, and we thank you
for your commitment and unique contribution in this project. We also ac-
knowledge the people whose stories inform the writing of these chapters as
well as the animals, places and spaces that have influenced the authors. With
thanks also to the technology that has allowed this process to come into being
and the materiality of the more-than-human world that has enabled us, as
editors, to complete this task. We would like to thank Dr Jill Westwood spe-
cifically for providing a creative Foreword for this anthology, the many other
colleagues at Goldsmiths, University of London who have inspired each of
us in different ways and Yannis Kapsaskis for allowing us to use his artwork.
We both acknowledge those who we love and who love us (human and
more than human): without their support this anthology would not have
been possible.
Contributors
Archana Ballal
Archana is a UK-based Dance Movement Psychotherapist who has worked

with survivors of sexual violence, in the prison sector and youth offending,
with Looked After Children/Care Leavers; and in higher education with
students in professional dance training. Archana has a background of pro-
fessional dance performance, choreography and teaching.
Goretti Barjacoba-Souto
Goretti Barjacoba-Souto is a UK registered Dance Movement Psychotherapist

(DMP) working with children and young adults with profound and multiple
learning disabilities, autism and learning difficulties. She has also experience
working with older adults, in main-stream schools and adult mental health,
including some research studies for the National Health Service.
Dawn Batcup
Dawn Batcup is a Goldsmiths University Lecturer, Medium Secure Unit

P sychotherapist and clinical supervisor part time. Coming from General and
Psychiatric Nurse trainings with a Human sciences degree, she has worked in
the NHS for almost 40 years, qualifying also as a DMP, Mentalization-Based
Therapy (MBT), Group Work and Systemic Practitioner.
Paul Beaumont
Paul is a Registered Somatic Movement Therapist (ISMETA), supervisor and

teacher with 20 years’ experience working with the body and movement.
He is on the faculty of the Institute of Integrative Bodywork & Movement
Therapy and works with people of all ages in private practice and with
adopted children and families.
Marrianne Behm
Marrianne Behm is an Arts Psychotherapist with over 20 years’ experience

in NHS clinical settings and also has a private practice in London for su-
pervision and personal therapy. She is a lecturer on the IATE Integrative