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Four Forms of healing through Dance

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Judith Lynne Hanna is a professor at the University of Maryland who focuses on anthropology, sociology and dance. She combines these topics to analyze how dance can help heal a person and help improve health. In a broader context, dance therapy is a recent form of movement that does not require any form of previous dance experience and focuses on “movement behavior as it emerges in the therapeutic relationship.” (ADTA) Judith Hanna focuses in on broader concept of dance therapy by concentrating on expressive behavior that relieves stress, disabling conditions, tension, and chronic fatigue.
According to Judith Hanna, “dance may promote wellness by strengthening the immune system through muscular action and physiological processes,” which shows that a person can benefit from dancing by allowing the body to do physical exercises which can allow the body to strengthen itself. In order to do this, there are multiple ways in which Judith Hanna focuses in on to show that dance can have a powerful impact on the body. She explains that there are four different ways in which a person can develop a since of control over their body by (1) possession dance, (2) mastery of movement, (3) escape or diversion from stress and pain through a change in emotion, states of consciousness/ physical capability and (4) confronting stressors to work through ways of handling their effects.
The possession of dance goes to emphasize the idea that gaining a sense of control through dance comes by being possessed by a deity or spirit that processed to speak or act using the possessed person’s body. Being possessed by a deity relates back to some cultures in foreign countries such as Africa, Brazil and the Caribbean, in which the people recognize a person’s poo...

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...therapy is such a new form of movement that has been discovered, Hanna presses that dance therapy should be further investigated to show that there are beneficial effects from dancing because dancing allows a person to have a positive outlook about their illness and stressors that have been affecting their life.

Works Cited

"About Dance/Movement Therapy." ADTA. N.p., n.d. Web. 28 Apr. 2014.
Berrol, Cynthia. "Dance/movement Therapy in Head Injury Rehabilitation." Brain Injury 4.3
(1990): 257-65. Abstract. The Power of Dance: Health and Healing 1.4 (1995): 323-31.
Print.
Halprin, Anna, et. al. Circle the Earth: Dancing with Life on the Line. , 1987. The Power of
Dance: Health and Healing 1.4 (1995): 323-31. Print.
Hanna, Judith Lynne. "The Power of Dance: Health and Healing." The Journal of Alternative and Complementary Medicine 1.4 (1995): 323-31. Print.
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