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Dance-Drama Therapy, Fairy Tales and the Child with Special Needs
IF YOU ARE INTERESTED IN THE EDUCATIONAL VALUE OF DANCE CLICK HERE To hear or read the words "Once upon a time..." in fairy tales tells us that in the end all will come right and every character will receive his or her just reward or punishment. We need fairy tales and story telling now more than ever because we are seeking reassurance that Justice, Peace, Beauty and Love will triumph against all the odds. For the first time ever we are aware of the enormous damage that our greedy, selfish, power seeking lives have caused. We have brought Mother Earth to her knees. Belatedly we are realizing that her sickness is our sickness and if she dies so do we. In some parts of the industrialized world huge numbers of people are consumed by fear but their fears are often subconscious. They seek relief in displacement activities of the most materialistic kind. This, of course, fails to bring relief. Others are well aware of why they are afraid but feel helpless to influence events. Politicians clearly do not have the answers. But if each of us takes responsibility for ourself and we alter our thinking and therefore our life then changes of great magnitude are brought about. "Goodwill" is an enormously creative and powerful force for change. Goodwill transcends cultures and religion. It is something every single human being can agree is essential to a harmonious and productive life. It may sound simplistic and like a fairy tale but it isn't. You may be wondering if there is any relevance to this long introduction to a page which is supposed to be about dance drama therapy, fairy tales and story telling as an element of dance and movement therapy.Working with fairy tales has the great advantage that they are likely to be familiar to the children and if parents have story telling talents they can create personalized stories. If you introduce a story telling element to the dance movement session you add a sense of drama. This can enable your special needs child to make a significant contribution to proceedings. He or she could do the story telling. This allows children with special needs to express their own interests, emotions and movement needs with greater freedom. Parents could use the fairy tale, story telling aspect in dance drama therapy sessions as an opportunity to work on problems or to encourage certain aspects of behaviour. Even educational themes like numbers or spelling coud be used as a topic. Creating a dance drama for children with special needs gives them the opportunity to make up their own fairy tales and do the story telling. Children with hearing or speech problems can sign their roles. However, theraputic dance drama does not always have to include dialogue. We could also use mime. We need to view mime as another means of using the arts to help children with emotional and learning difficulties. We have all heard of world famous mimes such as Charlie Chaplin, Harold Lloyd and Buster Keaton of silent movie fame and in more recent times of Marcel Marceau and his stage performances. Clearly the origins of mime like dance and drama would seem to be both spiritual and practical and to lie in our far distant past. Mime may very well pre-date speech. Basically there are two main forms of mime - the literal and abstract or a combination of the two.The first form is mainly used for comedy and story telling. Abstract mime is used to generate feeling, thoughts and images about a serious topic or issue. It is not usual in this form to have a plot or a central character. This type of performance calls for an intuitive response Why do I advocate incorporating mime into dance therapy sessions for children with special needs? There are two main reasons. Like dance, mime uses the whole body expressively which is a healthy thing for all of us. The other reason is that everyone, and especially children, need to learn to appreciate silence and the spiritual and emotional peace which this can bring. Our everyday world is full of competing sounds, some of which like music we want to associate with and others which we wish we could permanently escape. Large numbers of children with special needs are often very sensitive to sound. For such children working in complete silence without music can be a very powerful experience.Silence is golden! Mime gives children an additional opportunity to play, explore and invent. Children mime naturally when they play games such as shops, going to the dentist etc. etc. When young children do not have the necessary objects or cannot express themselves they mime. Mime can be a very valuable means of communication for some children with special needs. Children need to be encouraged in ways that help them to make their inner life visible without words. A session of mime fits very well into a dance and movement session. The question now arises what about steps and music? Its' important that the child relates to the music. If there are sufficient children perhaps they could form a percussion orchestra and make their own music. Help the children to find movements and steps that are expressive of the various aspects of the story and the music. This can be great fun and very stimulating. A child may have very limited movement but do encourage exploration and experimentation within his or her capabilities. I am presently working on a fairy tale dance-drama for Children with Special Needs.
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