Dance/movement and music in improvisational concert: A model for psychotherapy

Improvised dance and live music played by the participants themselves define a dance/movement and music (DMM) model in which interactive, variable geometries of sound and movement open up a novel theatre for emergent imagination and drive the interplay of intra-psychic and interpersonal domains. The model is conceived as a mixture of therapeutic and artistic exploration leading to performances prepared mainly by the participants. It incorporates poetry. One outcome of the model's optional modalities is the “holding” of the dancer by the music; another is the musical instrument as a transitional object. The expanded therapeutic environment derives strength from the non-verbal movement-and-music coupling, which may favour access to pre-verbal and unconscious psychic provenances, and from the potent triadic formation of therapist, dancers and musicians. It contributes to participants’ freeing themselves from their isolation and, more generally, offers a new prospect to the expression of unresolved trauma and distress.