Body Mind Conference for Therapists

The Association for the Healing Power of the Imagination Conference:

Imagining with the Body

At The Stone Ridge Center for the Healing Arts in Stone Ridge, NY April 5th, 2014

Keynote Address – “How the Body Speaks : Conversations Through the Dancing Body” - Suzi Tortora

All body actions have the potential to be communications for the body tells stories that speak of our experiences. It is a map of our life history that begins at our beginning. Dancing is a way of speaking without words. All actions can be dance expressions when they are shared, felt and attuned to, creating a dancing dialogue between self and others. This lecture will focus on developing your understanding of the communicative power of the dancing body as a form of personal expression and therapeutic healing.

Bio: Suzi Tortora Ed.D., BC-DMT, CMA, LCAT, LMHC has a dance/movement psychotherapy practice, in NYC and Cold Spring, New York. She developed and is manager of the Integrative Medicine Services pediatric dance/movement therapy program at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. She received the 2010 Marian Chace Distinguished Dance Therapist award from the National Dance Therapy

Association and is on the faculty of the graduate-level dance therapy programs at the 92nd Street Y; Pratt Institute; and The New School. Dr. Tortora has published numerous papers about her therapeutic and nonverbal communication analysis work with children, parent-infant dyads, and Autism Spectrum Disorders and has published a book, The Dancing Dialogue: Using the communicative power of movement with young children. Dr Tortora is featured in Malcolm Gladwell’s recent book, What the Dog Saw and in the

National Geographic Show “Duck Quacks Don’t Echo” as the expert in Episode 10 “How Certain Songs are More Likely to Make Babies Dance”. Dr Tortora trains and lectures about her work with infants and families, at national and international meetings and universities.

“Transformation Through Movement: Our amazing brain” -Zahava Wilson

We are, as the saying goes, creatures of habit. But how do those habits limit us, and how can we change them? What happens when we change the fundamental way we operate in the world? By changing the way our brains organize us, we can make significant, often unexpected and powerful changes in all aspects of our being. The Feldenkrais and Anat Baniel Methods use movement as a way to “teach” our brains new ways of operating by creating new pathways. In this workshop Zahava will discuss a number of case studies that exemplify these aspects of “neuroplasticity”, focusing mostly on children. There will also be an opportunity to experience this process through our own body.

Bio: Zahava Wilson is a licensed physical therapist specializing in somatic therapies, who has practiced in Ulster County for over 20 years. Her clients include children of all ages with developmental and neurological disabilities, people with chronic pain, musicians, dancers, athletes, and anyone who wants to perform better in their lives. Zahava received a Bachelor’s Degree from Hampshire College with a self-designed major in movement studies, where she also won a Threshold Grant for her work examining therapies used for Cerebral Palsy, and received a Master’s of Science Degree in physical therapy from Columbia University. She is a Certified Feldenkrais Practitioner and is also certified in the Anat Baniel Method for Children. She brings a diverse background to her work, including the study of Body-Mind

Centering, Laban Movement Analysis, Idiokinesis, different forms of dance, and she is a second degree black belt in Aikido. Zahava will begin a doctorate program this fall to further explore the relationship between neuroplasticity and movement.

“A Sense of Wonder in the Body -Alexander Technique” - Elizabeth Castagna

Through the awareness of The Alexander Technique participants will pause, and shift from the thinking mind into the sensing body as they explore different questions about body language or energy or balance. Participants will play with movement, imagery, and body mapping to shed unwanted tension while encouraging the body's natural poise and unity.The Alexander Technique is a method by which you learn how to recognize and release restricting habits, or unnecessary tension from our body to create an effortless and natural balance.

Bio: Elizabeth Castagna dedicates her teaching to seeing and hearing her students clearly, supporting the unfolding of change in their body while respecting the pace of this movement. Elizabeth draws on her background as a visual artist and integrates into her teaching the use of imagery, free drawing and handmade objects. She provides a safe, creative environment for her students, inviting them to open their curiosity and re-learn movement through the activities of their daily life or profession. She teaches private and group classes as well as workshops. Her classes are interactive collaborations that provide a bridge to a more playful and whole connection of the body and mind. She works with a range of students including singers, actors, musicians, pre-natal and postpartum women, athletes, artists, teachers, and physical therapists. She recently expanded her teaching to include working with children—as co-founder of “move+play,” a series of classes for children using a unique blend of movement, stories and games that cultivate a playful mind and body.

3 Jewels Qigong - Rosie McLaughlin

3 Jewels Qigong is a form that comes out of the 7 Lotus Qigong school in Mexico City and is used to increase vitality and one's basic awareness of energy.

Bio: Rosie McLaughlin, LMHC, is a psychotherapist in Rosendale, New York where she works with children, families and individual adults. She has been a Qigong practitioner for 12 years and has been an instructor of Qigong for 8 years. She was certified by both the 7 Lotus Qigong school in Mexico City and the Ling Gui school in Portland, Oregon. She currently teaches Qigong at the Marbletown Elementary School.

“Koanic Dances – Improvisational Movement Forms for Self-renewal”

-Julie Lyon Rose, Dennis McCarthy and Steve Gorn

Julie and Dennis have been dancing together weekly for the past twenty years, (often to the music of Steve Gorn). They have developed a series of movement forms they call Koanic dances that evolved out of the work of Janet Adler and Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen as well as their own experiences as therapists and dancers and their own personal process. These forms have regenerative power, like a personal improvisational Qigong form, based as they are on using the body’s own innate impulse to move and speak via movement. They seem especially relevant for people in the helping professions, allowing us to step out of the role of giving and seeing, and encourage us to bring the emotional stress of our work into a creative process. We are very privileged to have Steve Gorn accompanying us (in person) on flute.

Bios: Julie Lyon Rose danced professionally with Kei Takei’s Moving Earth, among others, in collaboration with composer Pauline Oliveros, and in her own site specific choreography. She has taught all ages many forms of movement since 1973. She practices body centered psychotherapy, play therapy and homeopathic medicine in Accord, NY. She has a life long fascination with improvisation which infuses all of her work.

Dennis McCarthy LMHC trained initially as a dancer and dance therapist and worked with a wide range of childhood problems using pure movement. He went on to train in Bioenergetic Analysis and Jungian Analysis and these three modalities form the basis of the unique approach to play therapy that he developed and practices in Kingston, NY. He has written numerous articles and several books on this body-centered approach.

Steve Gorn has performed Indian classical music, jazz and new American music on the bansuri bamboo flute and soprano saxophone in concerts and festivals throughout the world. A disciple of the late bansuri master, Sri Gour Goswami of Calcutta, he has been praised by critics and leading Indian musicians as one of the few westerners recognized to have captured the subtlety and beauty of Indian music. He also has composed numerous works for theatre, dance and television and has recorded and performed with a wide range of artists including Paul Simon, Tony Levin, Jack DeJohnette, Glen Velez, Karl Berger, Alessandra Belloni, Layne Redmond, Simon Shaheen and Mick Karn.

This conference is sponsored by The Association for the Healing Power of the Imagination (formerly known as The East Coast Sandplay Association) and raises funds to produce its annual journal, The Healing Power of the Imagination Journal. Association dues are $35. The conference runs from 9:30 – 4:30. Cost for the day including lunch is $200. ($150. For association members). There will be a book booth manned by The Inquiring Mind Bookstore.

Please register early as space is limited. To register or for more info. please contact Nina Tantillo- Elton at tantilloelton@gmail.com. or Dennis McCarthy @ metamorfosinstitute@gmail.com