The Return to Embodiment: consciousness, culture, creativity and flourishing

In this conversation, I am speaking with Selena Coburn BC-DMT, LMHC, LCPC, who is currently serving as the ADTA Standards and Ethics Chair. We discuss the challenges the ADTA is facing as an organization and how the change and growth often involve discomfort and negotiating difference. Selena is a mental health and dance/movement therapist in Great Falls, Montana and an adjunct professor at Lesley University. She is a descendent of Blackfeet, Klamath, Cree, and Pitt River tribes. She earned her BFA in Dance from SUNY Purchase College in Purchase, NY. Selena's dance/movement therapy training includes the 92nd Street Y in Manhattan, NY, and Lesley University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. As a registered dance/movement therapist, she believes in the importance of decolonizing dance as therapy, and culturally inclusive processing as the primary therapeutic principle. Selena has worked with adolescents in the residential treatment center setting and experienced the power of incorporating cultural healing elements in helping adolescents navigate social, emotional, physical, and relational developmental changes. Coburn has presented on Blackfeet cultural dances, Native American perspectives, and participated in panel discussions locally, regionally, and internationally. Selena founded the Native American Affinity Group as part of the Multicultural Diversity Committee of the ADTA and received the Leader of Tomorrow Award in 2020. She has previously served on the Texas Chapter board.

In this conversation, I am speaking with Lauren Elise Peterson, a dance therapist and body image coach who uses beginner friendly dance to help people feel confident in their own skin. She combats the messages that emphasize the need to change the body: to tighten, to diminish, to take up less space, to be more like the virtual avatars we are often bombarded by in our social media. Instead, she invites folks to inhabit the body with a focus on what feels interesting, pleasureful or curious. She offers gentle, easily modified movements that build a vocabulary for movement in the body that helps to build an appetite for movement as play, thereby transforming the possibilities found moving and relating. www.laurenelisepeterson.com. instagram: laurenelisepeterson

In this conversation, I am speaking with Lea, owner and executive director of Body Language Studio and Jeromeskee, co-director and creator of Body Rock Breaking, a championship breaking training program. We talk about the origins of their passion for dance, their past successes professsionally and how they currently channel their experience to prioritize joy, authenticity and leadership through dance education at Body Language Studio. These values also undergird their parenting and support them in cultivating community of excellence and celebration of all students, regardless of age, gender or body type.

If you are interested in learning more about their dance education programs, check out their website: https://www.blsdance.com/

The summer 2023 offerings at Body Language Studio are here: https://www.blsdance.com/_files/ugd/9bdc0e_b1e17bb3b93741a99dbabaef84b9e71e.pdf

In this conversation, I am speaking with Ebony Nichols.  Ebony is a somatic mental health and wellness practitioner, Board Certified Dance/Movement Psychotherapist, Licensed Creative Arts Therapist, licensed cosmetologist, and entrepreneur. She completed her Bachelor of Arts at The College of New Rochelle in psychology and a Masters degree in Clinical Mental Health Counseling with a specialization in Dance/Movement Therapy. She was awarded the presidential scholarship to attend Lesley University's Doctorate program in Counseling and Psychology: Transformative Leadership, Education and Applied Research, where she plans to continue her research and work rooted in cultural/race identity, trauma-informed healing care, centering Black Aesthetics of the African Diaspora through cultural movement narratives, non-verbal communication, and somatic-based healing practices.  Ebony has been the proprietor of Locks of Nu Natural Hair Spa since 2003. Utilizing their mission of "Healing the Community Follicle by Follicle"; her primary focus was to create a therapeutic environment within the African American community; this was her genesis for connecting artistic/cultural aesthetic expression, self-care and psychology. Trained in ballet and modern dance, Ebony found her love for the freedom of movement in the NYC house dance community. In 2005, she co-founded Afro Mosaic Soul Dance Collective, using social dance and music as a tool for emotional healing and expression. In addition, Ebony has experience in partial hospitalization/inpatient psychiatry and mental health care facilities working with individuals who present with psychotic and behavioral health concerns, as well as with individuals who are developmentally diverse and experience physical, emotional, and sensory challenges. She has also worked with a non-profit organization in partnership with New York City public schools to develop social-emotional resiliency from an anti-oppressive strength-based lens. Ebony’s international experience includes  Ghana and Togo West Africa, Cuba, Haiti, Dominican Republic, and Nicaragua utilizing various techniques of expressive art therapy toward personal/communal healing while exploring the dynamics of underrepresented communities. Ebony has co-presented her research, Moving Blind Spots: Cultural Bias in the Movement Repertoire of Dance/ Movement Therapists at the American Dance Therapy Association's (ADTA) Annual Conference (2018) and co-facilitated the American Dance Therapy Association's 2019 Plenary, Honoring Multiplicity: An Embodied Keynote Experience. Ebony is the Multicultural and Diversity Committee Chair Elect for the ADTA and was awarded the honor of the "Leader of Tomorrow Award" (2019) and “The Innovation Award” (2021) for her research in the Africanist Aesthetic in Movement Observation, by the organization. In addition to the American Dance Therapy Association, Ebony is also a professional member of The Association of Black Psychologist (ABPsi) and The American Mental Health Counselors Association (AMHCA). For more information, visit her website: ayacreativewellness.com. I also want to name Tricia Hersey as the author Ebony mentiones who wrote Rest Is Resistance: A Manifesto

In this conversation, I am speaking with Julia Rae Antonick and Jonathan Meyer, executive & artistic directors of Khecari (https://www.khecari.org/).   Khecari ‘creates dance works furthering the transformative power of live bodies witnessing live bodies and advocates for the essential role of art within society, of dance within the arts, and of all artists working within the dance ecosystem.’

Please, visit their website, see the images and videos, and read about their vision.  Better yet, experience them perform. And in doing participate in art that engages and transforms.

In this new season of the Return to Embodiment, I am delighted to share the treasures of these conversations, wistfully holding them as a garden from which I ask: take what nourishes & leave for the compost heap what is not for you.  May we explore the pathways that lead towards curiosity and delight and hope. Forgive any parts that show up clumsily with mismatched socks.  We are but these brief moments.

In this conversation, we talk about embodiment from the perspective of acting practice, examining our shared roots in an acting community and the applications and understandings that grew from those roots.  Andy reflects on how the creation of the treatre is a humanizing force, which connects people to themselves and others, crafts shared story and community.  Andy Mangin has been at Wheaton since 2005, teaching students how to produce theater in a liberal arts environment. He manages the productions, designs and builds sets, acts, teaches and directs.  Some of Andy's favorites have been Will Eno's Middletown and Tony Kushner's The Illusion. He teaches Devised Theater, Directing and Acting classes. With an MFA in Acting from Southern Methodist University and a hammer in the other hand, Andy crafts the actual sets as well as the performances for Arena Theatre.

Mango Woodworks Link :www.instagram.com/p/Clj4lo1OdUu/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

An article about Andy's woodworking: www.twohandsinteriors.com/journal-page/2020/4/21/working-with-a-talented-maker

Here is a video about Andy's shakesphere in the park project from 2016. https://youtu.be/Eq-FY6Lvnak

In this conversation I talk with Cameron Ayala and Shannon Suffoletto about their work together after Cam's recent above-knee amputation.   We discuss Cam's childhood diagnosis on Lymphadema, his athletic drive, and the support he found through Shannon's bodymindcombine sessions.

In 2001, Cam was diagnosed with primary lymphedema that has affected his right leg since he was 11-years old. Despite several bouts of infection and over 17 surgical procedures, Cam continues to fight through the daily challenges that this disease presents even with his recent above-knee-amputation. He was put in the public spotlight in 2019 as a contestant on ABC’s The Bachelorette and Bachelor in Paradise. Despite having his lymphedema testimony edited out from every episode, Cam decided to use this public notoriety to bring awareness to lymphedema and other lymphatic disorders.

To see Cam play in the recent tournament, visit https://www.instagram.com/reel/CiMOejFALIh/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

The BodyMindCombine System is an intersection of twenty years worth of experience in athletics, mental health, dance/movement therapy, movement observation and higher education administration.  Shannon Suffoletto has over twenty years of mental health experience both broadly and with athletes. How injury,  family and/or life circumstances, team dynamics and many other factors effect athletes mental well-being must be incorporated holistically in order to achieve peak performance.  Strategies for maintaining emotional balance are key to the integrative mental performance approach.  

As a trained ballet and modern dancer with a dance and psychology undergraduate degree and a Master's Degree in Dance/Movement Therapy Shannon understands the dedication, discipline, pressure and physical and mental fatigue athletes face.  She also understands passion and love of the sport.  She also recognizes the hard work and art created in each moment of practice and competition.  She knows how to help athletes manage stress off the court to perform optimally on the court.

As a board certified dance/movement therapist and certified movement analyst, Shannon can observe movement, ask questions about experiences and create specifically designed interventions to enliven fundamental movement patterns.  These patterns serve to strengthen the body/mind connection, enhance the ability to stay in present moment and self-regulate.  The result: achieving the highest individual performance experience possible.

For more information on Shannon's work, visit https://www.bodymindcombine.com/