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Dance Movement Therapy and Belly Dance

Last Updated on January 25, 2024

What is Dance Therapy?

Dance therapy, which is also commonly known as Dance Movement Therapy, is to do with the way the therapeutic use of movement and dance are used to improve emotional, cognitive, social, behavioral, and physical conditions.

The basis of dance therapy is formulated with the concept that the mind and body and connected or let’s say, interrelated.

Dance therapy uses a lot of different approaches to encourage people to improvise and express themselves freely through movement.

Amongst other things, it uses principles and techniques borrowed from contemporary dance, such as contact improvisation, and props are also sometimes used.

It can be said that every type of social and improvised dance is good for the mind because it helps people connect with each other, it helps the body produce endorphins through exercise and it connects the body with the mind.

Belly dancing, in particular, is about the joy of living and accepting one’s body the way it is without aiming for an ideal, unrealistic notion of how the perfect body should be.

Dance and Emotional Healing

People have been using dance as a healing power for years with dance commonly accepted as a tension reliever.

Throughout tradition, dance has been used in different cultures as a way of helping to reduce stress and as a way of healing.

Dance and therapy can work together perfectly as a way of healing and this can help people with many different conditions.

Many traditional cultures have used dance as part of rituals to heal the mind.

Just one example, within Europe, is a dance form from the south of Italy called Taranta during which the person affected claimed to have been bitten by a spider (tarantula) and he or she was made to dance to exhaustion to a frenetic rhythm, in order to get rid of the poison.

Taranta in the video below

In reality, the spider bite was just a pretext but the Taranta dance was used to help heal mental stress or disorders.

Taranta is no longer used in this fashion, but there are still memories of it and some dance companies in Italy re-enact staged versions of it.

Healing the Mind Through Dance

Women (of all ages, shapes, and sizes) have found that belly dancing is a genuinely useful way of improving one’s creativity, femininity, and self-esteem.

Belly dancing can also play a role in improving one’s emotional health and many dancers have found that this dance form acts as therapy for them in helping them to deal with:

Breast cancer surgery
Bulimia
Rape and/or sexual abuse
and various other conditions

An important component of oriental dance is improvisation, which alone fosters creativity and the release of bad energy.

Belly dancing’s roots are in social dancing, which means that this art form should by its nature encourage a sense of support and cooperation between dancers.

Of course, this is not always the case, unfortunately, but a belly dance class, in order to be effective towards helping participants feel better mentally, should foster a sense of community, cohesion between dancers, and the lack of judgment so that every dancer feels free to enjoy and express themselves.

A good belly dance teacher should never forget that dance is, first of all, an expression of joy and fun.

Getting Involved in Dance Therapy

Many local colleges now have evening and weekend courses in dance therapy.

You can also volunteer to be involved with local projects involving dance therapy, to gain valuable work experience in this specialized field.

By being involved with dance therapy and belly dance, you can then build the contacts you will need in the business: a business that is rewarding and fulfilling.

You can find more information on dance therapy in the UK on the website of the Association for Dance Movement Psychotherapy (ADMPUK).

Here you can also find lists of institutions where you can study dance therapy in the UK and local practitioners.

Are you interested to find out more health benefits of belly dancing?

Oriental dance can also be good during pregnancy and for new mothers. Click here for more information.

Further Resources

You might also find these articles interesting on dance therapy:

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Dr Valeria Lo Iacono

Dr Valeria Lo Iacono is a belly dancer and a dance researcher with a PhD in dance and heritage. Valeria also teaches and performs as a belly dance but also enjoys learning ballet, jazz dance and other dance genres.