The Chicago Tribune recently featured an extensive article about dance/movement therapy, entitled : The Most Basic Language, Dance Brings Out the Unutterable." Dr. Suzi Tortora was quoted extensively throughout the article. Included in this article that ran in newspapers nationwide was: "The Andr?a Rizzo Foundation founded and funds the Dr?a's Dream pediatric dance therapyprogram at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in NYC.  Suzi Tortora was the first dance therapist to provide Dr?a's Dream in a pediatric hospital setting."  The Andr?a Rizzo Foundation is grateful for the ground-breaking work that Dr. Tortora provides.  See full article below.

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The most basic language, dance, brings out the unutterable

Chicago Tribune

By Nancy Maes

For eons societies around the world have used dance to express feelings and to help people heal. Those concepts are embodied in contemporary dance/movement therapy that was founded as a profession in the 1940s. Trained professionals in the field have a master's degree in the specialty based on the principle that the mind, the body and the emotions are interrelated.

The therapy often is misunderstood by the general public. "People often think that we only work with dancers or that we are like physical therapists or that we teach dance," said dance/movement therapist Suzi Tortora, the author of "The Dancing Dialogue: Using the Communicative Power of Movement with Young Children" (Brooks Publishing, 2005). "Everybody has a movement signature with idiosyncratic elements that tells the story of their experiences and the emotions that are stored in their body. Dance/movement therapy is a psychotherapy that helps people work through their psychological and emotional issues using dance and movement to allow them to express their feelings."

Susan Kleinman has been using dance/movement therapy as part of the treatment of women of all ages with anorexia, bulimia and binge eating for about 25 years at The Renfrew Center of Florida.

"The women bury their feelings, and the burial ground is their body," she said. "The eating disorder is a coping mechanism that gives them the illusion of control. They focus on food issues and body issues as a diversionary tactic so they don't have to experience the underlying painful feelings hidden deep inside them that might be caused by experiences such as the death of a loved one, a divorce, verbal, physical or sexual abuse or the failure to live up to high expectations of others."

The movements in individual or group therapy are not choreographed but are based on movements the therapist picks up from the details of the body language of patients, such as shallow breathing or fidgeting or a gesture suggested by them. The therapist then develops those movements.

"I help them make the movement slower and enlarge it very gradually, and we develop a nonverbal dialogue together so we can understand it better until the patient can acknowledge their deep-seated feelings and express them," said Kleinman, who is the past president of the American Dance Therapy Association. "Body language is a safe way to tap into the unconscious. The goal is to let the emotions surface and help the patient reconnect with their body and their feelings and then decode or translate them into verbal language.

"Sometimes the breakthroughs are subtle, and sometimes they can be very dramatic when the patient gets in touch with their feelings and experiences them."

The Andrea Rizzo Foundation founded and funds the Drea's Dream pediatric dance therapy program at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York City. Tortora was the first dance therapist to provide Drea's Dream in a pediatric hospital setting. The program was created to honor Rizzo, a survivor of pediatric cancer whose goal to become a dance therapist was cut short when she was killed by a drunk driver when she was 24. Other Drea's Dream dance/movement therapy programs are located throughout the U.S.

The dance/movement therapists at Sloan Kettering work with patients who are a few days old up to ones in their early 20.

"We're trained to observe and analyze what the movements and gestures of patients mean," Tortora said. Patients might feel anxious before a procedure or angry because they can't get up and play or overwhelmed by sadness. "We create a dancing dialogue with patients as a way for our bodies to speak to each so their bodies can communicate their feelings," Tortora said.

Dance/movement therapy can be used to rock a crying baby in a soothing way. The therapy, accompanied perhaps an ocean drum making the sound of small waves or gentle ripples, can help an exhausted, sleepless child breathe more calmly and relax. Dance/movement therapy also can distract pediatric cancer patients from the pain and discomfort they're experiencing by helping them to be playful. The youngsters might move and dance to the sound of music while they're standing up or just sitting in a chair. They often use props such as scarves or streamers or stuffed animals to help them express their emotions.

"We can use the movement and the music to help the child stayed engaged and focused without getting out of control or depleted," Tortora said. "When you see children dancing in a safe environment, it is so joyful that it is healing for the parents too."

Dance/movement therapy is extremely versatile. It can used for people with special needs and in rehabilitation center, nursing homes and hospice care because it is based on a universal language. As Kleinman said, "Body language is our native dialect that we used to express ourselves long before we learned words."

Maes is a freelance reporter for the Chicago Tribune.