Revisiting dance therapy training with Marian Chace: 50 years on

Abstract

This paper intends to review my experiences as an apprentice with Marian Chace, pioneer of the newly developing profession of dance therapy, at the St. Elizabeth’s Psychiatric Care Hospital in 1966. It also aims to explore ways that Chace’s work anticipated current approaches to dance movement psychotherapy (DMP). Chace emphasised the importance of dance as nonverbal communication and taught her apprentices to aim for the highest levels of authenticity in their own expression. She often worked in a circle allowing all to feel included. Through her movement, Marian reflected back to the patients their nonverbal expressions. Current research into mirror neurons explores the theoretical basis for methods, which Chace used intuitively, decades before any neurological basis was discovered, revealing how the reflection and empathetic attunement used by Chace may have helped advance therapeutic processes.

Keywords:

• Marian Chace
• apprentice
• dance/movement psychotherapy

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Yael Barkai

Yael Barkai is a dance movement therapist. After her apprenticeship with Marian Chace, she gained her master’s degree at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and studied movement therapy at Hahnemann University Medical College and Hospital. Yael was a founding director of the Dance Movement Therapists training program at the Kibbutzim Seminar College, and a co-founder of YAHAT- The Creative & Expressive Arts Therapies Association in Israel. Yael trains group facilitators at Tel Aviv University, teaching Movement in Groups.