Dance of Awareness
Dance of Awareness (DoA) is a therapeutic group movement practice that offers a unique approach to working with embodiment, movement and awareness. It takes us back through our early developmental stages when the growing sense of self takes form through early relational experience, setting the patterns for adulthood.
The DoA cycle follows an energetic wave, charging and discharging over the course of a session. The six phases of the cycle follow themes of character development from pre-birth through to around five years. Movers have the opportunity to re-experience their formative years somatically. As old patterns are recovered or re-discovered through movement, they come in to conscious awareness – so making space for new ways of being and relating.
Dance of Awareness lets us explore ourselves as a dynamic being in relationship – to ourselves, to others and to our environment. We grow and evolve together. We find ourselves through each other. Through our sharing and through our difference. I change you; you change me.
Dance of Awareness can also be understood as the dance between body, mind and consciousness. It is the story of the ego individuating as I differentiate into 'who I am'. But it is also the story of the evolution of consciousness, the story of ‘becoming’. I am becoming more than my ego as we move from instinctual (impulsive) through egoic (my sense of self) and toward transcendence.
The approach is grounded in psychodynamic theory and developmental psychology. Other key influences include Neo-Reichian body psychotherapy, dance movement psychotherapy, Authentic Movement, Five Rhythms dance, self-regulatory neuroscience, and the exploration of Awareness itself. DoA has been growing since 2003, and is based on our experience gained through over 2000 hours of DoA classes, groups, workshops and trainings. Since 2013 we have been running a Dance of Awareness training programme which takes place over two weekends. Consequently, there are a growing pool of trained practitioners who now offer DoA across the UK and beyond.
“Consciousness speaks as the body tells its story; at times having that witnessed. This is where Body Psychotherapy meets Dance Movement Psychotherapy meets Authentic Movement”.
A typical DoA group will offer a mix of free movement and structured process work, with a focus on self-expression and exploration, which can be as individuals, pairs, small groups or the group-as-a-whole. Music is an important element of the process, guiding the group through six sequential phases which together form a continuous wave of energy. The phases are:
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Sensing the body directly – arriving into ‘being’ and breath;
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Grounding as we begin to find ourselves in relation to the earth and others;
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Expressing the shapes, patterns and movements that are ready to take form;
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Releasing the energy that is ready to move in the body;
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Connecting deeper into ourselves – and outwards with others and the world;
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Completing the journey and returning to our true nature.
We move between words and movement. As well as time spent dancing / moving through the DoA cycle, there will be an opening and closing circle, and time for feeding back and sharing. We will explore together what is already happening, what is trying to happen and what might be stopping things from happening - both individually and as a group.
The DoA cycle was initially developed for large groups as a drop-in music-led process. For our work to move closer toward a therapeutic model, we decided to use the DoA model as an ongoing group without music. The intention behind this was to create a much smaller, more boundaried psychotherapeutic group format for a conscious exploration of early movement patterns. This group is called Free/Form.
More about our Dance of Awareness™ work; the training or our diary of events (including groups and workshops), click the button below.
