Healing through Dance and Movement
Q&A with Phoebe Leona
Dancer, Speaker and Healer
|
"Movement can potentially be an elixir for releasing the moment of a traumatic event so that the issues don’t get in your tissues, so that your body no longer carries the story of trauma around." ~ Phoebe Leona |
Phoebe Leona discusses dance as a healing practice, how movement can help someone recover from trauma, and her personal journey as a dancer.
What type of dance training have you had?
As a child, I studied ballet, jazz, and musical theater. When I went off to college, my world opened to modern dance, and I received a B.F.A. in modern dance performance from University of the Arts where I studied Graham, Horton, Taylor, Limon, and other modern/contemporary techniques. I graduated a semester early by way of spending a summer semester with Bill T Jones and immediately made my way to New York City. I immersed myself in all training available while auditioning and performing with dance companies and in other contemporary work during my 11 years dancing professionally in the city.
When you first started dancing, did you consider dance to be a healing practice? Did it help you during your troubled childhood?
When I first started dancing, it was truly from a place of joy. I don’t think I fully realized it was a healing practice until many years later when I applied for a yoga teacher training program, and they asked when I started studying yoga. Something clicked for me that dance was my yoga and a healing practice throughout my childhood; it gave me an outlet to move the energies of trauma through my body, so they did not become embedded in my body. Breathing through movement helped regulate my nervous system.
I often look back at what my life might have been without dance in it and feel completely blessed that I always had it. One of my dance teachers, Milton Myers, would always tell us in class, 'Dance is your life partner and will always be there for you.' I truly believe that in my heart.
How does movement help someone overcome grief/trauma? Immediate effects can be an easing of stress...but how does it help long-term?
What type of dance training have you had?
As a child, I studied ballet, jazz, and musical theater. When I went off to college, my world opened to modern dance, and I received a B.F.A. in modern dance performance from University of the Arts where I studied Graham, Horton, Taylor, Limon, and other modern/contemporary techniques. I graduated a semester early by way of spending a summer semester with Bill T Jones and immediately made my way to New York City. I immersed myself in all training available while auditioning and performing with dance companies and in other contemporary work during my 11 years dancing professionally in the city.
When you first started dancing, did you consider dance to be a healing practice? Did it help you during your troubled childhood?
When I first started dancing, it was truly from a place of joy. I don’t think I fully realized it was a healing practice until many years later when I applied for a yoga teacher training program, and they asked when I started studying yoga. Something clicked for me that dance was my yoga and a healing practice throughout my childhood; it gave me an outlet to move the energies of trauma through my body, so they did not become embedded in my body. Breathing through movement helped regulate my nervous system.
I often look back at what my life might have been without dance in it and feel completely blessed that I always had it. One of my dance teachers, Milton Myers, would always tell us in class, 'Dance is your life partner and will always be there for you.' I truly believe that in my heart.
How does movement help someone overcome grief/trauma? Immediate effects can be an easing of stress...but how does it help long-term?
|
"Life is a Divine Dance" ~ TEDx Newburgh
|
There is a saying, 'The issues are in your tissues.' Let’s first look at dogs when they get in a terrible fight. When they get torn away from each other, they immediately shake it off and urinate on something. We usually think this act is to mark their territory, but there is more to this story that we can learn from as humans. After a nasty fight, dogs literally shake off the experience from their bodies so that they do not hold onto ‘the issues,’ – the energies of aggression and trauma of the experience – in their ‘tissues.’ The second thing they do is urinate, to release the stress chemicals their body produced to protect themselves in the fight.
Now, let’s look at our human bodies. When our body goes into fight, flight, freeze or fawn, we activate the sympathetic nervous system to keep us safe. Our body then releases stress hormones, like adrenaline, so we have the capability to literally fight or flee for our own survival. If we don’t ‘shake it out’ of the body after the moment is over, the chemicals still flood the body and get stuck in our tissues. |
An example might be getting cut off in traffic. What is your initial response? You might get angry and want to retaliate in some way. You might get startled and freeze, and/or you might clamp down on the steering wheel. These responses are your sympathetic nervous system kicking in to keep you safe. To bring your body back to homeostasis, immediately move your body (shake it off like canines do) or urinate to fully excrete the stress hormones that flooded your body. But these options aren't immediately available in a situation like this, so the stress hormones continue to flood your system. You might continue your day feeling angry at the world or fall into a state of road rage because your body is still responding to that micro-traumatic event – potentially dying while getting cut off in traffic.
If this trauma wasn’t addressed over time and was triggered over and over again with more micro-traumatic events, those stress hormones continue to swirl around just waiting for some proper release or movement of the energy. How do you think you would feel? How do you think that could impact your body and your health if you never fully regulated your nervous system?
Movement can potentially be an elixir for releasing the moment of a traumatic event so that the issues don’t get in your tissues, so that your body no longer carries the story of trauma around.
There is a mind/body connection that is undeniable. How does dance easily tap into that? What about yoga? Does yoga have the same effects as dance/movement therapy?
If this trauma wasn’t addressed over time and was triggered over and over again with more micro-traumatic events, those stress hormones continue to swirl around just waiting for some proper release or movement of the energy. How do you think you would feel? How do you think that could impact your body and your health if you never fully regulated your nervous system?
Movement can potentially be an elixir for releasing the moment of a traumatic event so that the issues don’t get in your tissues, so that your body no longer carries the story of trauma around.
There is a mind/body connection that is undeniable. How does dance easily tap into that? What about yoga? Does yoga have the same effects as dance/movement therapy?
Dance and yoga absolutely connect mind and body to our lives. I had a teacher who always said very early on, ‘How you do anything is how you do everything.’ So, to apply that to movement, whether it be dance or yoga, we can look at how we move the body is how we move and dance through life from our mind.
When I was training to be a dancer, I always struggled with transitions. When I rushed through them, they were sometimes muddled, and I even felt lost in the choreography if I didn’t give them the awareness I gave the ‘bigger, more impressive’ moves. When I began to witness this for myself, I realized how I was doing this in my life, too. I was always trying to rush to the more exciting events of my life, not giving full value to the smaller moments that got me to the bigger, more exciting ones.
When I was training to be a dancer, I always struggled with transitions. When I rushed through them, they were sometimes muddled, and I even felt lost in the choreography if I didn’t give them the awareness I gave the ‘bigger, more impressive’ moves. When I began to witness this for myself, I realized how I was doing this in my life, too. I was always trying to rush to the more exciting events of my life, not giving full value to the smaller moments that got me to the bigger, more exciting ones.
On my yoga mat, I found a similar lesson waiting for me there but with some frustration. I saw the exciting poses like inversions and arm balances and just wanted to get into the shape and be a yogi rockstar. But as I fell out of the poses over and over again, I realized I had to slow down, do the prep work, and really take things step-by-step. This connection to the mind was a huge lightbulb moment of how to apply these lessons to my life. Once I did that, everything shifted. My mindset changed and my world opened up to those transitional moments of life that led to graceful lifts and balances, turning my world upside down to give me a new perspective.
Whatever you witness on your yoga mat or while dancing, ask yourself, 'How do I see this happening in how I approach my life?' And from that awareness, your mind begins to shift, and a whole world opens up.
Please describe your movement/somatic practice, Mvt109™. Is this for everyone - dancers and non-dancers alike?
Yes! It is for everyone who has a body and wants to connect more deeply with it. I developed Mvt109™ about five years ago when I was burned out from teaching back-to-back yoga teacher trainings, and my body was craving a way to move more organically. I found myself rolling on the floor like when I was a child and in college in my contemporary dance classes. I started to realize there was a flow of movement through the chakras (a subtle body system) that was naturally happening. I started to take note of how I was moving and dancing. Then, I brought it to one of my healing mentors to share my thoughts about how I was moving. We worked together for a few months on codifying it. At the end of our time, she said I had to give it a name.
Yes! It is for everyone who has a body and wants to connect more deeply with it. I developed Mvt109™ about five years ago when I was burned out from teaching back-to-back yoga teacher trainings, and my body was craving a way to move more organically. I found myself rolling on the floor like when I was a child and in college in my contemporary dance classes. I started to realize there was a flow of movement through the chakras (a subtle body system) that was naturally happening. I started to take note of how I was moving and dancing. Then, I brought it to one of my healing mentors to share my thoughts about how I was moving. We worked together for a few months on codifying it. At the end of our time, she said I had to give it a name.
|
I came back to the name of my dance company, Mvt109™ (movement 109) which was my final dance/choreography project before I moved out of the city in 2010. The project was my final ‘movement’ in reverence to the city that had been my teacher for 11 years, like the 109th bead on the mala that is there in reverence to our teachers at the end of the japa meditation. I reclaimed the name, Mvt109™ for this embodiment practice because it plays between movement and stillness to recognize the patterns we carry within and to make new conscious choices to change our vibration so that we can embody a new world.
With a mission to remind people that dance is always available and necessary to move with life, I have had the opportunity to share Mvt109™ with various populations, including dance majors at universities, cadets at West Point at USMA, and numerous other studios, festivals and facilities. I have led four Mvt109™ facilitator trainings to certify other teachers, healers and facilitators, and each time the teaching goes deeper into the somatic work and emotional recovery aspect that I cover in my book, Dear Radiant One. |
Click book cover for exclusive excerpt.
|
This November, I am excited to offer facilitator training in Costa Rica which will be the first time I get to offer it as a retreat.
|
Phoebe Leona is a dancer, speaker, author, yoga teacher, and transformational guide who helps us feel more embodied through somatic, movement, and expanded awareness practices to become more empowered in who we are, who we are becoming, and our having a greater sense of belonging.
Phoebe has been a teacher and guide for most of her life, but it was after a year of extreme loss in 2013 when she found herself in the vast open space in between her old life and a new life, that she dove deeply into her practices and began her company, nOMad to help others through their own transition and the spaces in between. Throughout that time, Phoebe also developed her movement/somatic practice, Mvt109™ for students to fully embrace the freedom of moving in their bodies, transforming old patterns and reclaiming the vibrations and stories they want to bring to life. Phoebe also finds joy in sharing her story to help others in their healing. She tells her story on her TEDx Talk, her podcast The Space in Between, and her multi-author international bestseller Caged No More. Her newest book, Dear Radiant One, partners with GracePoint Publishing. |
Phoebe Leona
Dancer, Speaker & Healer |
