Hanny Exiner Memorial Foundation Annual Achievement Award: Previous winners
2009: Denis Kelynack
Among many other wonderful events at the dinner in November, celebrating 15 years since the inauguration of the DTAA, was the presentation to Denis Kelynack of the 2009 HEMF Annual Achievement Award. He was totally surprised and delighted to be chosen and very moved by the acclaim that so many of the people attending the dinner paid to him in a ritual facilitated by Linda Murrow. Below is the citation that was presented to him with the award.
Dear Denis,
The members of the Hanny Exiner Memorial Foundation Managing Committee are delighted to present you with the Hanny Exiner Memorial Foundation Annual Achievement Award for 2008/2009 for your contributions to the field of dance-movement therapy in Australia. Please accept our congratulations.
We are proud to be able to make an award that recognises the long-term contributions and achievements made by you as a pioneer in the field, having begun applying creative dance to therapy in the 1970's. From that time on you infused your work as a psychologist with your growing understanding of the power of dance-movement as a healing tool. As one of Australia's pioneers in the field and as an educator, from the early days of the Graduate Diploma in Movement and Dance at the Institute of early Childhood Development in Kew and later as a lecturer in the Dance Therapy Graduate Certificate course there, you have influenced and supported many of today's DMT practitioners and educators. More recently you were one of the creators of and lecturers in the course at RMIT.
You have worked for many years to promote and support the profession individually as well as being one of the founding members of the DTAA, having served as its President and in other roles. As President and as convenor of the Professional Membership Committee you helped the DTAA negotiate the complex issues that arose during the early stages of PACFA's formation. You were also instrumental in refining the documentation and processes that were required for the fulfilment of Professional Membership of the DTAA to meet PACFA's standards. Over many years you continued to widen and refine your knowledge and understanding of DMT practice, both overseas and in Australia, culminating in your work with Hanny. This latter experience not only deepened your understanding of dance-movement as therapy even more but also led to you co-authoring Dance Therapy Redefined with her.
Yours faithfully,
Naomi Aitchison
Convenor of the Hanny Exiner Memorial Foundation
on behalf of the Foundation members.
Liz Loughlin honours Denis Kelynack with HEMF Award.
2008: Elizabeth Loughlin
At the DTAA’s AGM in November 2008 the HEMF Annual Achievement Award was presented to a surprised and delighted Elizabeth Loughlin (M.A, B. Litt. Hons (Perf Arts), BA. Dip.Soc.Studs., Dip. Dance-Movt. Therapy (IDTIA), Prof. Mem. DTAA). We were thrilled to be able to select Elizabeth as the recipient, to be able to formally recognise and applaud the pioneering work for which she has been responsible for more than thirty years as well as the fundamental roles she has played in the development and awareness of dance-movement therapy in Australia.
The members of the Hanny Exiner Memorial Foundation Managing Committee are delighted to present you with the Annual Hanny Exiner Memorial Foundation Achievement Award for 2007/2008 for your contributions to the field of dance-movement therapy in Australia. Please accept our congratulations. Unlike previous awards this is being presented based on our review of all the issues of our Moving On journal published before the inaugural award was presented in 2005. The HEMF Managing Committee approved a special arrangement for this year because the editors produced two special double editions, rather than the usual four issues of the journal. This has given us the welcome opportunity to select a member of the DMT community whose outstanding contributions to the field in Australia have been reported on over many years. We are proud to make an award that recognises the long-term contributions and achievements made by you as a pioneer in the field, having begun applying creative dance in therapy in the 1970s.
In particular we honour you for your role in the development of the dance-movement therapy profession in Australia and consistently raising the profile of DMT here as well as overseas. You have presented on your work at numerous conferences and other events, many of them not specifically DMT conferences, thereby developing or increasing an awareness of that work to professions outside DMT. As a part of your ongoing personal professional development and education of others you have also had work published in Australian and international journals and other publications. In addition we are aware that, more recently, a chapter by you was included in a British publication Sexuality and Fertility Issues in Ill health and Disability (2006) which drew on your Masters research.
You provide supervision – a vital component in the growth of professionalism and ethical standards for DMT - and as one of the guiding lights and principal lecturers at IDTIA, who has helped to develop the training in that institution, you nurture the entry of newer members into the DMT community.
Naomi Aitchison (Convenor HEMF)
Response from Elizabeth:
Dear Naomi, Jane and members of the Hanny Exiner Memorial Foundation,
Thank you for this large beautiful book - The Woodblock Painting of Cressida Campbell - and for the honour of receiving the HEMF Achievement Award for 2008. I remember presenting my mother–infant dance therapy group to an education meeting in the department of Clinical Psychology in the early 1990s, quite an adequate description I believe. A friend and colleague said to me later, you told us what you did, but you did not tell us how it worked. As time itself went by, and with the constant experiences of being a dance therapist, the opportunity to read, reflect, teach, discuss with others, as well as the ongoing challenges of the health contexts, I ‘grew up’ professionally, and my ‘knowing how and why’ now occurs more as a matter of course. My response to this award is that the dance therapy practices and understandings do evolve over time. Keep on track, find good people to talk with, supervisors and others, stay in the dance process, absolutely find out what others do, show your work, document, record, video - and always present your beliefs, methods and knowledge with confidence.
Thank you all,
Elizabeth Loughlin
Dance Therapist
2007: Sandra Kay Lauffenburger
During the 2007 'Weaving the Threads' conference, the Hanny Exiner Memorial Foundation Achievement Award was made to Sandra Kay Lauffenburger. The citation honouring Sandra included the following statements:
This award is made in particular to honour your efforts which have led to the establishment of the Certificate Program in Laban Movement Analysis and Bartenieff Fundamentals (LMA/BF) to be run in Australia, commencing in April next year as well as being the coordinator and co-director of the program. We would also like to acknowledge your contributions to the field of dance therapy through your ongoing experiential and academic education of students and practitioners, as demonstrated by the workshop The Dynamic Architecture of Communication; Moving, Feeling, and Observing: Space - Laban Movement Analysis (LMA) presented by you in Melbourne last year – just one of the many workshops you have offered on LMA and Bartenieff Fundamentals over the years. Your own continuing research, leading to developments in your understanding and utilisation of therapeutic theories and methods, was demonstrated by the paper ‘Self-Psychology of Heinz Kohut as a Psychodynamic Framework for Dance/Movement Therapy’ published earlier this year. We also appreciate your ongoing contributions to Moving On, helping the Dance-Movement Therapy community to stay in touch with developments in Sydney and Canberra, such as the information about the Self Psychology book collection being available at the ANU’s Hancock Library and keeping them informed about self psychology courses.
2006: Michelle Royal
At the DTAA Annual General Meeting in November 2006, Michelle Royal was honoured for her efforts, through her writing in DTAA Quarterly, to awaken, or remind, the dance-movement therapy community about the fact that our profession is not properly recognized by many institutions, organizations and others with the ability to affect public opinion about the validity of particular modes of therapy.
2005: Inaugural award Dr Heather Hill
At the DTAA Annual General Meeting in November 2005, the inaugural winner, Dr. Heather Hill, was acknowledged for activities including reports about her work in, as well as her direct contributions to, all four issues of ‘Moving On’ in that year, gaining her doctorate – Talking the talk but not walking the walk: barriers to person-centred care in dementia, the enthusiasm and professionalism with which she conducted workshops, spoke at conferences and published papers, including one at the 8th National Residential Aged Care Facility Conference for Leisure, Recreation and Lifestyle staff, later published in ‘Moving On’ and for her contribution to the ongoing discussions about the nature of dance on the ADTA's listserve and the workshop she led on ‘Person-Centred Care in Dementia’ for the DTAA AGM Professional Development Day.