Dr. Tortora, Ed.D., BC-DMT, CMA, LCAT, LMHC, received her doctorate in Early Childhood Education with a specialisation in infancy development from Teachers College, Columbia University. A Board Certified dance/movement therapist, a Certified Laban Movement Analyst (CMA), a Kestenberg Movement Profiler (KMP), she has studied Body-Mind Centering with Bonnie Bainbridge Cohen; Authentic Movement with Janet Adler; anatomy, kinesiology and ideokinesis with Irene Dowd; and received certification in Yoga for the Special Child with Sonia Sumar. She is the senior dance therapist for the Integrative Medicine Services pediatric program Dréas Dream, at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, in New York. She is on the board of the New York ‘Zero-to-Three’ Network and holds faculty positions at the postgraduate Institute for Infants, Children & Families, the dance therapy program at the 92nd Street Y, Pratt Institute, and The New School. She has published numerous papers about her work and a book, The Dancing Dialogue: Using the communicative power of movement with young children, (2006, 2010, Marylands, Paul Brooks pub. Co).

This article was previously published in The Signal, Newsletter of the World Association for Infant Mental Health, Vol. 19, No. 3, July – September 2011, pp.1-8. We are grateful to Debbie Weatherston, the editor of The Signal, who kindly gave us permission to reprint it in the DTAA ‘Moving On Journal’.

This article gives an in-depth discussion of the DMT based program called ‘Ways of seeing’ developed by Suzi Tortora, in her work supporting parent-child relationships. “‘Ways of Seeing‘ utilises nonverbal movement observation, dance, movement, motor development and body awareness activities, music, and play for the assessment, intervention and educational programing of children and their families. These programs are based on the observational analysis principles of Laban Movement Analysis (LMA); Infancy and early childhood theory, and dance movement theory practice.” The program is described theoretically and with a case study of a mother and her 6 month old baby, exemplifying the processes and protocols of the program, including use of the observational tool: ‘Dyadic Atachement-based Nonverbal Communication Expressions (D.A.N.C.E.) also designed by Tortora. (pp 41-51)