Natalie completed the Graduate Diploma Dance Therapy at RMIT in 2008. She is an Associate member DTAA and Professional Member of the Hilal Dance Association and teaches Hilal Dance classes regularly in Melbourne. She runs ‘very creative dance’ classes for young children, has taught dance at Melbourne University and Kangan TAFE, has worked in therapeutic settings, in detention centres, with young women at risk, with mothers and babies, and women in pregnancy.

In 2010 Natalie trained with Suraya Hilal and other Hilal dance Teachers in Florence and Paris, and in October 2011 took part in an artist in residency program in Suraya’s Dance company in Canberra.

Keywords
birthing, mothering, dance movement therapy, mother-baby bonding

Page #: 137

This article aims to translate the work of Rhea Dempsey, birth attendant (doula), birth educator and counsellor, into the dance movement therapy context. This paper explores the relationship between the physical, psychological and emotional states experienced by the birthing woman, and suggests meaning in the challenges and problems in birth. The author reframes birthing as a dance and gives a detailed description of her work as a birth support / dance therapist at a recent birth. The potential for the dance therapist as part of the mother’s support team in birth and the pre- and post-natal experience, where the skills of witnessing, attunement, empathy and holding the space are enacted, is discussed.

 

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Keywords
enactment, group consciousness, family therapy, kinaesthetic empathy, professional development, life patterns

Two reflective articles give unique perspectives by participants (Alice, Virginia and Natalie) in the 2 day ‘Weaving the threads’ Conference workshop that was presented by Steve Harvey and Connor Kelly. Moving moments of healing and insight are shared along with experiential processes that could be adapted to family therapy and professional development settings. A descriptive piece embodying the the story with movement, exemplifies the symbolic healing and adaptive potential of story telling and “the many aspects coming into play in the story telling as therapy”. (pp 50-54)

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In this series of articles, we are pleased to present reflections on integral and exciting occasions within the conference, that included Conference Special Events: “The Movement Choir”; “Performance on the Lawn: Three Songs, Three Dances’ BAH Improvised movement collective”; “Performance from Integrate Stretch” and “Bidding Farewell Through Movement Weaving the Threads – Dancing the Metaphor.” (pp 30-35)

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Keywords
embodied wisdom, traditional dance, Arabic culture, centering, connectedness, groundedness, kinesphere

This analysis of the ‘pendulum’ using Laban Movement Analysis was written during Natalie’s time as a student at RMIT and revised for this issue of ‘Moving On’.

Hilal Dance is a contemporary dance form, crystallised through the research and practice of Egyptian born dancer, Suraya Hilal. The Pendulum is one of the fundamental movements of Hilal Dance and provides a foundation for a variety of movements and expressions. The pendulum is simply a homolateral walk, or a movement connecting the sides or body halves. The result is a swinging of the pelvis from side to side, like the pendulum on a clock, as the weight changes from one foot to the other. This paper will use the interconnected components Body, Shape, Space and Effort from Laban Movement Analysis (LMA) to dissect the basic pendulum. (pp 24-28)

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