The Casual Dance Teacher's Podcast

Welcome to the Casual Dance Teachers Podcast. I'm your host, Maia. No matter who, what, or when you teach, I'm here to share all my best tips and tools along with real and practical conversations with fellow dance educators to help you be the very best dance teacher you can be.

Let's talk about it. Hey there, everybody. Thank you so much for joining me today.

We are doing something brand new to the show today, so I'm extra excited. Typically, if I have an interview episode, I'm just sitting down and chatting with one guest, but today I have two guests joining me. They reached out to me kind of as a package deal to talk about the practice of dance movement therapy and how it can be applied within the dance classroom, but doing it from the perspective of both someone who is a dance movement therapist, as well as someone who has participated in dance movement therapy as a way to get in touch with her own body.

So I'm really excited to delve into this topic with both of our guests today, Erica Hornthal and Rae Luskin. I'll start by introducing them both, starting with Erica Hornthal, who is a dance movement therapist and founder of Chicago Dance Therapy. She's the best-selling author of Body Aware, as well as her latest book, Body Talk, 365 Gentle Movement Practices to Get You Out of Your Head and Into Your Body.

Erica is known as the therapist who moves you and has been featured in the New York Times, the Washington Post, and Psychology Today. Also joining us today is Rae Luskin, who sought out Erica's dance therapy as a way to get back in touch with her own body. Rae is an award-winning artist, author, activist, and creative mindfulness mentor, and the author of four books, including Art From My Heart, a self-discovery journal, Stuck to Unstoppable Journal, The Creative Edge, 30 Days of Creativity Prompts, and the Benjamin Franklin award-winning inspirational book, The Creative Activist, Make the World Better One Person, One Action at a Time.

Rae is also the recipient of the Woman of Distinction Award, as well as a nominee for the Beauty In Beauty Out Award. There's so much I want to get into with both of these amazing guests today, so let's get right into it. Thank you both so much for being here.

Rae
My pleasure.

Erica
Yeah, thanks for having us.

Maia
Yeah, I am going to just dive right in because I know we have a lot to talk about and I want to kind of chat with both of you.

I'm going to start with Rae. I want to hear a little bit, Rae, about your story of what kind of led you to originally reach out to work with Erica.

Rae
My story is I did not have a really great relationship with my body.

I was sexually abused as a child. I gained a ton of weight to protect myself, and unfortunately, I am still dealing with some of those issues. I would love to say I'm not, but I am, but that was the reason I wanted to go see Erica is because I needed to learn to move in my body to embody it.

I didn't. I felt like half the time I was floating above myself, and for many years, my body was the enemy, so working with Erica brought me much more in touch with who I am, how I move in the world, because I didn't even see myself. Whether you're taking up spaces, it's a huge person, or if you're thin, it didn't matter. I just didn't see myself in that space.

Maia
Yeah, thank you for sharing that, and I want to turn to Erica for a second and just ask you, Erica, what are the initial steps when Rae first reached out to you to identify where the areas were where we could tap into the body, her connection with the body, and how did you kind of learn where dance fit in with that, with her particular case?

Erica
You know, honestly, just like I do with any of my clients, I really let them take the lead, so it wasn't so much me feeling like I have to uncover what the best way to work with this person or this particular circumstance, because unfortunately, I had worked with quite a few women who did have a background of sexual abuse or sexual assault, so even for me to say, oh, I've done this before, I could do this again, does a disservice to her own situation. So I treat every client, regardless of what they're coming in for or coming in with, as the first time I'm ever seeing whatever the recurring theme or issue may be.

So for us, it was really a lot of exploring different movement patterns. Sometimes it can just be, you know, let's just walk through the space. Let's stand up.

Let's stretch. We did encourage quite a bit of music. We did a lot of play, a lot of exploration.

I would bring out props, and not in a way that was like, here, use this. It was always an invitation. And Rae is, I mean, she has such a beautiful background in creativity.

It didn't take much. I didn't really have to do anything. It was really just creating the space and having this neutral room where she could just be herself.

Rae
What I loved was Erica, though, also worked with me in the way that I because I do a lot of journaling. I use a lot of art. So we incorporated it into my practice.

So she would have me do a movement, and we'd talk about how did that feel in your body? Where do you feel it? What is the difference? You know, all these things, whether I was writing on the chalk board or she gave me a big piece of paper, and I always could do different things. And that just, her individuality and treating me as an individual is what made it so delightful. And I was ready to play and explore.

And I trusted her enough to really dive into moving my body. And the idea of being sensual is terrifying to me. And she allowed me to do that, whether it was like the scarves, and we're moving, and it's sort of like belly dancing almost, or playing with the hula hoops, all these kinds of things.

They allowed me to explore parts of myself that I totally dismissed.

Erica
Yeah, I remember, because my office has changed quite a bit. And at one point, I had these sticky, peel-off-the-wall chalk decals.

And so yeah, especially, they were there for anybody to use, but Rae really took advantage of them the most. And that was a lot of how we processed whatever the movement was. I remember several times, even just as we were moving together, you'd have the chalk in your hand, and you'd go over and write a word that came into your mind, and then go back to the movement, and then go write another word.

And then we'd stop, and reflect, and kind of look at like, oh, what were the words that popped up? Or were there some lines or squiggles? So even as a dance therapist, we look at everything as movement. So I'm not doing art therapy. I'm not doing music therapy.

I'm not doing drama therapy. But all of those entail movement. And so if the client really resonates with the journaling aspect, that's creative writing.

That is moving your pen to paper. If the representation of art is really helpful. I'm not inferring anything from the art.

I'm not analyzing it. But it is a way that we can express ourselves, and it is all movement. So it was beautiful to witness, but really lovely to just allow her to be in that creative space.

Rae
Oh, and it gave me a voice in a way that I didn't have a voice before, especially to talk about my body. And whenever, you know, because there was a lot of trauma still buried in some of those somatic cells there. But, you know, I can release some of it.

And I was like, oh, there were days I go home and I was exhausted. And there were other days I went home and I was energized. It just sort of depended how deep you went, where we went with the movement and stuff.

Maia
Yeah. And Rae, I wanted to talk a little bit about kind of your perspective as a visual artist, too.

Obviously, that was a component of it. And if I'm understanding correctly, that's something that you've also done independently quite a bit as well. Is that right?

Rae
Yes. I mean, I love dance music. I believe in all of those modalities for healing.

You know, they've done studies that if you dance before you, you know, you're learning something, you learn it better. They've done a lot of science about movement, and it helps you do that. And for me, and a piece of what one of my biggest healing tools was I call scribbles and doodles.

So again, it's movement. And it was taking a crayon and going like this and letting out all this dark anger, rage onto the paper. And that is movement as well.

You know, and it was like, wow. I mean, that was my biggest healing tool after talk therapy for 12 years. And I'm a self help junkie.

Honestly, I've tried them all. And this was one I stuck with Erica for a year. I mean, that's how much I value the work she's doing with me.

It was not her doing it to me, we were working in conjunction, which I think is a valid point, because too often people feel like they're telling me what to do. And she just invited me to play. And that's very different.

And so I felt really good. I love the scarves one, you know, I mean, I'm going like this, I could be Oh, anything, you know, and it's like, again, sort of like acting, you know, it's all those pieces, it's allowing me to emote.

Maia
That's so cool. Erica, I was thinking about, well, Rae, I was thinking about what you said about scribbles and doodles. But I want to turn to Erica and ask if there's other maybe movement exercises that would be like scribbles and doodles for the body that you've maybe done in the past? Am I inferring that correctly?

Erica
Yeah, I don't know if Rae and I actually did this one. But just in general, I've done interventions where different parts of your body are the pen, you know, so if you know, you don't want to use your fingers, per se, can you write with your nose? We've done interventions where an example would be like, write your name with your body, not necessarily your body as the letters, but how would you draw, you know, or sign your name, using your body?

Speaking of painting, you know, a wonderful intervention, not specific to dance therapy, but we use quite a bit, is either making your body the canvas, or using the space around you as the canvas. And this idea of kind of covering your body or the floor with as much like, quote, paint as possible. And I think I did that many years ago, just in dance class, you know, and then connecting it to like, emotions and flexibility of the body, flexibility of the mind. One of my groups I did with seniors many years ago, I invited them to use their fingers as paintbrushes.

We didn't have paint, it was all imagination. But their canvas was the air in front of them. And they just got to paint, move to the music.

And it was beautiful, because like some people that were maybe much older, pretty far into their dementia, the imagination just soared, like their cognitive potential just increases so much, simply by moving, rewiring parts of the brain, allowing neurons to fire. And you would have someone that was so confused, so anxious, all of a sudden telling you about this one very specific memory, when they met their loved one, and we're in a boat, and this is the scene that she's painted. It was just like, you can't make this stuff up.

I'm sure some writers could, but like, I can't, I'm just witnessing it. So yeah, it's just lovely.

Rae
I know for me, I did something similar with dance, I'd have people dancing their seats, use their fingers, you know, or they're conducting the orchestra.

There's so many ways our body for healing and giving people autonomy over themselves that we don't think about, you know, so I get it. We've actually talked about doing a program together, but it didn't happen yet. But it's that kind of thing, because I think there's so much synchronicity between whatever the arts are, if it's music, if it's singing, if it's, you know, writing and being a poet, you know, all of that, it is a way to express our most authentic selves.

And we can tap into it, you know, so deeply by micro movements sometimes, you know, it's like, yeah, you know, when this one where I have people come up and duct, I talked about, oh, God, now I'm drawing a blank on it. But yeah, I'd have to come up and I'd have them, I'd be singing a poem the whole time, you're conducting the orchestra on this, you're going to Z like Zorro or whatever, you know, and you're making it up. But they, their energy, just soared, you know, in this conference, and it made such a difference in their ability to listen to stay present. And I think that's much of the work Erica does, she allows us to be present to what's going on.

Maia
Yeah, that's so important. And I do want to make the distinction because I'm the host of the casual dance teachers podcast, that's our audience that we're speaking to.

And the last thing that I want to do is put information out there like under the guise of "Oh, anyone can call themselves a dance movement therapist after listening to this podcast, right?" Like this is just a little taste of what you guys do. And we're just not in a place to be diagnosing or treating. However, we also want to have an awareness of the benefits that we can offer to the students and the places that they're coming from.

And the fact like Rae, you said, sometimes you would leave your sessions like totally drained. And sometimes you'd be really energized. And I think dance students can have such a similar experience.

And they're, they're carrying everything with them from the day from their past experiences. So I do, in a sense, want to offer some kind of little taste for dance teachers that are listening, how they can take a trauma informed approach without overstepping the boundary into what needs to be treated from like a clinical professional perspective. So maybe Erica, can you start by offering a little bit advice? What can we do in the classroom without overstepping that?

Erica
Sure. So I so appreciate these conversations, because well, for lots of reasons. Mostly, I think it's so important that we either know or we remember that when we move the body, things are going to come to the surface, you know, and so it's not always about a dance teacher, knowing what to say, or even taking on, like you said, that role of, hey, what's going on, and then pausing the entire class, right? Because one student is having a difficult time. But recognizing that if a student isn't performing to what they believe is their best ability, or something they've seen before, that it can signal some emotional stress, right? Or what I call like dis-ease.

And it's hard, because a lot of students will mask pain, or they'll push through it. So oftentimes, from a teacher, it's really about building that trust, and like building that rapport. So I don't even know that it's about like a specific intervention, but can you find a way to let your students know that you care about them as a person, not just as a dancer? And that's hard.

I mean, like, I've been in lots of dance classes myself, and lots of different teachers, and some of them could care less about anything else, I hate to say that, but like, than my dance ability. So one of the things I love to tell dance teachers is like, can you provide the opportunity to check in with your students as people, not just as dancers, at the very beginning? Maybe it's a question, you know, not just how was your day, but I have one teacher actually now is an adult dancer. She started asking questions like, what's your favorite this? And then lastly, I think it's really important that dance teachers stay connected to their own body.

You know, are you practicing? Do you have your own movement practice? How many dance teachers don't have the time to take dance themselves? You know, so if there's some movement practice that you can do for yourself, so that you stay connected to your body, it will inevitably help you empathize with your students when their body is not feeling like their friend. Yeah, thank you so much. Yeah, no, I'm so excited that you shared all that.

Maia
Thank you. Rae, I'm going to turn to you. And you can absolutely speak to that as well. I also wanted to ask just about like the spaces with your background, maybe you can provide a little insight of first stepping into a space. I know, especially for first time students, regardless of their background, like the dance studio can be very intimidating, having all those mirrors and your body reflected back to you, like so, you know, all across the front of the room, a lot of times, can you talk a little bit about the spaces of dance studios? Like what would make that a safe place for people? What would make people feel comfortable and any other insight that you have on the topic?

Rae
Yeah, that's really interesting. I happen to have my granddaughter, who's 14, is, you know, she's been serious about ballet for a long time.

And she's been on toe for a year. And so she just got mono. So she had to drop out and she can't be a nutcracker.

And you know, and how she's trying to cope with that. But the idea about learning to love your body, and when the mirror is there is very scary, especially if you have looked at your body, and you say, Oh, my God, you know, this is horrible. Look at me, I don't love you.

There's nothing about love. And one of the things I talk about is having affirmations. You know, you could provide a sheet with some beautiful affirmations, but I love the way my body moves with ease and grace.

I love the fact that I have the energy to dance to do whatever I'm here to do. So you're focusing on the positive. And at one point, I also used to do with some of my students when we were talking about body image and stuff, was I had this little meditation I created, imagining you were Alice going down the rabbit hole and kind of thing.

And you took the thing where you're really small. How does that feel? What does that look like? What happens to your body? Or then when you get big again, or you're that, you know, the giant size, what does that feel like for you? So there is some awareness about the differences. And we set so much on other people's opinions about us, you know, how many of us were told, Oh, he's so beautiful, he only lost weight, or, you know, those kinds of things.

And I think dance is that opportunity to get to a lot of core issues. But I think that if you're really going to do that, you have to start, you know, like Erica said, get to know who you who's in your class. And if you don't know them personally, you don't know what's happening or why they're there.

I've been taking this art class and I was talking it turns out one of the women is a dance teacher at the local place by me. And so we're talking about her dance background, you know, you're so many ways to introduce dance as something fun, as well as therapeutic in some ways, you know, Erica, to me was therapeutic in the beginning, but then it was also fun. And I think that's finding that balance is a really good key.

So anybody, if you can work with Erica, you're blessed.

Maia
Oh, that's awesome.

Erica
It is it is difficult. Dance Movement Therapy is not necessarily exactly translatable to a dance studio. And so I was always very aware of whether or not I had mirrors. None of my internships had mirrors.

None of them were even in a dance studio. It was just a milieu, it was a nursing home, it was a hospital, a day program, something like that. The first time I ever had a mirror was when I was subleasing my own space at a yoga studio.

And I remember how important it felt to have the option to close or cover the mirrors. Because even though I'm a dance movement therapist, people coming in weren't necessarily identifying themselves as dancers. Or they were like, oh, you were, you know, paneled with my insurance company.

I didn't even know you were a dance therapist. What does that mean? You know, so that's another thing. I think even though we're used to dance studios having mirrors, maybe, you know, dance teachers can have that awareness that not every student is going to want to see what they look like.

And I remember in high school, not because of body image, but it was more like the brain and proprioception and getting the choreography down, having your students turn away from the mirror, you know, learn something with your back to the mirror, not just for brain health, but also for the opportunity. Like some kids can come alive when they don't have to see themselves dancing. And remember that when you're dancing on stage, you don't see it.

There was a beautiful video on like Instagram or something went viral where someone was literally like, we were never meant to see ourselves. We were not born into society with mirrors, right? There were reflections, but we know that water distorts the way we look. So, and our shadows can often distort our size.

So just keep that in mind that like a well-rounded dancer, even though with social media, it's a little different today, doesn't mean they have to be happy with seeing themselves perform. It's about how they convey the story or the expression, you know? So you can always try that, you know, but if a kid seems to be having a really difficult or student seems to be having a difficult time, it may be because of them seeing what's going on. And if you allow them to turn around or cover the mirror, they may show up very differently.

Maia
Yeah, that's a great point. And I also wanted to add something that came to mind to raise point about having affirmations because it reminded me that I had one teacher when I was growing up that would write on the mirrors, but would write like, point your toes, smile, you know, all the big corrections that she would always give. And I do wonder if we turn that around and we're writing like, you look great, have fun, give yourself a hand, whatever, like those affirmations on the mirror that might change things as well from a mindset perspective.

So yeah, lots we can do with the space itself without even having to like, take any class time to do a specific activity, just to make it more affirming.

Erica
Yeah, that's such a good point. Because honestly, I mean, hopefully someone listening can prove me wrong.

I don't know any dancers that automatically have the most confidence, even when we exude confidence, it oftentimes comes from a place of insecurity, right? We have to, I'm the best, I'm because I can't let you think that I'm anything less than the best, right? I can't show my fear, I can't show my insecurity. So how interesting that that actually feeds into those experiences, as opposed to let's build our dancers up. Actually, I just worked just impromptu with another dance therapist over the weekend, and we went to a studio and above the mirror were, now that you mentioned it, affirmations, but they had nothing to do with dance.

It was like, you are beautiful. You have energy. One was like, you are strong.

None of them were like, your toes are beautiful. Your form is amazing. Look how strong, you know, look how flexible you are.

It was beautiful. So yeah, maybe we should be doing that more often, too. Or have the students create them, you know? What's something you need to hear, right? What's that makes you feel secure, or like you could go out there and do anything? You know, that's so empowering to have it come from the students, too.

Maia
Yeah, awesome stuff. And I'm looking at the time, I'm like, wow, this has flown. And it's been just a little teeny tiny taste.

So for those that are hungry to dive in and get more, I want to hear from both of you. Let's start with Rae. Can you just tell us a little bit more about where folks can connect with you that are listening?

Rae
I have a website, www.RaeLuskin.com. And it's R-A-E-L-U-S as in Sam, K-I-N.

I also have a substack called the Creative Activist Turning Pain to Purpose. I've created a series of interviews with different people who've used tools like Erica, and people who have come forward and said they're survivor and advocate. It's about healing tools.

So you'll get a lot of articles there about other possibilities that you can try for yourself if you're healing. And I also on Facebook and LinkedIn, those kind of things. So yeah.

Maia
Fantastic. And Erica, I'll turn to you too. But I just wanted to mention that I will put these links for both of you in the show notes because you know, people listening, I'm sure are going to be overwhelmed with all the resources. So I'll pop those in there. Erica, how can people connect and learn more from you?

Erica
Yeah, similar to Rae, I have a website. It is also my name, EricaHornthal.com. I do tend to be most active on Instagram. So for any of you listening that are really into social media, you can connect with me there.

My handle is The Therapist Who Moves You. And I always encourage people like direct message me, reach out. That's my favorite part of social media.

It's not the actual content, even though that's fun sometimes. But the actual relationships that you can build from just having the platform there. So all the information is on any of those website, phone number.

So if you are intrigued or want to hear more about what what I do, feel free to reach out.

Maia
Beautiful. Thank you both so much. And before we finally close things out, and I'll open this up to whoever whatever order if you both have one or a couple or just one of you. Do you have a favorite quote related? Well, normally I say related to dance. I think this conversation goes a little bit even beyond that. So just a favorite quote related to our conversation in any way.

Rae
I loved Twyla Tharp's book. I can't give you a quote.

But it's about the vision that she carries forward about moving in our bodies. I use that and just about being creative in general. You know, because she talks about creativity and all the aspects of dance.

And I love that. Whether it is the choreography, the music, you know, the movement itself. So I don't have the quote, but I did love her book.

Maia
Yeah, no, that's great. Thank you.

Erica
Right? Yeah, quotes are always challenging for me.

I like remember them. And then, you know, unless I write them down, I forget them. But one that has been drilled in my brain since I started my master's program as a dance therapist many years ago now is a Martha Graham quote, you know, and she said dance is the language of the soul.

It's kind of the barometer, right, telling the soul where to go in a sense, but dance is the language of the soul has always stuck with me because it Yeah, it is for me. You know, it's like, I feel sad, I dance, I'm happy, I dance, I'm anxious, I dance. Yeah, I was like, it's the only thing that gets me back center.

Absolutely.

Maia
Yeah, that's awesome. Thank you so much. Do either of you have anything else that you wanted to add? Oh, yeah.

Rae
Yeah, I just found the quote. "Art is the only way to run away without leaving home."

"Creativity is an act of defiance." These are the things that I loved about what she said and just made such a huge difference in my own life. So thank you.

Maia
And you know, I can't stop. Okay. But I was just talking to another dance educator, actually.

And she had mentioned like, well, our, our body is truly our home. And so that idea of you can't run away from it. So let's, let's dance in it.

Erica
That's perfect. Can I offer one last thing that just kind of popped into my mind that, yeah, I'm actually just speaking to the dance teacher or students, maybe you have kids, you know, people that are listening that are like, Oh, I want to become a dance teacher. I'm going to give a little bit of a shameless plug for dance therapy.

That, um, personally, I grew up dancing, but it was not in the cards for me to teach dance or to be a performer. And that's actually how I found dance therapy. So for anyone listening, that's not finding their groove as a dance teacher, not feeling like they're called to perform, explore the world of dance movement therapy.

You might be surprised, you know, at like how much, especially if you love helping people and mental health, but not like too much of the, you know, clinical, I mean, it can be very clinical, but it can be more expressive. I just felt like I needed to give a little bit of a plug because that's how I found it. You know, I was kind of guided into dance and maybe education.

And then someone was like, you should be a dance therapist. I was like, okay, sold. So anyone listening that kind of resonates, it's not even, you can, you can do it in your fifties, sixties.

I knew so many, so many people that it was their second and third career, you know? So it's not something you have to feel like, oh, I'm past, I'm past that age. It's, it's such a, such an open field for any, any age.

Maia
That's great. Thank you. Thank you for the moment, the time. Well, with that, I think we'll wrap it up. Thank you both again so much.

I really, really appreciate your sharing with us and I am looking forward to sharing it with the listeners as well.

Erica
Yeah. Thanks so much for having us.

Rae
Thank you so much.

Maia
Thank you so much, everyone for listening.