Our body collects memories, impressions and experiences. During our life it is inevitable that we run into disappointing and small or big traumas which is being reflected in our psychological and physical attitude. Dance therapy makes use of all these different events. The way back is treated in dance therapy: in this process clients re-focus themselves on their original longings. By dancing and moving they are able to recognize patterns, to make them explicit and ultimately transform themselves. Once something has been experienced and lived through in this way, it penetrates deep into our consciousness and then continues to work in daily life. As a result, frozen movements become more fluid and we start to feel better as a result.

Overcoming blockades

During her study of the Indian temple dance (Bharatanatyam) Sadhana Meijer-Gopalrai discovered how her own emotional blockades got in her way, complicating to move both body and mind in the required direction. It was a long way to overcome these. Her advanced studies, movement expression and dance therapy, helped her to overcome these blockades and become more freely in dance. In this way she was also able to help others. You can see her students / fellow dancers on the most recent films on the page ‘Analysis of movement and dance’.
By refining her own movements, the result became visible over time, especially in the performance of the temple dance, but also in the transformations in her daily life that allowed the energy to flow fully again.

Following up on these studies and also as a further deepening, Sadhana is at the moment looking for new creations based on dance. That is why she now wants to introduce this form of an unique dance therapy, based on and derived from the principles of Indian temple dance, in the Netherlands.

Which parts of the brain are affected by dance?

The image below intuitively sketches how dance has worked through Sadhana’s brain in the performance. She has also observed this effect among her own students.