Day 11: The Body Freedom Workshop

The Body Freedom Workshop: A Dance Movement Therapy Workshop by Kolkata Sanved

On the 11th day of the 2021 Prajnya 16 Days Campaign Against Gender Violence, we organised a dance movement therapy workshop in collaboration with Kolkata Sanved.

Kolkata Sanved is a women-led pioneer in the field of dance movement therapy (DMT) for trauma healing and empowerment of marginalized populations who believe in using DMT as a tool to promote holistic well-being, enable individuals to be free from violence, abuse and exploitation and enhance the quality of life. The organisation's vision is to form a healthy, violence-free, gender-equal, creative society of empowered individuals and mission is to build an ecosystem for Dance Movement Therapy-for-Change across Asia, and to create leaders and changemakers in the field, especially from underprivileged communities. In an effort to achieve this, Kolkata Sanved is aiming to set up a Centre of Excellence on Dance Movement Therapy in India and South Asia. 

Dr. Sohini Chakraborty facilitated the session for us. Dr. Sohini is an  Ashoka Fellow, sociologist, dance activist, dance movement therapist, and is the Founder-Director of Kolkata Sanved. The Sampoornata approach has been developed under her leadership. She is an International Working Committee Member of Rise Learning Network, and Chair, Status and Development, World Dance Alliance, Asia Pacific.

We were also joined by Kolkata Sanved trainer Tilottama Chowdhury. Tilottama Chowdhury is one of the Founder Members and Senior Dance Movement Therapy (DMT) practitioners of Kolkata Sanved. She has been practicing DMT for the  last 12 years. She is skilled at working with different populations though her area of expertise which is using DMT for the trauma recovery process. She facilitates DMT workshops across the country and she is also a movement faculty of the Kolkata Sanved (KS) Leadership Academy and  KS Diploma in Dance Movement Therapy run in collaboration with the  Tata Institute of Social Sciences. Tilottama has also performed internationally with Kolkata Sanved. Her contribution in the social development has  been the development of  DMT practitioners and DMT leaders from the  grassroots. 

Dr. Sohini introduced participants to the idea of Dance Movement Therapy and how it can be used as a tool to connect with one's body. Tilottama Chowdhury then took over with an icebreaker for the group. Participants were asked to imagine themselves in a circle and to convey what kind of positive energy they wanted to bring to the group by engaging in a very brief activity.

The next activity involved participants using a vocalization technique to stimulate body activation/awareness. This included participants making several combinations of voices/sounds like singing, humming or breathing at varying frequencies while engaging different parts of their bodies.

The next stage of the workshop involved the use of instrumental music as auditory cues/simulation to evoke different emotions and allow the body to illustrate the same. This segment was broadly divided into 5 categories of energies: fluid, warrior, chaotic energy, poetic/aesthetic energy, and wisdom. A 3-5 minute music clip conveying each of these emotions was played in intervals with breaks where participants were urged to reflect on what each of the pieces made them feel/experience. 

Participants were then asked to share their reflections. The answers were overwhelmingly positive and a few participants even pointed out being pleasantly surprised by how the session made them feel.