January 14th, 2026
The connection we seek beyond can be cultivated within. The concept of connection is of great relevance to dancers. As movement educators, we use metaphor to help students make somatic connections between concepts that may initially seem disparate (e.g., pull up out of the floor; move from your center line; feel your pinky in your scapula; reach from your back body—you get my point). Any teacher worth their orthotics understands how to use metaphor to deepen a dancer’s relationship with their instrument. Dancers are steeped in the vernacular of connection from early in their professional training, which allows them to cross-pollinate the physics of movement with the poetry of expression.
In my clinical work, I have witnessed the value of the vernacular of connection and its ability to translate to the general population. A couple of years ago, while working with a client who had residual hemiplegia in their upper extremity following a CVA experienced many years earlier, I observed a marked difference in their response to somatic, artful prompts compared to typical clinical descriptions and directions. The client recognized a meaningful change, evidenced by a newfound reserve of function that allowed for increased range of motion in the affected extremity, decreased spasticity, and improved muscular tone. The combination of therapeutic tactile cues too, very similar to how I would assist a dancer to identify an initiation point for a movement, provided additional understanding and an improved somatic response.
Much of my thesis, as an interdisciplinary curious arts/health professional who operates from both artistic and clinical points of view, is to validate the importance of autonomous collaboration between artists and clinicians and to stimulate further exploration across the two fields. Too often, I have witnessed protocols developed by content experts—such as dancers and movement artists—be quickly assimilated by clinicians and disseminated to various population groups without sustained collaboration. Equally discouraging is the reverse: when artists adopt and share clinical interpretations without an understanding of the foundational science behind those findings. It is in the shared interest of both artists and clinicians to remain autonomous yet equal, and to inspire and support one another through our distinct expertise and lived experience. Progress achieved through interdisciplinary collaboration is invaluable and constitutes the most important connection of all.
For a bit more, wet your whistle here.
-tennille
Image: Martha Graham and Eric Hawkins; photo credit: Barbara Morgan
Only a dancer can do that 