Creative approaches to mental and physical health

Creative approaches to mental and physical health are gradually being incorporated into the mainstream. The Move4Parkinson’s organisation (M4P) partnered up for the summer school with Dance Ireland and Kildare County Council, and Parkinson’s patients took part in sessions throughout the week.

“With Parkinson’s it’s like you’re trapped in your body. It’s like living in a shrinking phone box,” says a 65-year-old Dublin mother of two who took part in the programme and attends classes run by Dance Ireland for people with Parkinson’s. She did not want her name used. “With dance, you get back into your body in a fresh and new creative way.”

By challenging her mind and body, she says, dance fosters expansive thinking that can help the body better cope with the condition. “You see there’s another way of doing a certain movement, and that opens up possibilities in the mind. It’s a complete other level of functioning, of using the imagination – even how you move around your home. You can find new ways of doing things because your mind has been challenged. The body is a great pal of the mind when they work together.”

She is full of praise for both M4P – “they saved my life” – and professional dancer Ailish Claffey, curator of the summer school. In what is seen as a major breakthrough in closening ties between the health and arts sectors, she was named dancer in residence at Tallaght hospital, working with the National Centre for Arts and Health at its age-related unit.

“She’ll suddenly get you to do a move you’re not expecting,” says the Parkinson’s patient. “It’s incredibly liberating mentally. Those sudden movements – that fries your chips!”

According to Claffey, “There’s something healing about dance without it being dance movement therapy. The act of moving together – always together – gives a sense of community in a group that is often not able to express or articulate so much. But what touch can offer is worth, for me, more than a million words. Dance creates bridges where words are not enough.”

Claffey stresses the professional dance element of the summer school and in her own teaching to Parkinson’s patients. “Sometimes the word ‘community’ can make it seem dumbed down. I don’t dumb anything down. When I give classes, I teach a professional class – it’s art. Sometimes community work is seen as distinct from professional work. This is professional.”

Lucina Russell, county arts officer at Kildare County Council, says the summer school is always open to the public, and that integration is a crucial part of the process. "It's really important to us that the public are included. It helps not to just focus on a medical condition, but that you're bringing in a wider understanding, and people's perspective changes."

The Parkinson's patient, who was a member of the M4P Voices of Hope choir that hit the charts with Something Inside So Strong, did the mini-marathon this year. "Next year I plan to dance it," she says.