Art Therapy

One thing that really interested me while I was doing my research was the practice of art therapy. Anna Halprin has made a career in art therapy, specifically using dance as a form of healing. I wanted to know more about art therapy so I researched a little more and found that healing art is actually a very popular thing. The art used can be visual, from 2D things like painting and photography, to 3D like sculpting. Performance art is also used a lot, especially with patients who are having problems with the movement or control of their own body. Art therapy can also be used to help people overcome mental blocks, such as certain fears or grief for a lost loved one.



Anna puts a lot of stock into this kind of therapy because she has whitnessed first hand the power of it. As I have already talked about, dance is obviously a very powerful life force. The same can be said about other forms of art. The practice of art therapy is a very valid and real practice, used at some of the top phsychological institutions. Anna has dedicated the rest of her life to using it, she writes on her website:

"I have an enduring love for dance and its power to teach, inspire, heal and transform. I’ve spent a lifetime of passion and devotion probing the nature of dance and asking why it so important as a life force. I find great excitement in sharing my deep love of dance with ordinary and diverse people. Their unique creativity inspires me to make dances that grow out of our lives. I want to integrate life and art so that as our art expands our life deepens and as our life deepens our art expands.

As I sit on the bench overlooking my dance deck, a flood of questions arise. What next? Where am I going? What is my work now that I am eighty-seven? What do elders in other cultures do? Teach the young, heal the sick, care for the land, hold the rituals, speak with the ancestors, and maintain the family. I take all these actions, and call upon the spirits, wherever they may be, whatever that might mean, and however they may appear, to lead me further into this evolution of dance to which I have committed my life. I continue to believe in the shining potential set forth by all of this work, in its evolution from rebellion to expansion to community to healing and back again to the natural world."

Anna's Impact

One main thing that I really admire about Anna Halprin is that she has always accepted her individual aesthetic. She has never tried to be something that she's not and I really like that about her. When everyone in the dance world was going one way, she went completely in a different direction. This is really important to me because I really feel like I am still trying to find my personal aesthetic. I really admire her confidence in what she does, and I hope that one day I have the same confidence to practice my aesthetic without inhibition.

Throughout my research, I have found that Anna Halprin's approach to dance, and to life, is incredibly unique. Anna believes so much in the power of dance that she has dedicated her later years to using it to help the elderly and the sick. She herself believed so much in dance that she went into remission from cancer that doctors said she would not be able to recover from. Although it may be different reasons for everyone, I think we all to some extent believe in the power of our dancing. I think every dancer knows that their movement has the ability to convey ideas, to change people's moods, and even to heal. Dancing can make us feel better even on the worst of days. There is no feeling in the world that comes close to the feeling that you get after dancing your best at a fun combination in class, or the feeling that you get as you step onto a stage. We have all felt it, and I think that Anna really uses this idea in a lot of her work, which is why I like and respect her so much.

In Context

The work that Anna Halprin has done over her long career has always been steeped in social and historical context. Many of her dances include commentary on social issues that she felt strongly about. Being Jewish has had an impact on her dances, from a young age she was inspired by her heritage, especially by her traditionally Jewish grandfather. She used to watch her grandfather rock back and forth as he prayed to God, she remembers thinking "I thought God was a dancer". She has stated that her dance company that she formed in the 1960's was very influenced by her Jewish heritage, because it was one of the only multiracial companies at the time. She has always accepted other races and religions, she herself growing up in a community that was not particularly accepting of her Jewish roots.



Anna's time spent at college also had a big influence on her work. Her husband Lawrence Halprin was a well known social activist, and they were both involved in political activism. Her dances have reflected her passion for equality of everyone, saying "I danced for the fun of it. I danced to rebel. I danced with my children. I danced for social justice," Halprin says in the film. "We broke as many barriers as we possibly could."

In her older years, she began to back away from what was popular in modern dance. Many people criticized her for this because they said that she was in the prime of her career, and instead of making dances that probably would have been well recieved, she decided to take another direction. She began to experiment with improv and other forms of dance that at the time were not as popular as some of the other forms at the time. She was very interested in nature, her dance lab being an outdoor deck that her husband built her in the woods around their San Francisco house. Still though, Anna remained interested in including social comentary and popular culture into her works, keeping her pieces relevent in an ever changing community.

History

Born in 1920, Anna Haplrin began her dance training at the age of 15, studying the styles of Ruth St. Denis and Isadora Duncan (see some of Isadora Duncan's dancing here). However, she quickly became bored with these styles; her teacher and mentor Margaret H'Doubler, a professor at the University of Wisconson, often encouraged Halprin's individual aesthetic, emphasising individuality within movement quality. While in college, Anna began to experiment with improversation, she became interested in using improv to for a community. Also while attending University of Wisconson, Anna met the man who would be her husband, Lawrence Halprin. Lawrence is a well known architect and landscape artist who is also very interested in working with nature and the natural landscape.

The two moved to moved to San Francisco where Laurence built Anna an outdoor dance deck, something that has become an icon of the prolific artist. Here she held classes in improversation, forming her own technique that had roots in nature and everyday life. She was very interested in anatomy and using the natural design of the human body. She also wanted to explore the idea of community dance, and in 1955 established the San Francisco Dancers' Workshop. It was a groundbreaking time for postmodern dance. This festival provided a place for dancers to work on their own personal style of dance, underscored by Anna's techniques in improv. The workshop was a success, and Anna began to look into dance as a communal healing form.

Anna's theory on dance is that it is more than just movement of the body, but is actually a force that can make things happen. At one point in her life, Anna developed cancer. The outlook looked grim, but she believed so much in the healing power of dance that her cancer eventually went into remission. She continues to work outside with nature and abstract ways of exploring movement. She has been inspired as well as an inspiration to people like Trisha Brown, Yvonne Rainer, and composer John Cage. 

In the words of her own husband, " she has reverted to the early meaning of dance in human society, joyful and healing as well as tragic, and based on the most primitive needs of the human condition. These dances are universal."