Am J Dance Ther DOI 10.1007/s10465-014-9167-4 NARRATIVES
The Legacy of Norma Canner Nancy G. Beardall • Anne Brownell • Nancy Jo Cardillo • Priscilla Harmel • Shira Karman • Vivien Marcow-Speiser • Donna Newman-Bluestein • Elizabeth McKim Deborah Smulian-Siegel
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American Dance Therapy Association 2014
Abstract This article traces Norma Canner’s life and development as a pioneer and leader in the field of dance/movement therapy through the lens of her former students to whom she was a mentor and dear friend. Norma’s legacy is discussed highlighting her seminal early intervention work with children, her commitment to social activism and her expansive international work. Norma’s interest in the natural world evolved through many projects in the latter part of her career while her teaching and practice remained constant. Norma’s presence reverberates in the lives and work of all those who witnessed her great spirit. Keywords Expressive therapies Embodied Social action performance Voice movement therapy
Introduction Norma Canner was a teacher, mentor, dance/movement therapy (DMT) pioneer, and one of the original faculty members of the Expressive Therapies Division at Lesley University. She was honored as Professor Emerita at Lesley University as an educational innovator and social activist. Norma embodied what we as dance/ movement therapists understand and recognize. Her unique contributions to DMT N. G. Beardall (&) N. J. Cardillo P. Harmel S. Karman V. Marcow-Speiser D. Newman-Bluestein E. McKim Lesley University, Cambridge, MA, USA e-mail:
[email protected] A. Brownell International Association for Voice Movement Therapy, Oak Bluffs, MA, USA D. Smulian-Siegel Lahey Hospital & Medical Center, Burlington, MA, USA
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included the use of the creative process, relational connection, playfulness, deep respect for her clients, integration of voice and movement, and a love of nature. Throughout her life Norma experienced and celebrated life fully. This article presents perspectives on the life of a prominent pioneer of DMT collaboratively written by nine of her students to honor Norma Canner’s vast legacy in the field of dance/movement therapy.
Background Norma was the first Dance/Movement Therapy Coordinator in the Expressive Therapies Division at Lesley College and began teaching in 1973. She was an inspired pioneer who brought the work to Lesley College, Cambridge, Massachusetts and established a legacy that has spread nationally and internationally through the generations of dance/movement therapists she trained and successively through the generations who trained thereafter. Norma, born in Brookline, Massachusetts, began her career as an actress and studied with Barbara Mettler. She moved to Toledo with her husband and two children and found herself teaching creative movement to women where a psychologist told her she was practicing dance/movement therapy. She had not heard of DMT and inquired, ‘‘What was that?’’ Norma continued to pursue her studies in dance and psychology and worked briefly with Marian Chace and Irmgard Bartenieff. Eventually she and her family found their way back to Cambridge, MA. In the 1960s, Norma started her pioneering work beginning the creative movement program for the Massachusetts Department of Mental Health for pre-school children. Norma trained teachers and psychotherapists in the work. This program would pave the way for early intervention work with young children. Norma taught at Tufts University and the Harvard University Summer School of Dance. In 1973, Lesley College offered an innovative, vibrant, and creative program
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in the Expressive Therapies. At that time Norma embraced and explored all of the art forms but using dance, movement, voice, and rhythm was her passion. One of Norma’s strengths was how she connected to her students, clients, children, and the world around her. Norma was a relationally responsive teacher and person encouraging all to explore and allow their dance to emerge out of their natural movement and the use and integration of voice and sound. She had great respect for all, believing in their individual expression and the creative process within each individual. Norma approached life with a willingness to observe the very familiar with an attitude of openness and freshness. In this way, she was always willing to appreciate the range of human emotions and experiences, witnessing life with reverence and deep respect.
International Work In the early days of the Lesley program, students were attracted to the vibrancy of the core faculty, including Shaun McNiff (the program’s founder), Norma Canner, Paolo and Mariagnese Knill, Joe Powers, and Peter Rowan. At this time, there was a culture of collaboration, experimentation, and freedom in exploring the expressive arts therapies. Early students forged ahead and created new approaches, new training sites in the field, and went on to create new possibilities for training students in other countries. The reputation of the primary faculty attracted many international students to the program. Soon after graduation, several of the international students returned to their home countries and became instrumental in the development of expressive therapy programs in international sites. Norma was highly supportive of these international efforts. In December 1979, she visited Israel where Vivien Marcow and Yaacov Naor were in the process of establishing the Arts Institute Project in Israel. The program, in affiliation with Lesley University, has continued since that time and 34 years later is transitioning into an Israeli College. Norma’s visit and teaching in 1979 was pivotal to the development of that program. In 1981, Phillip Speiser, another of the early Lesley graduates established the Scandinavian Institute for Expressive Arts in Gothenburg, Sweden and Norma began to travel to teach in this program from 1982 to 85. She trained several of the early generations of expressive therapists in these countries and helped to mold and shape the training community through her ability to mobilize large groups of people in moving together. Her keynote address at the Nordic Conference on Expressive Arts in Gothenburg in 1985 raised awareness of the importance of the arts for individuals with disabilities. A number of individuals presenting at this conference, including Gunnel Enby, Goran Muhlert, Agneta Alstrom and Phillip Speiser were inspired by Norma and her late husband Leonard Canner, who had served on the board for Very Special Arts Massachusetts. These individuals then went on to form the first board of trustees for Very Special Arts Sweden, the affiliate program to Very Special Arts at the Kennedy Center in Washington DC. Norma’s joie de vivre
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was evident in this work and photos from this period show her sensitivity and playfulness in action. In 1983, Norma was joined by Vivien Marcow in leading the on campus DMT program as Norma moved toward retirement from the Lesley campus in Cambridge. At this point Norma’s international reputation was firmly established and as was typical, in the last core group, more than half the students were international, coming from Germany, Switzerland, Israel, and Japan. After retiring from Lesley in 1986, Norma continued her contacts with students and alumnae from around the world and continued to engage in teaching, private practice, travel and consultation. She had already attained a national and international reputation for her pioneering work and approach (Marcow, 1990). After being introduced to the new discipline of Voice Movement Therapy by Anne Brownell in 1994, Norma, at age 75, became a supervisor, visiting teacher, and adviser for the first Foundation Training program in South Africa. Thus Norma’s interest and enthusiasm for engaging with new ideas and approaches and her love of the human voice came to inspire a whole new community of professional people in various parts of the world. As a testament to her international work and reputation, The European Graduate School in Switzerland awarded Norma a Citation for Lifetime Achievement in the Field of Expressive Arts Therapy. Norma Canner was dearly beloved by her students from around the world and her legacy continues into the present. Norma Canner’s approach and the continuing work of those she trained transcend boundaries, affirm the human spirit, and will continue to have a global impact for generations.
Perkins School for the Blind Norma’s early work in DMT began with working with children with developmental disabilities. Norma was the flame and pivotal force attracting the community with the largesse of her being. As her students, we all moved with and around her. She supported each student in finding a distinct path and we knew that she would stand behind us in the work we did. Norma validated each of her students’ own choices and the development of our own distinct voices and approaches, be it movement, psychodrama, music, art, etc. We all moved with her at Perkins School for the Blind in 1976 where she and Elizabeth McKim, the poet, worked together with sound and movement, which was an integral element of Norma’s approach to working with the body. By her own example as a role model, Norma facilitated individual growth and expression through her steadfast belief in our emergent capacities. She began a partnership with the Perkins School for the Blind in Watertown in the mid-1970s where Lesley University DMT students train into the present day. The Perkins School opened its doors in 1832. When Norma arrived, almost 150 years later, the students in attendance were generally affected by multiplehandicaps in addition to vision impairment. The DMT graduate students then and now carry on her goal of generating expressive confidence through play and dance.
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Norma gave permission to trust play as a basic tenet of our field. Norma would tell us, ‘‘When the child is present, healing takes place.’’ So whether working with a child speaking through the metaphors of play or an adult re-learning to trust her intuition and initiative, Norma taught us first hand that play had a healing place in dance/movement therapy. Unlike water and oil, she would tell us, joy and sorrow are allowed to mix in therapy. Since then, many articles have been written across the educational and therapy domains about the importance of playful learning and play in and as therapy. One way Norma achieved this goal was by drawing from her background in improvisation for theatre and creative dance. This interchangeable flow between dancing and playing is part of the conceptualization of Norma’s work at The Perkins School. As a dance/movement therapist, Norma embodied play while keeping the dance in dance/movement therapy. A primary goal of the Perkins groups was for the children to leave the session with a new sense of what it meant to be present in their bodies. This could begin by simply paying attention to the body in a new way, by spontaneously initiating a gesture and having it accepted and reflected back, or by the release, natural momentum or synchrony achieved through rhythm or breaking through an inhibition. Norma, with her sense of humor and contagious energy, invited participation where there might otherwise have been hesitation or resistance. She chanted and sang, used body percussion and drumming to create the circle and warm-up. She modeled how to connect space kinesthetically through rhythm tapped or stamped into the floor or with props she found in nature, the hardware store, or made herself. She encouraged children to move out into the far reaches of their kinesphere and experiment as much with strong, percussive movement, as with gentle and free movement. She stressed the use of control-release-control, emphasizing developmental progressions leading towards and away from dynamic releases of breath, voice, movement, and emotion. There were times when the gym vibrated with the collective energy of the group! Since the graduate training program challenged students to connect with their own emotions, Norma demonstrated how most people wouldn’t express their emotions unless they knew how to bring them back under control. One thing that can distinguish vision-impaired children from their sighted peers, particularly in their play, is feeling free in their bodies to fully, energetically, and purposely release into space. Over time, we students learned to sense and appreciate the inner world of our partners and their communicative style no matter how fleeting, recurring, or bold. We practiced kinesthetic empathy, mirroring, and vocal and rhythmic attunement as we built islands together of shared meaning within the larger container of the group. Eventually, the old gym in which we moved, took on a pattern of concentric circles of dancing duets and presence in play. It is one-dimensional to present a notion of childhood involving happy, carefree children leaping and twirling, when in reality that is not the childhood experienced by most children. Norma understood that, as the vignettes in her film (Brownell & Wilcoxen, 1998) and book, …and a time to dance (Canner, 1975) demonstrate many times over. She could at once switch gears from accompanying us on a
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journey of playful anticipation to one of soulful reverence or sorrow—felt all the deeper from having known the other. These are the ebbs and flows we acknowledge and value through our craft.
Mentorship Mentorship, group facilitation, and supervision were areas where Norma was a natural leader. She accepted these roles understanding the broad spectrum of responsibility and held herself accountable to her students. Norma believed that education for the next generation should ensure an environment where collaboration and peer support would enrich both the individual and the collective group. Norma believed individuals gravitate to places where they feel enriched and are stimulated when exploring collaborative ideas and shared accomplishments. Norma worked with her former students to explore the premise that a working group of cohesive individuals offers a more satisfying experience, by enhancing spontaneity and creativity, than when an individual works alone. Norma’s enjoyment in sharing her students’ work was contagious, and she seemed ageless when examining the clinical aspects of a case. She was forever curious and always present as a mentor. When work was discussed she never let an opportunity pass without reinforcing the importance of presence when ‘holding’ another’s pain.
Working with Nature Part of Norma’s full and deep engagement with life included a rich appreciation for and concern about the natural world. It meant she often took her students out of the studio and into nature. In doing so through movement, she helped students to feel the great story of life’s development from simple creatures through the evolutionary journey from invertebrates to vertebrates, fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals. Through movement, she helped students to feel how ontology recapitulates phylogeny, how our own individual developmental story reiterates much of the story of the evolution of life on earth. She had a deep appreciation for ecological concerns and saw the urgent need for us to care for our planet.
Vignette from Nature The last movement structure that Norma created at age 88 was one in which she asked her students, a gathering of mentees of more than 30 years, to experience the world of the polar bear. As we, her oldest students, moved with the experience of trying to survive on smaller and smaller ice flows, we could vividly feel the sense of the planet at risk and the need for action. It seemed to be one of the last messages Norma fervently wanted to communicate to those of us that she would leave behind.
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By putting ourselves back in contact with this world, we seek to recapture our child’s sense of wonder and the power of our creative self. Canner explained more fully this belief: As dance, art, music, and expressive therapists, the idea of wholeness and integration is a basic part of our work. Perhaps we can be agents of change for our troubled society and world by helping people move from isolation into connection with all living things. For the practice of healing through love using art, dance, and song is inherent in our very roots as human beings. (Canner, 1992, p. 129).
Lifelong Curiosity Norma was deeply and genuinely curious about life and about people, including her clients, students, and trainees. Her curiosity and unconditional acceptance created a space for people to share what was important to them. Because Norma was most interested in how people felt, how they experienced life, and how they interacted with others and the world around them, she offered them a full array of tools to express themselves, such as breath, movement, sound, and visual art. With her eyes wide and bright and a certain breathiness as she presented structures, props, or materials, it was as though she were asking each person, ‘‘Who are you? What do you want to do with these colors, this newsprint, and this waste paper basket? What sounds do you want to make? How do you want to play at this moment? What do you bring? What is your movement, breath, and rhythm? What shape do you want to make? What animal do you want to explore? What part of the body are you leading with? How does that make you feel?’’ Norma’s authentic interest and nonjudgmental attitude allowed people to freely explore and be curious about themselves and their environments. She encouraged clients to tap, scratch, beat, and caress objects. They often opened up revealing aspects of themselves long held secret. Norma did not impose her own aesthetic or belief system on others. Rather, she encouraged people to become aware of their choices and to contribute their choices to the larger synergistic whole. Norma modeled spontaneity and presence; her questions weren’t so much about what a person thought they knew about themselves, but rather, in a given moment, to be aware of their choices. She was often playful, laughing delightedly and responding in the moment to whatever was happening. She encouraged others to express big feelings and large sounds, or to stand their ground. Having a full spectrum of expressive movement and emotion herself, Norma could also see when a person was restricted in a pattern. She taught her students to see and to mirror what they saw and to stay present with their clients. For example, when the children at Perkins were rocking, she had her students rock continuously until, through observation, they sensed the slightest change. At those moments of readiness, she encouraged her students to help the children amplify, contrast, or deepen their selfexpression. Her curiosity continually invited everyone to be curious about
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themselves. Quite amazingly, she remembered their responses, often for decades. Norma’s attentiveness and acceptance were evident. When Norma was asked if she could work with people with specific disabilities or restrictions, her response was always, ‘‘I don’t know, but I could try.’’ Her humility and curiosity allowed her to work with clients and students without her ego getting in the way. After her students graduated, Norma created a study group with former students and peers so that all could continue to learn about group dynamics, body armoring and other subjects for exploration. That group continued to meet together for many years. The study group met together monthly to discuss the questions and issues that emerged in our practice as dance/movement therapists and to continue to develop in our personal journeys. Norma was our guide who skillfully facilitated this process of study. As we charted the different topics that would allow us to deepen our knowledge of DMT, one of the most striking aspects of this group over the years was Norma’s creative inspirational approach that modeled her ability to question and explore the therapeutic aspects of this domain. Norma was a strong presence but more importantly she had an uncanny wisdom and ability that emerged in relationship to whomever she was with. She created a space for each person’s voice as she encouraged and responded to the issues that we discussed. At the same time, there was a shared obligation among the members of the study group to be responsible for how we chose to navigate through the issues that emerged. One critical aspect was that we discussed the topics of concern and worked on moving together to explore the ways in which embodied knowledge informed us.
Dance/Movement Therapy in the Schools During the 1950s, Norma laid the groundwork for the early intervention program in Massachusetts for special needs children. Norma also believed in the role of DMT in schools for all children. ‘‘The time is ripe for us to begin to focus our efforts away from the medical model in the field of mental health….Dance Therapists need to work in the schools—both public and private—from preschool through high school’’ (Canner, 1992, p. 129). Norma’s methodology was a sensory-motor developmental approach that integrated dance/movement with all of the expressive arts to facilitate growth and change. She believed that the rhythm of breath and sound united us in dance, and that dance encouraged creativity and harmony in a personal, relational, cultural and spiritual sense. Dance encouraged children and adults to experience and celebrate life, feel joy, empathize and better understand each other, express individual inner states as well as that of the group. Norma believed dance was preventative, stimulating social/emotional growth and development. Norma led many workshops training educators in creative movement and expressive arts therapy approaches while respecting the teachers’ needs and challenges. She worked with teachers and her students in a mentoring/modeling
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style that allowed for experiential, theoretical, and creative application of DMT. Norma’s book…. and a time to dance, illustrates clearly through Klebanoff’s photography the child-centered manner in which Norma followed their lead allowing the child to explore and express (Canner, 1975). Norma created a safe and trusting space. Her style of connecting was contagious, her joy apparent, and her belief in the harmony and balance in life was ever present. As more dance/ movement therapists have found their way into schools, Norma would be pleased.
Social Activism Norma was always concerned with social action dating back to her involvement in civil rights. Norma was interested in the natural world, politics, how to make sense of it, and how to have a voice in response to what inevitably shaped the fabric of our lives. In the late 1990s, Norma, an avid reader, called some of us to come to her house and discuss the possibility of creating a dance piece based on an article she read in the New York Times about a Vietnamese woman who lost her son in the war and had been searching for his bones for over twenty years. This woman’s journey touched her very deeply and she felt it was a story that would provide a voice about issues that concerned her. Thus began our journey to bring this woman’s personal mission to life as a statement about the destruction that occurs in war, the pain and losses that can never be recovered. The atrocities of war, the not knowing, the remains scattered in a vast landscape was a void historically faced by countless families. This journey was inspired by improvisations that were guided through group discussions and Norma’s far-reaching vision. It resulted in a dance piece entitled ‘‘Bones of the Earth’’ which was performed in a number of venues including regional and national conferences. Norma had an innate power and the wisdom of a sage, and knew how to leap into the unknown, to investigate the creative unfolding landscape lying before and inside us. The driving force inside her was unrelenting. She was always ready to shape a space, to carve through the reality that we constructed in our daily lives, and to breathe and dance.
Poetry and Dance Norma loved poetry and saw language expression as an integral part of movement, sound, and music. She was an immensely generous presence, full of humor, spirited intelligence, and surprise; she understood the organic rhythm of language. The poet, Elizabeth McKim, followed Norma around for two years, took her classes, and worked at The Perkins School for the Blind along with her Lesley College students. This was the beginning of a lifelong relationship she had with Norma, where she was in her element, and Norma was her agile guide. McKim writes:
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An agile guide’s good When you cross a fragile bridge From here…to here…here… Norma’s work is based on belief in the body’s wisdom, the pleasure and power of the improvisational moment, knowing that one movement will lead inexorably to another and creative movement will interweave, integrate and inform, and out of this will spring the songs stories and poems that we call the oral tradition. In the spirit of the dance, the embodied dramatic material arrives, along with the conflict, the differing perspectives, defining moments and often problem solving. Yes the narrative arc like a rainbow of color, comes directly from movement, from non/verbal communication to the verbal naming and metaphoric revelation: the active verb and the lively noun leading into movement and message across culture and time from the roots of breath, silence and sound change and continuance, and rhythm and pulse.
Conclusion Lesley University’s Expressive Therapies Division and Dance/Movement Therapy Specialization is celebrating its 40th Anniversary. The DMT field is thriving and expanding in the 21st century both nationally and internationally. Norma’s presence is continually felt and her legacy is lasting. Norma’s light and life force are an important and vital aspect of her legacy that continued to thrive into her later years. Her humor, spirit, and brilliance served to endear her to all who had the good fortune to know her. Light emanated from Norma; that will forever prove to be a deep source of solace in whatever may lie ahead. Just as the Vietnamese woman who spent so many years in her search for the bones of her son, Norma never gave up in her search to touch the lives and spirits of the people she encountered and served to inspire. Norma’s legacy lives on in all of us and in the power of dance and the rhythms of life. References Brownell, I., & Wilcoxen, W. (Directors). (1998). A time to dance: The Life and work of Norma Canner [Motion picture]. Somerville, MA: Bushy Theater Inc. Canner, N. (1975). … and a time to dance. Boston: Plays Inc. Canner, N. (1992). At home on earth. American Journal of Dance Therapy, 14(2), 125–131. Marcow, V. (1990). An interview with Norma Canner. American Journal of Dance Therapy, 12(2), 83–93.
Nancy G. Beardall PhD, BC-DMT, LMHC, CMA is Associate Professor in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, and Dance/Movement Therapy Coordinator at Lesley University, Cambridge, MA. As a dance/movement
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therapist, consultant, Certified Movement Analyst, and educator, Dr. Beardall’s work has focused on the cognitive, social/emotional and relational development using dance, dance/movement therapy and the expressive arts in the public schools. Dr. Beardall has developed numerous curricula for middle and high school students focusing on the prevention of bullying, sexual harassment and teen dating abuse, promoting healthy relationships and making a difference in the school community. Her community building programs through the arts have involved students, parents and community members. Anne Brownell MA, LMHC, VMTR, is director of the Norma G. Canner Foundation for Voice Movement Therapy and teaches and supervises on the Foundation Training in Voice Movement Therapy: The Voice Unchained. After studying and working in the Expressive Therapies with pioneer dance therapist Norma Canner and noted clinician and author Penny Lewis, Anne’s search for the vocal component for a movement oriented therapy led her to be the first American to train in VMT with founder Paul Newham in London; to teach and supervise with him on trainings in both England and America; and to establish her own training program in the United States and South Africa. Nancy Jo Cardillo MEd, BC-DMT, LMHC, coordinates the undergraduate Art and Expressive Art Therapy programs at Lesley University. As core faculty she has taught courses on arts integration in education and therapy nationally, internationally, and on the Cambridge campus, including the Perkins School for the Blind for the graduate degree in Dance/Movement Therapy. In her professional practice, she regularly supervises interns and conducts dance/movement therapy groups for people of all ages with a wide range of physical, emotional and cognitive challenges. Priscilla Harmel MEd, BC-DTR is National Faculty in the Integrated Teaching through the Arts Program in the School of Education, Lesley University. Her focus on democratic schooling and equity for all students has served to guide her teaching. Since 2001 she has facilitated a monthly S.E.E.D. (Seeking Educational Equity and Diversity) Seminar for core and adjunct faculty at the university. She runs dance therapy groups at the Community Therapeutic Day School in Lexington, MA and works as an artist in residence and consultant for VSA Massachusetts. She has presented trainings in Mumbai, India to teachers and students for the NGO Mumbai Mobile Creches that provides daycare centers for the children of workers on construction sites in Mumbai as well as workshops in Peru and Brazil. Shira Karman MEd, BC-DMT, LMHC is an adjunct faculty member at Lesley University and at Cambridge College and has a private practice in Dance/Movement Therapy and Body-Centered Psychotherapy. She has consulted in psychiatric hospital settings, in early intervention and in educational settings, as well as with senior citizens. She has taught Dance/Movement Therapy workshops across the United States and abroad. Vivien Marcow-Spieser PhD, BC-DMT, LMHC, NCC is a Professor and the Director of The Institute for Arts and Health and National, International and Collaborative Programs in the Graduate School of Arts and Social Sciences, Lesley University. Her work has allowed her unparalleled access to working with groups across the United States and internationally. She has used the arts as a way of communicating across borders and across cultures and believes in the power of the arts to create the conditions for personal and social change and transformation. She is the author of many articles as well as co-editor of the Arts, Education and Social Change: Little Signs of Hope as well as the Arts and Social Change: The Lesley University Experience in Israel. Donna Newman-Bluestein MEd, BC-DMT, CMA, LMHC is a board certified dance/movement therapist, certified movement analyst and licensed mental health counselor. She is a senior lecturer at Lesley University and currently specializes and provides training and writes about DMT and embodied approaches to nonverbal communication with people with dementia.
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Elizabeth McKim MA, Poet Laureate, EGS is a poet-performer and teacher, well-known to Boston audiences and students of all ages. She works out of the oral tradition of song, story, and poem. She has published four books of poetry and has worked with countless children and teachers throughout the USA and internationally. She is Poet Laureate at the European Graduate School EGS and an adjunct faculty member at Lesley University in the Department of Creative Arts in Learning. Deborah Smulian-Siegel MSW, LCSW, BC-DMT, LCAT, LMFT, CGP is a social worker and dance/movement therapist at Lahey Clinic. Deborah’s practice & interests lie in the clinical aspects of pain as mitigated by movement and the quality of that experience for a range of populations. She currently supports oncology patients & their loved ones facing specific end of life choices with dignity, individuals in crisis and those impacted by trauma related incidents, both acute and chronic.
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