Burying Shame and Lifting Souls; Washington Friends Emmy and V
Setting Your Soul Free
When I asked Emmy if she had witnessed dance as a healing process with others, her immediate response was, “Oh my gosh, yes!”
“When I moved to Arizona I tried branching out with different things. I met an art therapist who said if you move out here it sounds like you’re exactly what I need and who I need to meet. She talked about letting me use a space of hers and sending me clients.”
“I packed up pretty quickly and left my studio I had opened to one of my students.”
“And then that job fell through.”
“A job in the dance field at that point in the season was hard to find because everyone already started and everyone already had their teachers.”
Trust Me?
“I started researching dance studios and places that had a therapeutic vibe and came across Free Arts.“
“There is something really special about free arts.”
“Well, there are a lot of things but one of the things personally to me is that they have no questions about what I’m doing makes a difference of not.”
“I don’t have to prove myself.”
“They have total faith in my process.”
“And I love it.”
I Found it to be Beautiful
“I love teaching partnering and I really believe in using dance as a way to learn to receive and use dance as a safe touch.”
Emmy explained that she loved seeing those who had suffered trauma experience touch that was therapeutic rather than violent or sexual. Emmy said she found it to be beautiful.
“It’s important especially with this population.”
“Sometimes people brush up against me and I jump but then I dance and I love to lift people and have that connection in a safe space.”
“There’s no shame associated with it.”
“Your strength can be graceful and beautiful and be something you trust rather than something that you’re afraid of.”
Graceful Coping
“Dance is a great coping tool.”
“In general I feel like I’m a pretty good writer if I try but I do feel like I get over stimulated and do feel at times I have a hard time processing things. Especially movement for me, especially since a lot of my trauma has to do with my body, I’ve realized that creating is the key to help me share what I want to say.”
“I had a tumor when I moved to Arizona and have to have a hysterectomy. I am still always processing the fact that I will never give birth.”
“I have been creating dances based around motherhood.”
“I did a dance this past year with a little girl called phantom motherhood in which I let her do improv and I danced around her”
“The dance was based around grief and grace.”
Words vs. Actions
“I don’t know if people want to hear it…”
“Or know how to handle it…”
“Or want to…”
“People want to watch and they don’t have to react right away.”
“People are going to watch it and clap afterwards and not have to have a direct conversation and not know how to approach it.”
“Shame drives everything.”
“My life purpose has become to help people tell their life stories and release the shame.”
Free Arts
“I started with Free Arts in 2013 and done 4 summers of theater camp.”
I personally have been attending the Free Arts Theater Camp the past few years and got to see Emmy’s choreography this past summer before even meeting her.
The theater production opened with a freeze dance in which a pre-recorded voice would say phrases such as ‘freeze if you have been hurt by someone you love’ ‘freeze if you…’ etc. Emmy spoke of one group of teens in which every member of that group froze when the recording spoke of self-harm.
“I thought this group needs a chance to feel strong and feel good in their bodies and to show the pain that their bodies is always enduring and how it has bounced back from those moments.”
Showing Gratitude to Yourself
“There were also girls in that group that had major body image issues and they ended up being lifted. “
“One in particular was lifted and then as she was let down and her eyes welled up immediately.”
“I created this moment in at the end where they would just walk away and show appreciation to one part of their body.”
“They could pick and even face the back if they didn’t feel comfortable.”
“It was this really powerful moment and everyone participated by the time of the performance.”
Washington Kiddos
“In Washington my heart right now is working with these kids in juvenile detention, it’s a jail where they stay until they are sentenced to rehab centers.”
“It’s a place full of shame and guilt triggers where they sit there and constantly feel like their lives are worthless and no one cares.”
“Its important for them to know that their stories are important too.”
“I sat down with a small group and asked them if there was something they wish that I knew about them.”
What Would you Like me to Know?
“One of them said:
I just hope you know I’m not a monster.”
“We all have reasons for being the way we are.”
“Some don’t know how to healthily cope or don’t have as easy access to healthy coping as others.”
“I feel really lucky that I get to work with them and be inspired by them daily and also that I get to give them healthy coping tools.”
“Denny Juvinile Justice Center is the closest thing I’ve found to working with Free Arts here in that they’re kids. They’re just like any other kids.”
One Exception to the Rule
“They make choices with what they grew up with. If your older brother is in a gang and your dad is not around or working nights, that’s what your around that’s what you know.”
“One of the things about Denny that really gets me is that they have to walk down the hall with their hands behind their backs and there not allowed to have contact…
but they are allowed to dance.”
Showing Trust Through Dance
“I did duets with a few of the kids who have been there for a longer time.”
“One of them have been there for a longer time, after I did this dance with him I went out to lunch with coworkers and found out that in all the years he had been there he had never once had a visitor.”
“It hit me that all the people he has had in his life over the past few years he has not been able to have physical contact with…
“but then I did this duet with him and he flipped over my back and held my head and it was an opportunity for him to have safe touch and to show him that I trusted him.”
Is that Okay?
“The day of the performance he came up to me to give me a high five and I reached my arm around him and asked him is this okay. He smiled and said yes and hugged me.”
“We ended up hugging like five times that day.”
“One major difference between the two is that the community surrounding homeless youth like the youth that I work with in free arts, want to help them and want to see them succeed and do better and give them a lot of praise.”
“But that is not how things work for the kids in jail even though they are the same kids. I think it makes a huge difference that they get to dance.”
“I have this card that, that boy made me. ”
I just think, you have so much good in you that you would make me a card and draw hearts on it.”
“I think they truly know how much I really do love them and I think that makes a difference.”
“I wrote a full on letter to them and then audio recorded it and performed a dance to it. I printed out copies of it and a lot of the kids had them taped up in their cell.”
A Letter to the Youth Residing at Denney:
I know you’re here because you’ve caused harm. I know some times (or maybe one time), you’ve done something unsavory. But if you ask me how I’m doing at noon on a Tuesday, the love spilling off my tongue for you is sweet as the birthday cake your mother made to celebrate the day you entered her world. Maybe you didn’t get to taste it this year, but we are all praying you can feel the warmth of every candle still burning, waiting for you to make a wish. I know you’re here because there’s some wish that wouldn’t come true, some bit of the world that kept biting you, some angry local god that offered you something for nothing, but somehow nothing turned into everything. We are all wishing a better world for you. I will never know what it’s like to be you. I have never been told to stop dancing so that my feet could be shackled in their stillness, but I do know what it’s like to feel powerless. I have been told to count backwards from ten as my body desperately tried to remember the difference between anesthesia and being roofied at the Replay, and the one time my hands were bound by a jealous lover, I cried for seventeen years. I’m so terrified of giving up control I cringe at the word “submit” when I turn in an application. The world takes so much from us already. Some days life feels as shattered as that bullet ridden windshield you’ll never stop picking out of your skin. Or a tragic confetti of too many forgotten night-befores. It may feel dry as your mouth when someone asks “why did you do it?” But please remember, your life is a miracle. You are not defined by your crime or what crimes were done to you. Your hands have created more than they’ve destroyed. Your life is holy—a beautiful, shining light, bright as the stars in the night sky. So needed, so wanted—you matter to so many who are living in the dark, waiting for you to light their way home. You are someone’s saving grace. Friends, I am in awe of the kind of steel you must be made of to keep that brilliant light trapped in a cell day in/day out for what must feel like a lifetime and still greet me with a smile on a Tuesday morning. I don’t wish resilience on anyone, but those who have survived what you have know that life isn’t fair, tighten their shoelaces so that whatever monster comes in the night, at least they won’t trip as they run for their lives. I’m sorry if you’ve never known a full night of sleep. I’m sorry for so many things. I know that your aches and scars don’t justify violence, but you are strong enough to be here—to live here—and to show me kindness on even your worst days. There is still hope in you. I see it when you walk in the room and relax, your hands flowing out from behind your back, and ask what we’re dancing to today. You have enough trust in your heart to let me physically lift you in the air, give a joyful high five, play a game of leap frog, and soften just a little when you look me in the eye. This is such a gift, ya’ll. You are such a gift. Do you know that dancing with you is the very best part of my week? Do you know that when I leave, I hold a tiny flutter of your spirit in my chest, gather it up in a deep breath and let it loose on the wind, praying that it flies through a field of fluffy white dandelions, setting free the shackled feet of a million tiny seeds ready to grow, and that all of a sudden, you’ll remember just how beautiful, meaningful, powerful you truly are? With love, A hundred hopeful wishes, And so much gratitude for your miracle lives.
Emmy
