Dance Therapy; Find Your Own Rhythm and Blossom
Soulmates and Healers
A few months ago I received a message from yet another bright light Ms. Emmy Fansler.
Emmy lives in Everett Washington with her wife Victoria who like her, helps people through a form of art therapy.
Emmy is a dancer and uses her talents to both tell her stories and to help others tell theirs.
Dance Until you Blossom
Emmy grew up in a small, conservative town in Oklahoma in which she faced struggles of feeling shame for the actions of others but also found herself blossoming in the world of dance.
I got to sit down with both Emmy and V at Coffee Rush and talk about her personal journey.
I Want to Be Brave
Emmy and V have both worked with the Free Arts Program for Abused Children (previous article on the site) and happened to be in town for a memorial for a teen that they had worked closely with for the past few years.
“The first year she came she was involved in a lot of drama, she was angry, she was pretty bitter and came off as really mean to a lot of people. She participated but it took a while.”
“Last year when she came back she did this amazing spoken word piece about being locked up and asked for movement at the end of it.”
“I was creating this piece for the song River by Bishop Briggs. I was like who would be interested in doing this parkour themed dance? I was so surprised because she had been so not interested in engaging with me the year before and she volunteered immediately and was like I’ll do it, I wanna be brave this year.
“This year she came back to be a helper and you could just see that huge transformation.”
Hip? Hip Hop? Hip Hop Persona.
One thing Emmy’s wife V said was, “I think people would be surprised to find out that that Emmy didn’t start dancing until she was 15 and that she doesn’t have a degree in dance.” “Based on her kindergarten teacher presentation people are surprised by her hip hop persona.”
“I did a lot of sports I was a super involved kid. I believed in being perfect, getting A’s on my math tests, those kinds of things but when my parents got divorced everything kind of changed with me.”
Shamed if you do; Shamed if you Don’t
“I stopped caring when I had a lot of trauma my sophomore year. I started dating someone I wasn’t supposed to.”
“I had been feeling unneeded and invisible for a while and suddenly this person needed and wanted me.”
“I was friends with him, my mom didn’t like it, it evolved into a relationship out of trying so hard to fight for our friendship.”
“The area I grew up in was based off shame. If you don’t do something it’s because you will be shamed if you do.”
“I couldn’t talk about what was going on because I wasn’t supposed to be seeing him. I would be told it was my fault. It was a very misogynistic place and culture.”
A Cinderella Community
“I spiraled and stopped caring about all of my activities.”
“I then wanted to join dance team. I had never danced before but my mom paid for private lessons which allowed me to prepare for it.”
“I tried out but had not passed my teacher evaluation so I could not be a part of it.”
“Someone who had already graduated had heard and reached out to me to be a part of a ballet production of Cinderella.”
“It was an eight hour audition, I cried a lot because I had no clue what I was doing but I made it and then dance became 20 hours of my week after that.”
I Want to Go to There
“I did dance about 26 miles away in Joplin Missouri.”
“It was with people I didn’t see every day who didn’t know my family or anything about what was going on in my life.”
“It was a safe space.”
“I built a community there.”
“It became the place I wanted to be.”
“The relationships from high school that really shaped me as a person were from that dance school.”
The Key to Building Relationships
“I applied to teach dance for an after-school program at Central Junior High which was close to downtown in an older part of town with more gangs.”
“They had gone through six dance teachers in two years.“
“People weren’t sticking.”
“People said these girls are really hard.”
“I feel really grateful because it went really well and I fell in love with the girls there and the boys, I had quite a few boys there as well.”
“At first I was teaching 2 days a week at minimum wage. They asked me what I made at other dance studios and then asked me if they got a grant would I be there every day if they paid me that much.”
“I said absolutely.”
“When I stuck around and was interested in them they gave me a shot. Their teacher started noticing they wanted to perform they were super excited about it.”
“It was something like out of a lifetime movie.”
No Other Choice
“The girls fell in love with dance and made these major life changes but then when they got out of middle school there were no options.”
“They couldn’t be at that after school program anymore, they couldn’t afford to take classes anywhere.”
“I love dance but for me more than anything dance to me is a platform for building relationships. So, I had these 9 girls and I couldn’t fathom the idea of not being there for them.”
“I got on Craigslist and found an empty Wearhouse. It was actually, the back of a balloon art studio.”
Breaking Down Walls…Literally
“We built the floor together, we painted the walls together.”
“There was a room in the middle of it that needed to be torn down. We had a tearing down the wall party.”
“We came in with spray paint and painted things that had held us down and we all took sledgehammers to it.”
“It started with that one room and then it grew to that one room and a lobby and then we took over the kitchen and then the break room.”
“And then the balloon lady that owned the studio had left so then we had two studios and an office.”
Everyone is Welcome
“We always had food in the fridge, clothes in the closet, and a TV. There were people that came just because they knew they could be there all day, that they could be safe, do their homework, and that there was food there if they needed it.”
“I went from those 9 students to 100 in 3 years.”
“I even had a couple of boys that as part of their plan coming out of Juvie was to be at the studio each day.”
Ten Years Later
“I had a couple of girls I had trained to be teachers assistants.”
“One of them that I originally opened the studio for now owns it and runs it today.”
During this portion of the interview Emmy turned to V with a thoughtful expression and said, “It actually turns ten years old next year.”
