Dance/Movement Therapy Interventions to Cope with Covid-19: From Isolation towards a New Proactive Community

Abstract

Italian Covid-19 lockdowns forced specific categories of population to isolation for almost two years from March 2020 to May 2022, increasing stress conditions as a consequence. During the first total 2020 lockdown, I felt the responsibility to help my community as a dance movement therapist, by reducing the sense of disorientation and isolation. I decided to offer a pilot on-line program promoted by the local Centre for Social Care. The elderly living in the two public residential care homes of the area and some school classes were invited to participate. Our aim was to facilitate an integrated body/mind moving dimension through a creative process. The program responded to concrete needs such as feeling useful while disoriented by the loss of relationships, as well as establishing a sense of community and belonging through a common goal with new empowering practices, for example dancing on-line. The success of the first pilot program encouraged the local Centre for Social Care System to sponsor a second program called Map & Territory. We aimed at understanding how valuable it was to consolidate the use of technology to provide care, not only in emergency cases, but also in primary care cases. The article describes how tele-interventions with dance/movement therapy have been offered to reduce traumatic damages and to promote empowering resilience amongst different generations from children to elders. Achieved goals show the importance of encouraging synergy between arts and medicine for the future management of sanitary crisis and daily health policies, considering health as a dynamic process improving the individual capacity to self-manage.