The Moving Cycle: A Second Generation Dance/Movement Therapy Form

Abstract

In the early 1980s, Christine Caldwell began developing a form of dance/movement therapy (DMT) she named the Moving Cycle. Premised on the notion that movement principles themselves could form the theoretical base and clinical strategies of healing, she began teaching this form to students at Naropa University in the 1980s, where training continues to this day. This article introduces the history as well as the theory and practice of this second generation form of DMT, and compares it to traditional forms of DMT. The article also centralizes the Moving Cycle’s valuing of precise movement sequencing, movement continuums, social justice, and the mapping of biological processes onto psychological states.