Triveni Goswami Vernal
(Registered Special Educator CRR A64010)

Creative Movement Therapy is a part of Expressive Arts Therapy that uses movement to create integration between multi-modal aspects of well being—cognitive, emotional, social and physical. It helps individuals explore the relation of the body that they have, to the space they occupy in various environments by working on their spatial awareness, fluidity of body movements, expressions (facial, vocal, gestural etc).

I recently attended two Creative Movement Workshops facilitated by Malini Meenakshi Ganeshan, (a registered Dance Movement Therapist, an Expressive Arts Therapy Practitioner (UNESCO-CID) and a dancer who dabbles in all forms of dance—both contemporary and classical), under the aegis of her organization The Era of Movement, in Hyderabad. The two movement workshops –Creative Movement Workshop and Conscious Movement Workshop, had similar themes exploring body awareness, recognizing one’s inhibitions vis a vis space and fluidity of body movements, sense of agency, and expression etc.

Since it was organized on May 10th, which is celebrated as Mother’s Day, the two workshops also touched upon the theme of being a “nurturer.” All of us, in some form or the other, nurture relationships, we nurture our bodies, we engage in activities to nurture as well as nourish our souls. In doing so, how do we, as individuals take up space in the various environments we usually thrive in? That was a question that was explored during both the workshops through an activity, that asked participants to enact through movements, their daily routine (4-8 am, 10-2 pm, 3-7 pm, 8 to 12 am etc). And juxtaposing that, the participants were also asked to enact an imaginary, “ideal” routine in a day. Conscious movements like these, help create more awareness about how we move through the day, things we tend to focus on, how we feel, how we express our anger/frustrations/happiness etc., how we tend to occupy spaces etc.

Malini facilitated the workshop by providing prompts for various kinds of movements throughout—helping us expand our often, self-imposed restrictions—on how we should move, how much space we should take up, how we should express our deep-seated emotions—do we allow ourselves the agency to express ourselves freely—can we shout, scream or cry or hum? Even when we know that it is a non-judgemental space, do we allow ourselves to just be? Or are we conditioned in such a way that it takes a very vey long time, to truly relax our bodies and let our emotions and fluid bodily movements, take over.

There was an activity where we were divided into pairs and each of us took turns being blindfolded and then move to the music being played in the background, and our partner had to mirror our unstructured movements. I personally loved that activity. There is a certain sense of freedom that comes from not being able to see how people may /may not be judging you. I think, the blindfold is actually a metaphor for the self-imposed restrictions, that may be hindering our ability to truly “be” in the moment.

And the most wonderful insight that I took home with me, after the workshops was the realization that neuro-diverse individuals are perhaps the true embodiment of what humans should “ideally” be—unfettered and free—unbothered by “societal restrictions”—on how one is supposed to respond in a given situation or express emotions and truly “live in the moment.”

Most caregivers/parents/educators interacting with neurodiverse individuals would agree that they are empathetic beings—they experience emotions deeply, they have vivid memories of how they were treated by others and their bodies carry their emotions and memories.

Creative Movement Therapy is often used as an approach with neurodiverse individuals but from my personal experience of attending these two workshops recently, I would like to suggest that parents and caregivers too should attend them and create a better understanding of neurodiverse experiences of movement and memory.

Malini will be organizing a Creative Movement workshop in Bangalore on May 15th and another one, in Mumbai on the 17th. Further details can be seen on her website https://theeraofmovement.com/


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Dr.Triveni Goswami Vernal is a Registered Special Educator (CRR: A64010), a Psychologist and an Expressive Arts Therapy Practitioner (UNESCO-CID). She is an Avaz Certified Educator and Certified in Dyslexia Teacher Training. She is also an art educator for children with additional needs. She has a 14 year old on the Autism spectrum. She is presently working as a Consultant Special Educator at Oyster CDC, Begumpet, Hyderabad.