The National Centre for Dance Therapy is Les Grands Ballets Canadiens’ sociocultural service dedicated to promoting the benefits of dance and making it more accessible to vulnerable and marginalized people. In doing so, the Centre helps strengthen the potential of dance and art as a means of prevention and well-being. The Centre’s activities can be divided into three components: social and therapeutic interventions through dance, training of professionals in dance for well-being, and involvement in research projects on dance as a therapeutic tool.
Since opening in 2013, the Centre’s primary activity has been developing and offering dance for well-being, dance therapy and adapted dance to a diverse range of vulnerable and marginalized people. These activities are offered mostly through our partner institutions, but the Centre also works directly with the public. To ensure the quality of the activities and the development of expertise, several introductory and continuous trainings courses have been developed and are available to dance, health care and social work professionals looking for experience in an educational, psychosocial or medical environment. The Centre has also partnered with numerous researchers to help build knowledge on the effects of dance on well-being.
We define dance therapy as a treatment modality used either as a complement to certain medical treatments or psychotherapy, or as the main therapy. The objectives of this therapy are determined jointly between the beneficiary and the dance therapist. With their specialized training in the analysis of movement, body expressiveness and psychotherapy, these therapists use dance and movement as a tool to achieve wellbeing through techniques of communication and body awareness development, motor function, creativity, expression and self-esteem.
Adapted dance is a recreational dance practice adjusted for people with special needs: a functional limitation, for instance, but not exclusively. The teaching of danced movements is done on the basis of the abilities and strengths of each participant, and allows for the development of better mobility and body awareness. It’s a friendly and tolerant space where the pleasure of moving lies at the very heart of the work.
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