Vile Parle woman holds dance therapy sessions
Kunte conducts regular sessions in dance and movement therapy to support intellectual, emotional and motor functions of the body. (Express Photo) Kunte conducts regular sessions in dance and movement therapy to support intellectual, emotional and motor functions of the body. (Express Photo)
Written by Rachel Verghese
Six months after Tejali Kunte wrote an article on dance therapy in a newspaper in 2015, a woman contacted her, having gone great lengths to find her. The woman’s child had a mental disability and she wanted Kunte to hold dance therapy sessions with her child.
“The child loved to dance. She didn’t respond to any therapy or treatment that her parents had arranged for her, but whenever she would see dance shows and/or hear upbeat music, she would dance,” Kunte says. The child was her first client and since then, Kunte has been conducting dance therapy sessions with many including patients of Parkinson’s, persons with mental or physical disabilities, women rescued from human trafficking, paediatric cancer patients at Sion Hospital or anyone else who seeks to consult her.
Kunte, a 26-year-old Vile Parle resident, conducts regular sessions in dance and movement therapy, which use dance movements to support intellectual, emotional and motor functions of the body.
The therapy looks at the correlation between movement and emotion. As a Creative Movement Therapy facilitator, Tejali prepares sessions unique to her client profile and uses creative movement (dance) as a key part of therapy and there is no set style or discipline of dance that needs to be followed.
For instance, in a recent session last week for over 30 patients of Parkinson’s, Kunte took to salsa dancing. Pairing off the attendees into couples, one person with Parkinson’s and one without, Kunte led them gracefully through a warm-up with stretching exercises and other small exercises to loosen up the body and set the momentum. She spoke to them through simple steps before encouraging them to practice the entire sequence multiple times before the music is turned on for them to dance.
A 20-minute dance session is followed by breathing exercises and a unity circle, with soothing music playing in the background. She reminds everyone present that Parkinson’s need not limit them in whatever they want to do, and encourages them to be more comfortable and confident with their body. She has since taken up work with the Parkinson’s Disease and Movement Disorder Society from 10am to 5pm at their centres in the western suburbs. Yet, training for the dance movement therapy was not easy.
“I’ve been dancing since the age of five. I have a Visharad in Bharatnatyam and I was also learning Kathak. I’ve always been passionate about using dance as a tool not just for entertainment, but also for expression, motivation and therapy. I always knew that I wanted to do something in Dance Movement Therapy, but at the time I started out, I had no idea what direction to take because there was next to no information about it in India,” she says.
In 2014, after completing her Master’s in Clinical Psychology, Kunte did a certificate diploma course from a Pune institute. After her first client, it has been mostly word of mouth, which led to more people approaching her. For Kunte, a simple smile or a hug from her clients is enough to let her know she’s made a difference.
“Several women have told me that they want to take out time for themselves, even if it’s only fifteen minutes a day; I get phone calls as well, when they just want to talk about their day,” she says. While conducting workshops and sessions in the city, Kunte hopes to create an inclusive platform for creative art therapy, to work with the general public as well as corporates to assist in team building and stress management.
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