by Rodney A. Brown
In process over-
years. Typescenes discussed here were published in Brooklyn New York at Alexandra Beller Immediate Dances (ABID) in February 2018 at the Gelsey Kirkland Academy of Classical Ballet. Typescenes draw from the following art therapy directions:
Six service members-
Partake in group art therapy sessions to include mask-making and montage painting, and each service member receives at least one individual art therapy evaluation, which is tailored to the service members’ needs. If the art therapy sessions are considered particularly beneficial for a service member (based on the observations of the art therapist, and service member and treatment team feedback), follow-up sessions are scheduled. Masks were selected as the directive for the service members because they help focus the patients on their own experiences with Traumatic Brain Injury and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and offer a means to express inner mental states through a safe externalised representation.
Choreographing a self-
selected team give choreographers’ an opportunity to build on trust and go inside self, see and share out. I know choice and choosing treatment modalities is germane to my trauma recovery. Typescenes choreographers’ organize dancing bodies as internal thoughts and feelings. Thus putting together another danced visual correlation centering identity in health discourse. Imagine the body as a kind of page which can be read, and wrote (in the past tense for future) on. Imagine that that same body also operates as a writing utensil. A choreographers’ choice of ways to organize dancers.
Differences
add textures. At ABID I made the decision to be motivated by the intersectionality of colour as well as history and lifetime events, by the coloured actors, their actions, and how these things play out expressed as ephemeral time-based constructions. I understand Typescenes perceive colour in lived experiences through visual art of choreographed dance movements as well. Commencing an instructive art intersecting the choreographic. Points at racial terror and trauma and healing as the documentation that something has happened; left for our future that will also become past.
The noose rope tie-
enacts particular signals of harm in the context of America past as well as contemporary America. For example, Oxford dictionary defines Lynch, (of a group of people) to kill (someone) for an alleged offence without a legal trial, especially by hanging. Additionally, Noose, a circle that is tied in one end of a rope, with a knot that allows the circle to get smaller as the other end of the rope is pulled, that can be used to kill somebody by hanging them by the neck: a hangman’s noose– As in the noose tightened around her [trans] neck; They tied a noose around her [his] neck.
Informed from-
a particular cultural context. Throughout the late 19th century racial tension grew throughout the United States. An Equal Justice Initiative (EJI) report documents lynchings of Black people that occurred in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia between 1877 and 1950. The data reveals trends across time and region, including that lynchings peaked between 1880 and 1940. The report also indicates more race tension was noticeable in the Southern parts of the United States, but has been recorded in northern, eastern and western regions of America. In the aftermath of a lynching, African Americans became “exceedingly circumspect in their dealings with whites;” survivors bore the burden of being indebted to “their ‘white friends’ for saving their lives.”
Soon after–
the stressor I noticed a change in my mentality wellness; especially deteriorating and strained relationships with family and friends. My mind experienced discovering the noose as a traumatizing event so I sought help, and while participating in psychotherapy care with a licensed mental health practitioner.
Biography enters-
providing discussion of a choreographers’ short-term utilization of techniques from Dance Movement Therapy (DMT) and Art Therapy models as a choreographic resource, and to process PTSD symptoms (especially nightmares, sleep deprivation, and intrusive thoughts) resulting from hate crime racial terror trauma. This document introduces Typescenes as an attempt to share Black lifetimes’ primary source knowledge of choreography in behavioral health assessment. While highlighting art therapy methods in conjunction with clinical talk psychotherapy treatments. Choreography creative process allows expression about racial terror trauma in ways that are not possible in a traditional talk therapy (psychotherapy) treatment. Typescenes is one way choreographers’ biographies may involve learning to read documentary poetry and dance composition education for entertainment, and to get an understanding of the way things work choreographers’ world.
Another example-
choreography I made, MODULE (2013): An HIV Prevention Modern Dance is a less than 30-minute dance translation of the oral HIV prevention methodology, Pedagogy of Action Module on HIV Education. The imperative of this translation research seeks to develop dance material such that a viewer can distinguish some functional differences between Red and White Blood Cells, dissimilarities of HIV and AIDS, understanding of Stigma, 4 fact-based ways HIV can be transmitted and ways to prevent HIV infection — mediated with the Modern or Contemporary Dance genus.
Accordingly-
the HIV prevention manual project is described online (wix.com) as Education Options in Dance Composition: The Brown Dance Project (The BDP) Translating the Pedagogy of Action (POA) Module on HIV Education to Dance. The MODULE dance model centers the inquiry: Can the dance teach? Can MODULE be an effective tool for learning in a more global delivery, to individuals who might be unaware of HIV education knowledge? We know dance can communicate and information can be shared through movement and words. In 2017 MODULE was invited for presentation at the United States Conference on AIDS in Washington, D.C.
I know trauma-
has been debilitating in my world. The urgency of the need to assess the impact of the September 11th attacks and to communicate the findings, for example, is reflected in the fact that several papers were published very quickly. A series of epidemiological studies conducted by researchers at the New York Academy of Medicine and colleagues at the National Crime Victims Research and Treatment Center focused primarily on the population living in New York City and the surrounding metropolitan area, and included assessment of exposure variables (including direct exposure as well as television viewing), prior history factors, peri-event reactions, and post-event factors in addition to assessment of probable PTSD, Major Depression, and changes in drug, alcohol, and cigarette use over time. A synthesis of the post-disaster literature found that widespread sequelae could be expected in disasters that were caused by human intent or resulted in widespread property damage, extensive loss of life, or long-term financial strain.
When–
the choreographer/dancer begins speaking the text, for instance. The viewer is witness to bodies migrating from one side of a studio to another. Envision a flurry of thoughts invade choreographers’ mind. Dancers perform resolve as well as psychological distress– or [that] everything coming in; initiating, perhaps, separated, but actually terminating (physically) out from migrations shoulder to shoulder (clumped) close together- an end to another beginning..
Borderlines-
managed without compunction. Dismissive of what does not correspond. Typescenes asserts the choreographer is the expert of the choreographers’ experience. Practicing Typescenes this way charges things that are left out when humans ignore seeing. Choreographers’ role in this exploration and patient outcomes are defined. Typescenes are not an attempt to lead as a licensed clinician therapist or a health expert even though Typescenes incorporate psychotherapeutic use of movement to promote emotional, social, cognitive, and physical integration of an individual, for the purpose of improving health and well-being (DMT).
I know constant assaults-
compromises my mental capacity. Regarding exposure variables, not rememoring (Toni Morrison) AIDS epidemiology nor the trauma I experienced witnessing the New York City September 11, 2001 event while walking in commute to The Ailey School impacts me as persistently as does the trauma I experienced working in 2015. Particularly, people of color who navigate within predominantly white educational institutions. Report out unique vulnerability in universities’ research, teaching and service commitments (tenure and promotion) including how race issues can result in psychological distress. Working as a choreography instructor. One day I turned my key, unlocked and opened my office door on the well-manicured campus at The Ohio State University Dance Department. On the backside of my door was a hangman’s noose. Before arriving to meet the noose rope tie. I did encounter white supremacist ideals, microaggressions, microassaults, harassment and discrimination- the Ohio fugitivity this choreographer experiences.
Typescenes aspires-
recognition that white colour (white / white light) is composed of various visible colours, saturation and the dominance of hue in colour; In the choreographers’ focus colours references literal and figurative cultural markers some humans prefer not see. For example gender, religion, faith, and race or a wish to embrace colour as this choreographer can not escape. Choreographing Typescenes reveals that deep inside us, our lineages—positing Brown, Black and Light-coloured lived experiences at the center of therapy.
The traumatic experience of-
surviving mass violence creates “insecurity, mistrust, and disconnection from people”—a series of psychological harms that were amplified by the dangers inherent in navigating Southern racial boundaries. Additionaly EJI identified lynching—and other forms of racial terrorism—inflicted deep traumatic and psychological wounds on survivors, witnesses, family members, and the entire African American community. I know what these wounds are like. In my lifetime I can still remember the extrajudicial murder of James Byrd, Jr. In Texas in 1998 or more recent, what is being discussed in the context of contemporary lynching: Police in Sacramento, Calif., shot and killed an unarmed Black man, Stephon Clark, in his family’s backyard after mistaking his cellphone for a weapon.
I received a PTSD diagnosis-
Symptoms hysterically affecting my ability to concentrate, work, complete graduate school, and other aspects of adult daily living, which lead to my experiencing street homelessness in New York City disabled by PTSD. Racism or racial terror trauma is not universally considered a PTSD disability qualifying trauma. Mental health difficulties attributed to racist incidents are often questioned or downplayed. A response that only perpetuates the victim’s anxieties. Thus clients who seek out mental healthcare to address race-based trauma may be further traumatized by microaggressions — subtle racist slights — from their own therapists.
For-
Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When The Rainbow Is Enuf authored choreopoem form. Prose Poetry here is guided by line(s) of letters creating words across the page, left to right. Contexts Typescenes process. Exhibiting same same but different stuff that happens again and again. An example, Enter on the pulse of morning language. Enter titles.
In motion-
to see our whole personhood centered. Whereby choreographers’ tools align mindfulness and the principles situated in their personal mental healthcare modalities, religious faith traditions and creativity processes. Explicitly doing a kind of ethnographic dance process set to resolve an inquiry— What can Typescenes teach—interpret how changes in the body can be reflected as changes in the mind and vice versa. Reflexively, choreographers’ can express theological contemplation as one way of digesting the intersections of mind, body, and spirit as inseparable and interconnected forming an important basis for choreographers’ creativity process, and analysis as well. In monasticism and contemplative or centering prayer, which brings us to the presence of [the choreographers’] God, and fosters the contemplative of listening and receptivity. Not contemplation in a singular sense, as a highly regarded gift of the Holy Spirit. Rather an openness to performance as therapy or a kind of preparation for contemplation by reducing the obstacles caused by the hyperactivity of mind and of our lives.
I found resources-
at National Health Care for the Homeless Council (NHCHC) in Nashville, Tennessee. According to the website, racism permeates the two systems central to the Council’s work: health care and housing. The crisis of homelessness would not exist but for the history of slavery, genocide, and white supremacist public policy. That 40% of the homeless population is Black/African American, though just 13% of the general US population, is no accident; it is the legacy and design of oppression. Moreover, research continues to substantiate what people of color have already known, that systemic and interpersonal racism in the health care industry leads to disparate health outcomes for people of color. Barriers accessing professional mental health services for people I talk to are compounded by not enough culturally competent therapists and perceived lack of value of Black life in medical services organizations, and organizations’ service delivery systems, generally, based on historical evidence. Comin’ from where I’m from we obviously have survived alive our way or especially other than licensed mental health treatments. For racial terror trauma PTSD I suggest that the provider possess complete mental health training and justice tools.
To present lifetimes inclusive-
of racial terror trauma. Choreograph symptoms that illustrate body in conjunction with mind and spirit. Such exploration relationships inspired early DMT pioneers, many of whom were dancers that helped the field come out in the 1940’s. In A Revolutionary Approach to Treating PTSD mental healthcare leader Bessel Van der Kolk says “he has had some success with a neither widely practiced nor supported by clinical studies therapeutic technique or ‘structure’ called Psychomotor therapy that was developed by Albert Pesso, a dancer who studied with Martha Graham. Van der Kolk believes strongly that dancers — and musicians and actors — may have something to teach psychiatrists about healing from trauma.
Gravemarker greet-
the Asian, the Hispanic, the Jew, the African, the Native American, the Sioux, the French, the Greek, the Turk, the Swede, the German, the Eskimo, the Scot, the Ashanti, the Yoruba, the Kru, bought, sold, stolen, arriving on a nightmare praying for a dream. Gravemarker greet the Irish, the Rabbi, the Priest, the Sheikh, the Gay, the Straight, the Preacher, the Privileged, the Homeless, the Catholic, the Muslim, the Teacher, the Pawnee, the Apache, the Seneca, the Cherokee Nation, who rested with the hosts then forced on bloody feet—. Gravemarker ask those characteristics’ bodies if they would bare their souls as witnesses in their own ways. Enter a can of worms. Exit that can’s lid.
To enter in-
symptoms of intrusion when mind does not necessarily want to have these thoughts. Typescenes choreographs the occasional; our events; what is completed or not yet finished. Choreographically understand that instructive score and development process as Typescenes rendering set-short durational dance with immediacy; How the traumatized body experiences— Proximity personified as physical, interpersonal relationships— deep and, so very close, yet not enough to encounter or touch distressing memories or triggers and signal kind impact. The presence of moving bodies in the studio also tells stories about changes, time and what there is between where choreographic formalism was last seen, and where health therapy convention can be located in this present moment.
Including–
guided exercises that focused on understanding stimuli (or triggers) that may move the mind past trauma. Typescenes drive an urgency to write language to dance now/then too since audiences do not always have exact knowledge of an art piece or understand choreographers’ process.
Underscoring ideas of transition/
migration, which Typescenes broadly defines is movement from one part of something to another. Pointed triggers penetrate bodices traumatized into healing. In their earliest iterations Typescenes solo. Beginning with the dark behind one’s eyelids, a blank slate—a neutral space, and generally of safety in this choreographers’ existence; and then words (or trauma triggers) enter in (and exit out)—Migrating what Dr. Detrixe posits Typescenes: identifying the psychoanalysis enactment–Not a wish to contain all but an actual containing of all; no edges to the orifice; everything coming in a universe collapsing on an atomic point; matter and antimatter: “doubt” and “faithfulness”, “lack” and “gain”, “empathy and critical judgement.” And we watch with growing horror as the word (enter/exit) calls into being things that shouldn’t exist or at least come resplendent in pain. For example, enter/exit “your own child,” “open someone else’s mouth”, enter/exit “the thought that meat are negros.”
CITATIONS
Six service members-
Jones, J. P., Walker, M. S., Drass, J. M., & Kaimal, G. (2018). Art therapy interventions for active duty military service members with post-traumatic stress disorder and traumatic brain injury. International Journal of Art Therapy, 23(2), 70–85.
The noose rope tie-
Lynch. Definition of lynch verb from the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary Https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/us/definition/english/lynch
Noose. Definition of noose noun from the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary https://www.oxfordlearnersdictionaries.com/us/definition/english/noose?q=Noose
Informed from-
Equal Justice Initiative Trauma and the Legacy of Lynching. LYNCHING IN AMERICA: CONFRONTING THE LEGACY OF RACIAL TERROR. THIRD EDITION.
Another example-
Brown, Rodney A. MODULE (2013) An HIV Prevention Modern Dance. Choreography. MODULE in Movement. https://bdpmodule.wixsite.com/bdpmodule/video
Accordingly-
Brown, Rodney A., Education Options in Dance Composition: The Brown Dance Project (The BDP) Translating the Pedagogy of Action (POA) Module on HIV Education to Dance. Wix.com. 2013. https://bdpmodule.wixsite.com/bdpmodule/copy
United States Conference on AIDS (USCA) Washington, DC. September 6-10 2017. USCA Program Book Digital version of the official 2017 USCA program Book. https://issuu.com/danielpinonmac/docs/usca_program_book_single_pages
I know trauma-
RESEARCH ON TRAUMA AND PTSD IN THE AFTERMATH OF 9/11
Heidi Resnick, PhD. National Crime Victims Research and Treatment
Medical University of South Carolina., Sandro Galea, MD. Center for Urban Epidemiologic Studies New York Academy of Medicine. Dean Kilpatrick, PhD. National Crime Victims Research and Treatment Medical University of South Carolina., David Vlahov, PhD.
Center for Urban Epidemiologic Studies New York Academy of Medicine. National Center for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (U.S.) Homeland Security Digital Library. 2004.
When–
Brown, Rodney A., Typescenes IMMEDIATE DANCES SCORE #3 Videos. 2018. https://typescenes.com/immediate-dances-score-3/
Borderlines-
Brown, Rodney A. Typescenes, 2000. Unlikely Books. New Orleans, LA.
Defining Dance/Movement Therapy (DMT). What is Dance Movement Therapy. https://adta.memberclicks.net/what-is-dancemovement-therapy
I know constant assaults-
Beloved, Toni Morrison. 1987.
Gutiérrez y Muhs, Gabriella, Yolanda Flores Niemann, Carmen G. Gonzalez, and Angela P. Harris. Presumed Incompetent: The Intersections of Race and Class for Women in Academia. 2012.
Brown, Rodney, A., Harge, Jennifer. DANCE IN COMMON 2019, August 8–11. There’s A Leak In This Old Building: Exiting Dance Commons Through Black Spiritual Fugitivity Performed by Jennifer Harge. Evanston, IL, United States. https://dancestudiesassociation.org/conferences/dancing-in-common
Brown, Rodney A. Typescenes, 2000. Unlikely Books. New Orleans, LA.
The traumatic experience of-
Equal Justice Initiative Trauma and the Legacy of Lynching. LYNCHING IN AMERICA: CONFRONTING THE LEGACY OF RACIAL TERROR. THIRD EDITION.
Murder of James Byrd, Jr., 1998. Encyclopedia Britannica. 2021.
I received a PTSD diagnosis-
Brown, Rodney A. Typescenes, 2000. Unlikely Books. New Orleans, LA.
Monnica T Williams Ph.D., Culturally Speaking TRAUMA. Can Racism Cause PTSD? Implications for DSM-5 Racism itself may be a traumatic experience. Posted May 20, 2013 Reviewed by Jessica Schrader. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/culturally-speaking/201305/can-racism-cause-ptsd-implications-dsm-5%3famp
For-
For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When the Rainbow Is Enuf. Choreopoem. 1975.
Prose Poetry: An Introduction. Paul Hetherington and Cassandra Atherton. 2020.
Brown, Rodney A. Typescenes, 2000. Unlikely Books. New Orleans, LA.
I found resources-
National Health Care for the Homeless Council “Anti-Racism | National Health Care for the Homeless Council.” 2021. https://nhchc.org/clinical-practice/homeless-services/ethical-and-cultural-issues/anti-racism/
To present lifetimes inclusive-
Defining Dance/Movement Therapy (DMT). What is Dance Movement Therapy. https://adta.memberclicks.net/what-is-dancemovement-therapy
Interlandi Jeneen. A Revolutionary Approach to Treating PTSD. The New York Times. May 22, 2014. https://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/25/magazine/a-revolutionary-approach-to-treating-ptsd.html
Gravemarker greet-
Brown, Rodney A. Typescenes, 2000. Unlikely Books. New Orleans, LA.
Underscoring ideas of transition/
Ibid.