Body, Movement and Dance in Psychotherapy

An International Journal for Theory, Research and Practice

ISSN: 1743-2979 (Print) 1743-2987 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/tbmd20

Breathing, sensing and expressing emotions:

the influence of Elsa Gindler and Mary Wigman
on body psychotherapy and dance/movement
therapy

Maria Luise Oberem

To cite this article: Maria Luise Oberem (2016) Breathing, sensing and expressing
emotions: the influence of Elsa Gindler and Mary Wigman on body psychotherapy and dance/
movement therapy, Body, Movement and Dance in Psychotherapy, 11:2-3, 114-128, DOI:
10.1080/17432979.2016.1154891

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Body, Movement and Dance in Psychotherapy, 2016
VOL. 11, NOS. 2–3, 114–128
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17432979.2016.1154891

Breathing, sensing and expressing emotions: the

influence of Elsa Gindler and Mary Wigman on body
psychotherapy and dance/movement therapy
Maria Luise Oberem
Berlin, Germany

ABSTRACT
This article examines the parallel development of the gymnastic movement and the
expressive dance movement in Berlin, Germany from a historical perspective. Key
historical moments are reflected upon and reveal the little acknowledged role of
women, in particular Gindler’s and Wigman’s profound ground work contributions
to the emerging fields of body psychotherapy and dance/movement therapy in
the twentieth century. Even though Wigman was not formally psychologically
trained, her lifelong associations with the field of psychiatry are acknowledged.
Special attention is given to the activities that took place in Berlin, a focal point
for historical as well as more recent relevant developments in these fields. The
historical lineage of some of the early dance/movement therapists is outlined and
discussed in the context of ongoing transatlantic exchange between the USA and
Germany, culminating in a rare international dance/movement therapy conference
in Berlin, in 1994, dedicated to Mary Wigman.

ARTICLE HISTORY  Received 24 April 2015; Accepted 7 February 2016

KEYWORDS  Elsa Gindler; Mary Wigman; origins of body work; body psychotherapy; dance/movement
therapy; Berlin, Germany

Introduction
During the Weimar Republic (1920s and 30s), the cultural atmosphere in Berlin
was dynamic and thriving with new developments. There was a vibrant and inno-
vative arts community. Expressionism, the Dada Movement and the Bauhaus
Movement all emerged. A new wave of health consciousness arose along with
the rise of modern medicine. It was an era with a new Zeitgeist, resulting in a
number of advancements. Gindler explored body work via breath and sensing
the body from within, in relation to consciousness. Wigman explored creativity,
improvisation and emotional expression in dance. The Unconscious was in the

CONTACT  Maria Luise Oberem  mloberem@web.de

© 2016 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group
 Body, Movement and Dance in Psychotherapy   115

process of being discovered and the field of psychoanalysis was evolving. These
simultaneous developments allowed for the unique opportunity to study the
psychodynamics of the Unconscious in conjunction with sensory-based body
work and expressive, improvisational dance.
While the European roots of body psychotherapy have been studied in var-
ious countries outside of Germany, by Young (2010) and Downing (1996), in
Germany, it has taken 45  years since Gindler’s passing for her work to start
receiving wider professional recognition (Marlock & Weiss, 2006; Müller, 2004).
Geuter (2004) considers Gindler a key figure in the history of body psycho-
therapy. Weaver (2006) was the first to acknowledge Gindler, calling her the
grandmother of somatic psychotherapy, and Geuter, Heller and Weaver (Geuter,
Heller, & Weaver, 2010) pay tribute to Gindler’s influence on Wilhelm Reich and
the development of body psychotherapy.
In the following sections, I first trace Gindler’s pioneering path, acknowledg-
ing her lifelong dedication to body work as a defining influence on the emer-
gence of the field of body psychotherapy. Second, I focus on Wigman, her early
development and her lesser known associations with the field of psychiatry,
acknowledging her as a precursor to the emerging field of dance/movement
therapy. Third, I highlight some key historical moments, defining the direction
of the emerging profession of dance/movement therapy in Berlin, Germany,
tracing its historical lineage in the context of continuous transatlantic exchange
between the USA and Germany. Fourth, I focus on a rare international conference
on dance/movement therapy, in Berlin, in 1994, dedicated to Mary Wigman.

Elsa Gindler’s early years

Gindler (1885–1961) was born in Berlin, Germany, where she worked and lived
for her entire life. Early in life, she had developed tuberculosis. Because her
family could not afford the necessary medical treatment, she began to work
on herself alone. Gindler engaged in a daily practice of attuning herself to her
body, developing an inward focus, and consciously sensing the movement of
the breath flow. She succeeded in stimulating the self-healing capacities of her
body through focused attention on the inner organs, specifically her lungs,
allowing the organism to self-regulate. By working on herself in this way, Gindler
survived tuberculosis.
Gindler had originally wished to study medicine, but due to her family’s
financial situation, this was not possible. Gindler writes: ‘When I think back on
my childhood years, what a struggle it has been to keep our little bit of human
dignity, people like us did not count’ (Gindler exhibition 2015, at the Heinrich
Jacoby / Elsa Gindler Foundation Berlin, translated by the author). Without the
financial support of her family, Gindler had to become resourceful and despite
working several jobs, she was able to pursue her education at the same time.
116    M. L. Oberem

Gindler became a gymnastic teacher and later on, developed into a leading
figure in the emerging gymnastic movement in Germany.
The Heinrich Jacoby/Elsa Gindler Foundation (HJEGF), founded by Sophie
Ludwig in 1985 in Berlin, open for scientific study since 2000, holds a small
archive with an array of lectures, notes and course descriptions. In 2015, this
foundation showed an exhibition on Gindler’s life and work. Research of original
material at this archive brings fresh insights into Gindler’s life and sheds new
light on the conceptualisation of her work.
On her early endeavours, Gindler writes:
(…) I was very interested in all areas of body movement and became an ardent
advocate of the education of women and their bodies. Thus, for a long time,
I was the leader of a women’s group within the society for body culture, and
also acted as their chairperson (…) Furthermore, I also created folk dance
courses, practiced Swedish gymnastics, and tried to loosen up the then rigid
women’s exercise activities, with the goal of developing and gearing these
to the real needs of the female body. When I encountered the gymnastics
of Miss Kallmeyer, I decided to change course and dedicated myself totally
to gymnastics. After five months of training, I passed the final exam on 11
September 1912 and, since then, I work as a gymnastics teacher in Berlin.
(Exhibition 2015, HJEGF, Berlin, translated by the author)

The gymnastic movement

During the early nineteenth century in Europe, the gymnastic movement rep-
resented a new way of working with the body. This movement was developed
largely by and for women, as opposed to physical education, which was a field
for men, with its main focus on muscle building, considered necessary for
military service. Many different gymnastic schools opened all over Germany.
They were part of a larger social revolutionary movement of the time, called
the Lebensreformbewegung, ‘Life Reform Movement’ with the declared goal of
bringing the human dimension back into the picture during times of major
social change due to industrialisation, rapid technological development and
increasing urbanisation (Geuter, 2004).
Arps-Aubert (2010) identifies three major branches within the gymnastic
movement of the early nineteenth century: one branch proposed the build-
ing of the personality via movement, with an emphasis on health, physiology
and pedagogy. A second branch, called expressive and rhythmical gymnastic,
understood gymnastic to be a cultural task, with a main focus on supporting
the development of a person’s inner life. A third direction focused on aesthetic
endeavours and ideals of Greek sculptures with harmoniously shaped human
bodies and postures as their source of inspiration. From this last branch, a
new direction in dance developed under the leadership of Isadora Duncan
­(Arps-Aubert, 2010).
 Body, Movement and Dance in Psychotherapy   117

In 1912, Gindler joined the ‘Seminar for Harmonious Gymnastic’ in Berlin,

where she became one of Hedwig Kallmeyer’s first trainees and later her assis-
tant. In 1917, when Kallmeyer left Berlin, Gindler founded her own institute,
Seminar für Harmonische Körperausbildung (Seminar for Harmonious Body
Education), offering courses to the public and training new gymnastic teachers.
Within the gymnastic movement, Gindler became a highly influential figure. In
fact, she was at the centre of this modern movement and, for many years, served
as the president of the German Association of Gymnastic Teachers.

Gindler’s body of work: Arbeit am Menschen

Gindler referred to her own work simply as Arbeit am Menschen. In English, this
term is often translated as ‘human work’, and as ‘work on the whole person’
(Johnson, 1995). Gindler also referred to her work as Nach-Entfaltung, which
means ‘retrospective unfolding’. She, herself, was not concerned with categoris-
ing her work in any particular way, as she wanted to keep an open approach in
working with the body. Later in her development, Gindler described her move-
ment classes as an experiential research laboratory. The German term which
Gindler used for her work: Arbeit am Menschen (‘work on mankind’ would have
been a relevant translation at her time) also reflects the depth of her dedication,
compassion and ethical attitude, and is an indication of the spiritual understand-
ing she had of her work: being of service to others. Gindler’s primary concern was
supporting the whole person, starting with an inward focus, sensing the body
from within and allowing changes to naturally unfold in the human organism
through breathing, sensing and gentle movement explorations. This created the
conditions for a new sense of body and self-awareness to develop in her students.
Gindler focused on three major areas: the observation of the subtle move-
ment of breath in the body, somatic holding patterns and the release of ten-
sion from the body. She encouraged students to tune into the body, explore
somatic processes and to witness these with an open mind. Gindler offered her
work in the spirit of friendship, teaching people how to create conditions for
the organism to self-regulate, which later turned into a core principle among
early body psychotherapists (Geuter, 2004). She provided individual guidance
to her students on their pursuit towards living in a conscious relationship with
the body, and the immediate environment. Gindler understood her work to
be embedded in a larger framework; she knew that through working with the
breath, a transpersonal dimension could be reached.
Gindler writes:
Only by means of concentration can we attain the full functioning of the
physical apparatus in relation to mental and spiritual life. We therefore advise
our students from the very first lesson that our work must be pursued con-
sciously; it can only be entered into and understood through consciousness.
(Gindler as cited in Johnson, 1995, p. 5).
118    M. L. Oberem

Gindler saw body and breath work as intimately related to the development of
personal consciousness. Johnson considers her work ‘a radically simple way of
working with experience, a Western form of meditation’ even (Gindler, 1995, p. 3).

Professional collaborations
From 1915 on, Gindler documented her work in numerous ways. She kept ret-
rospective notes on her classes, took photos of her students’ postures when
they began to work with her and prepared various lecture talks. Gindler wrote
numerous letters to students and colleagues, reflecting and supporting stu-
dents’ progress, and engaged in ongoing, professional exchange.
Gindler approached her work from a scientific perspective of inquiry, asking
herself many questions, e.g. ‘What is it that I want to research? Why do I want
to research this? Keep a protocol during its exploration and study the results’
(Exhibition 2015, HJEGF, Berlin, notes from 1947, translated by the author).
Around 1925, Gindler began to work in close collaboration with Heinrich
Jacoby (1889–1964). Originally a musician and music teacher, Jacoby discovered
a relationship between the quality of a learning experience and the physiologi-
cal conditions at work in his students during learning. When he was introduced
to Gindler and her approach, he understood fully that for a more effective learn-
ing situation to arise, the senses and the body needed to be prepared and be
equally engaged. Jacoby considered the dynamics of the breathing, sensing and
moving body to be crucial in any learning situation. While, today, this fact is com-
mon knowledge within early developmental learning theories, the interactive
and mediating role of the breathing and sensing body throughout the entire
lifespan remains largely underestimated in main stream education practices.
Jacoby and Gindler developed a mutually beneficial work relationship which
lasted 37 years, offering many joint workshops and seminars. Unfortunately,
with the rise of National Socialism in the 1930s, the flow of these innovative
developments was interrupted in Germany.

Gindler’s work during the Second World War

During the Third Reich, Gindler kept a low professional profile, withdrew from
all public positions and protected her developed material from public attention
of the Nazis in order to avoid disruption of her work and to protect her many
Jewish students. Gindler’s political stance during the war was uncompromising.
She refused to cooperate with the government and turned away journalists who
wanted to feature her school in the Nazi Press. Gindler turned down awards
which were offered to her during those years, yet continued to offer her classes
with unwavering dedication during the turbulent war years. She decided to stay
in Germany, despite receiving offers to live and work in Switzerland. During
the war years, Gindler’s teachings became largely focused on how to manage
 Body, Movement and Dance in Psychotherapy   119

the stress and trauma of war time. She found a number of subversive ways for
the use of her studio, e.g. sheltering her Jewish students, while classes often
took place in bomb shelters. Gindler considered her subversive work in face of
an inhumane regime as an ethical obligation; to help felt natural. This part of
Gindler’s work is acknowledged with a memorial stone in Yad Vachem in Israel
(Exhibition 2015, HJEGF, Berlin, notes from 1947, translated by the author).
Charlotte Selver, a prominent Gindler student, escaped from Nazi Germany
to New York, in reflecting on the war years in Berlin, writes:
The greatest influence on me was the way Elsa Gindler lived. She was there for
everybody. She was conscious of the influence which poverty and oppression
had on so many people. The way she went through the Hitler time; working; hid-
ing people who were persecuted, sharing her very meager (food) rations with
them, helping them to get out of the country, even at risk of her own life (…).
(Johnson 1995, p. 18).
In a tragic turn of events, towards the end of the war, much of Gindler’s doc-
umentation material was destroyed. In a letter to a friend in 1950, she writes:
During the first days of May 1945, a Hitler youth threw a bomb into the studio
building and the building burned down completely, with all my work doc-
uments, drawings, my entire manuscript material, photos, films (…) not to
mention my library, my photo and film equipment and projectors, in short:
everything from my 30 years of work were destroyed (…) my students’ eco-
nomic situation is a catastrophe (…) I am not sure if I ever will be able to create
new documents again.
(Exhibition 2015, HJEGF, Berlin, translated by the author)
Due to this catastrophic loss, questions regarding Gindler’s theoretical base,
whether she applied her work in clinical settings and whether she ever addressed
psychological themes will remain unanswered.

Gindler’s post war years in Berlin, Germany

The war years left their marks on Gindler’s body and psyche. For many months,
she had no home, living in various locations throughout Berlin and often trav-
elling long distances to give classes. Gindler’s health suffered; she developed
a heart condition which remained with her for the rest of her life. However, in
spite of these adverse circumstances, Gindler began to rebuild her practice in
Berlin, this time with one of her students, Sophie Ludwig, with whom she also
shared an apartment. Together with Heinrich Jacoby, Gindler resumed offering
seminars and workshops in Switzerland.

Gindler’s influence on body psychotherapy and dance/movement

therapy
The impact of Gindler’s work on newly developing professional fields can be
seen in the amazing array of students who attended Gindler’s classes in Berlin,
120    M. L. Oberem

including: Claire Nathansohn Fenichel, the wife of Otto Fenichel, the famous
psychoanalyst, and Laura Perls, Fritz Perls’ wife, who practised modern expres-
sive dance and rhythmical gymnastic while in psychoanalytical training (Bocian,
2004). Fritz Perls personally became familiar with the Gindler approach when he
met Charlotte Selver in New York. He later invited Selver to teach this work, then
called ‘Sensory Awareness’, at the Esalen Institute in California. Elsa Lindenberg,
a dancer and student of Rudolf von Laban, who also attended Gindler’s classes,
was the partner of Wilhelm Reich. Downing (1996) feels it is no coincidence that
Reich started body work with his patients shortly after becoming involved with
Lindenberg in Berlin. Geuter (2004) points to the hidden influence of women
absorbing Gindler’s ideas, women who remain largely unacknowledged in the
history and development of psychoanalysis and psychotherapy. Pioneering
dance/movement therapists in the USA, e.g. Mary Whitehouse, Joan Chodorow
and Janet Adler were familiar with aspects of the Gindler work via Charlotte
Selver (Personal conversation with Joan Chodorow; Brooks 1974/1986).
It remains hard to conceive that until recently, academic and clinical literature in
Germany rarely mentioned Gindler’s work or her immense influence, internation-
ally, on the emerging field of body psychotherapy and dance/movement therapy.
This began to change in 1989, when Moscovici, a medical doctor, conducted
the first study, in Germany, on women pioneers of body work. She suggests that
with Gindler a new level was reached in the body awareness movement, which
Moscovici called the development of the ‘art of perception’ in the service of the
whole person. ‘Gindler’s thoughts, her ways of asking questions, her approach
became foundational for a number of different approaches, which today are
called body therapies’ (Moscovici, 1989, p. 22). Moscovici’s study shows that
the professional fields of body psychotherapy, somatics and dance/movement
therapy, as well as Gestalt therapy, owe much to Gindler’s seminal approach.
Breath therapist Steinaecker (2000) looked at the role of women in the
gymnastic, breath and body work movement in the early twentieth century, in
Germany. She discovered that 90% of the early breath therapists were women,
and that very few of them wrote about their work, despite being dedicated
practitioners. Steinaecker (2000) explores silence as a spectrum of being without
words, as a code among the early practitioners of breath and body work, a way
of keeping women’s experiential bodily knowledge protected, secret even. She
understands the silence of the early female body workers as a form of resist-
ance within patriarchal society and its hierarchically structured institutions. This
research confirms the tendency among women to pass on their knowledge expe-
rientially, and in non-verbal ways. Particularly, in the field of body work, efforts
of verbalising experiential somatic experience were often perceived as futile.
Arps-Aubert (2010) understands Gindler to be a ‘nature’ researcher, inquiring
into the deep nature of the body, exploring how the human organism functions,
activating its self-healing capacities. Although she was perhaps unaware of the
evolving philosophical movement of phenomenology, Gindler was already
 Body, Movement and Dance in Psychotherapy   121

actively exploring the body in phenomenological terms. Yet, it has taken almost
80 years for Gindler’s tremendous influence to be acknowledged in Germany.
Within the new phenomenology movement in Germany, founded by Herman
Schmitz, Huppertz (2003) traces the origins of the term ‘art of perception’ back
to Gindler, who, together with her student, Charlotte Selver, is now recognised
as having prepared the ground for the concept of the ‘art of perception’ to now
take root in modern forms of psychotherapy.

Mary Wigman: From rhythmical gymnastic to expressive dance

and dance/movement therapy
Wigman (1886–1973) was born and raised in Germany. Originally trained in
the rhythmical gymnastic system of Emile Jacques Dalcroze, when Wigman
encountered Rudolf von Laban (1879–1958), her life began to take a different
direction. Between 1913 and 1918, Laban, an architect and choreographer, led a
School for Arts at Monte Verità in Ascona, Switzerland, which became an active
artists’ colony, attracting many seekers of diverse backgrounds, such as Paul
Klee, Herman Hesse, Isadora Duncan and Mikhail Bakunin, and provided a rich
climate for creativity, innovation and new experimental lifestyle. In this inspiring
environment, Wigman started her transition from a trained gymnastic teacher
to creative, expressive dancer (Müller, 1987).
A sanatorium was also established at Monte Verità, offering a variety of treat-
ments for people with health problems. Wigman became Laban’s assistant dur-
ing the summer courses he taught at Monte Verità. This included assisting him
in the work with patients of the sanatorium, some of whom, severely ill, were
wheelchair-bound. Laban worked with conscious breathing and movement
visualisation through gentle verbal prompts, aiming at activating his patients’
body awareness. Wigman was deeply moved by what she saw. Although she
chose to move into another direction, these early observations seemed to have
stayed with her throughout her life (Müller, 1987).
Pioneering a new form of dance, known in Germany as Ausdruckstanz, i.e.
expressive dance, Wigman developed a dance style that was uniquely her own.
She describes dance in this way:
Dance is a living language that is spoken by people and speaks of people,
an artistic statement that rises above the basis level of reality to speak on a
higher level in images and similes of those things that move people’s hearts
and demand to be communicated. The carrier and medium is the person
her- or himself, and her (or his) instrument of expression is the human body,
whose natural movement constitutes the material of the dance (…). It is in
movement that the danced gesture language projected into space receives
the living breath of its rhythmic pulsating force (…) Dance can only be under-
stood where it respects and maintains a relationship to the meaning of the
expressive movements people naturally use.
(Wigman as cited in Marakas, 1995, p. 85)
122    M. L. Oberem

Wigman’s affiliations with the field of psychiatry

While Wigman is best known for the development of creative, expressive dance,
her associations with the field of psychiatry are less well known. During Wigman’s
lifetime, the discovery of the Unconscious was underway, and although she was
not psychologically trained, Müller (1987) and Fiedler (2004) point to Wigman’s
lifelong relationship with Hans Prinzhorn, an innovative psychiatrist, who was
the first to research and publish, in 1922, on the artistic expressions of psychiatric
patients (Prinzhorn, 1922).
Additionally, Wigman and Prinzhorn generated a mutually inspiring work
relationship during their time at the Lahmann Sanatorium in Dresden, Germany
(Fiedler, 2004). Later on, Wigman had a personal relationship with Herbert
Binswanger, a medical doctor, who specialised in psychiatric care. These lifelong,
personal and professional associations with leading psychiatrists of the time
indicate the strong likelihood that Wigman developed a particular awareness
of the inner world of emotional suffering, anxiety, confusion and depression of
psychiatric patients.
When living through two world wars, with repeated experience of depriva-
tion, uncertainties and existential needs, perhaps these feelings are not uncom-
mon. Wigman’s affinity with deep emotional states can be witnessed in her many
dance performances. Her dancing has been described as:
Intense, concentrated, bare presentations, so pared down, to the pure essence
of personal expression that they appealed only to a very serious and dedi-
cated audience. Among this ‘serious and dedicated audience’ were several of
the original dance therapy pioneers: Mary Whitehouse, Franziska Boas, and
Liljan Espenak in particular, as well as Trudi Schoop, Elisabeth Polk, and later
Irmgard Bartenieff and Rhoda Winter Russell.
(Levy, 1988, p. 4)
Dance critic John Martin refers to Wigman’s dance as ‘authentic movements’
(Levy, 1988, p. 5). Perhaps it is no coincidence that US pioneering dance/
movement therapist Mary Whitehouse, who trained with Wigman in Dresden,
Germany and also studied depth psychology at the C.G. Jung Institute in Zurich,
in combining her experience of dance improvisation with her knowledge of
depth psychology developed a particular approach within dance/move-
ment therapy called movement-in-depth, later known as Authentic Movement
(Chodorow, 1991).

Dance/movement therapy: An emerging profession in the USA

and in Germany
During the Second World War, in part due to Hitler’s race politics, many of
Wigman’s students were forced to leave Germany. However, it seems that the
seeds of inspiration planted during the early Wigman training remained with
 Body, Movement and Dance in Psychotherapy   123

Liljan Espenak, Elisabeth Polk and Irmgard Bartenieff. They continued to explore
creative dance, improvisation and emotional expression while living in exile,
and in its course, contributed to the emergence of a new professional field. One
of the benefits of the Wigman dance training included undergoing a process
of self-realisation, which became a central aspect later on in dance/movement
therapy (Personal conversation with Anne Marakas).
Since the mid-1940s, Marian Chace, Liljan Espenak, Trudi Schoop and Mary
Whitehouse, among others, steadily advanced this field. They are considered
the first generation of dance/movement therapists in the USA. The pioneers
applied core principles of dance and movement expression in their individual
and group sessions with hospitalised psychiatric patients (Fiedler, 2004; Levy,
1988). In addition to the use of rhythmical music as a support, the early dance/
movement therapists often used the method of subtle and ‘empathic mirroring’
of a person’s movement as a way of establishing communication and connect-
ing in non-verbal ways with patients. This original dance/movement therapy
technique received scientific confirmation by neuroscientists who discovered
the existence of mirror neurons. Gallese understands the mirror neurons to
be at the root of empathy, a central element in psychotherapy (Gallese, 2003).
Generations of women dance/movement therapists had intuitively applied
‘empathic mirroring’ during dance/movement therapy sessions with patients
since the beginning of this profession.
After a long process of discussion among the early US dance/movement
therapists, who initially worked separately in various parts of the country, came
together and founded the professional organisation of the American Dance
Therapy Association (ADTA) in 1966, defining the field in this way: ‘dance ther-
apy is the psychotherapeutic use of movement as a process which furthers
the emotional and physical integration of the individual’ (ADTA in Levy, p. 15).
Educational standards, professional training guidelines and a code of ethics
were established. To this day, the organisation hosts annual conferences and
publishes bi-annually the American Journal of Dance Therapy.

Transatlantic knowledge transfer

From the mid-1980s on, almost 40  years after the end of the Second World
War, a gradual process of exchange began to develop between Germany and
the USA. A handful of German individuals went abroad and enrolled in dance/
movement therapy training programmes already established at various uni-
versities in the USA. Among these were Stefanie Erhard, Sabine von der Tann,
Imke Fiedler, Maria Oberem and Anna Pohlmann. Upon completion of their
trainings, most returned to Germany and opened private dance therapy training
institutes. Oberem remained in the USA for over a decade, working in clinical
settings in California and in New York City before returning to Berlin. During the
1980s, American dance/movement therapists were then invited by their former
124    M. L. Oberem

students to teach dance/movement methods, and lecture on the subject in

Germany (Fiedler, 2004; Gewertz-Harris, 1995). In this transatlantic process of
knowledge transfer, the field of dance/movement therapy began to be gradually
conceptualised in more formal ways in Germany, in part from seeds sown there
almost 60 years earlier.

Dance/movement therapy in Berlin, Germany

In the early 1970s, a small number of former Wigman students began to work
with psychiatric patients in various hospitals in Berlin. With support and under
supervision of psychiatrists, they worked with elements of expressive dance,
improvisation, body alignment and rhythmical music. These early, experimental
inroads bore fruit at one hospital in particular. The former Landesnervenklinik
Berlin-Spandau, a city psychiatric centre, founded in 1961, adopted new
approaches in the treatment of their patients. In addition to music therapists
and art therapists, three former Wigman students were employed during the
1970 and 1980s, consisting of Petra Kugel, Karin Mahr and Anne Marakas, who
may well be considered the first generation of self-taught clinical dance/move-
ment therapists in Berlin, Germany.
Marakas was also the first to establish a dance therapy training institute in
Berlin, called Tanzraum-Zentrum für Tanz und Therapie. i.e. ‘danceroom-center for
dance and therapy’. In the mid-1980s, further private dance/movement therapy
institutes were established, offering training programmes, and several profes-
sional bodies were founded who operated independently of one another.
When Oberem returned from the USA to Berlin in 1992, she joined a team of
several expressive arts therapists at the Landesnervenklinik-Spandau in Berlin.
Since clinical work was still the exception in this emerging professional field, the
three dance/movement therapists at the time at this hospital, Anne Marakas,
Tatjana Murasov and Maria Oberem, discussed possibilities of hosting an inter-
national professional conference on the clinical application of dance/movement
therapy. After the initial conference proposal was accepted by the hospital direc-
tors, an intensive two-year planning process began. Barbara Kramer, a German-
trained dance/movement therapist, joined the conference planning committee
as the conference secretary in early 1994.

The language of movement: The first international conference on

dance therapy in Berlin, Germany, 1–4 September 1994
This conference was dedicated to Mary Wigman. Marakas honoured her for-
mer dance teacher with an opening lecture, titled ‘Hours of Dance: A Dance
Therapist reflects on her early dance training with Mary Wigman’ (Marakas,
1995). She experienced this training as ‘an apprenticeship of the heart’ (p. 84),
 Body, Movement and Dance in Psychotherapy   125

she acknowledged that Wigman’s innovative work had prepared the path for
the field of dance/movement therapy to emerge in Germany.
The Berlin conference organisers, Marakas, Murasov and Oberem, offered
an open forum for dance/movement therapists in Germany to dialogue with
international, leading professionals, in an effort to unite the different frac-
tions, schools and organisations, working independently in Germany at the
time. In addition to understanding the complex process of dance/movement
therapy application in clinical contexts, further conference goals included
increasing the visibility of dance/movement therapy among a wider public,
developing a positive professional identity and achieving official recognition
of dance/movement therapy as a professional field in Germany, capable of
making valuable contributions in the psychotherapeutic treatment of psy-
chiatric patients.
Leading American dance/movement therapists accepted the conference
organisers’ invitation and came to Berlin, and shared their clinical experience and
theoretical concepts. Elaine Siegel, who was born in Berlin but had to emigrate to
the USA, spoke on ‘Psychoanalytic Dance Therapy: Bridge between Psyche and
Soma’, Joan Chodorow presented on ‘Body, Psyche and the Emotions’, Penny
Lewis-Bernstein shared the ‘Object-relational Method of Dance Therapy’ and
Janet Adler presented her ideas on ‘The Collective Body’. These key note lectures
are published in the American Journal of Dance Therapy, 1995, Vol. 17, No. 2 and
1996, Vol. 18, No. 2.
The keynote lectures were followed by a wide range of workshops from
­international professionals in the field. During four conference days, 65 semi-
nars were offered, 400 people attended the conference and, at the international
panel, professionals from 17 different countries shared the state of dance ther-
apy in their respective country. Since 1995, New York-based dance/movement
therapist and former president of the ADTA, Miriam Roskin-Berger, convenes
an international panel during the annual ADTA conference, a tradition that was
started in Berlin.
As a result of the Berlin dance/movement therapy conference, a professional
umbrella organisation was created in Germany, in 1995, representing previous
organisations and private institutes, as well as individual dance/movement ther-
apists, called Berufsverband der Tanztherapeut/innen Deutschlands, e.V. (BTD), the
professional organisation of dance therapists in Germany. The model of the
American Dance Therapy Association (ADTA) served as an inspiration for the
developing German organisation in establishing guidelines and educational
standards. Dance/movement therapists in Germany can apply for a standardised
title of dance therapist within the BTD.
The conference organisers had hoped to create momentum for a continuing
movement of regular professional exchange in the countries of the European
Union. However, it took 20 years before the next international dance therapy
conference took place, in Riga, Latvia, in 2014. Shortly after the Berlin conference,
126    M. L. Oberem

the situation for dance/movement therapy in Germany changed dramatically.

As a result of a major health care reform, dance/movement therapy positions
were cut, particularly in clinical settings, and there continues a crisis situation.

Summary
With these reflections on the parallel development of the gymnastics movement
and the emerging expressive dance movement, my intention is to shed light on
Gindler and Wigman, acknowledging their profound ground work contributions
to the emerging fields of body psychotherapy and dance/movement therapy
in the twentieth century.
During the 1920s, Berlin was at the centre of innovative arts, health and social
reform movements in which Gindler and Wigman were actively involved, both
worked for many years in Berlin. To this day, the city continues to be a focal point
for relevant advancements in these fields.
Due to rise of National Socialism in Germany, these thriving innovative devel-
opments were interrupted and the Jewish students of Gindler and Wigman were
forced to emigrate. Taking the seeds of inspiration from the early Gindler and
Wigman training with them, they continued to work with the breathing, sens-
ing and expressing body. Many of them became pioneering dance/movement
therapists in the USA in the 1940s.
Dance/movement therapy was first formally conceptualised as a professional
field in the USA, in 1960s, with the founding of the ADTA and university training
programmes. Core elements of the Gindler work, e.g. attention to breath, an
inward focus on sensory experience, and increasing body and self-awareness,
as well as Wigman’s understanding of dance as a language of the body, able to
express emotions, became central tenets in the training of dance/movement
therapists.
Since the mid-1980s, dance/movement therapists in the US and Germany
have been in active professional dialogue. This culminated in a rare international
conference on dance/movement therapy in Berlin, in 1994, dedicated to Mary
Wigman, whose early understanding of the expressive body had opened the
door for the psychotherapeutic use of movement and dance.

Acknowledgements
I thank the Heinrich Jacoby/Elsa Gindler Stiftung Berlin, Teplitzstr. 9, 14193 Berlin,
Germany for the use of the archive during this research process. I thank Margaret Blevins
and Charlotte Kaye for their help with the English edit of this manuscript.

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
 Body, Movement and Dance in Psychotherapy   127

Notes on contributor

Maria Luise Oberem obtained PhD in Psychology, MA in Dance/Movement Therapy

(California State University), Certificate Training at the Center for the Study of Authentic
Movement with Zoe Avstreih, Collaborative works with the Authentic Movement
Institute, founded by Neala Haze and Tina Stromsted. Maria Luise Oberem conducted
clinical dance/movement therapy practice in San Francisco, New York and Berlin. Maria
Luise Oberem was a former associate lecturer at Rotterdam Dance Academy, Netherlands;
Institut für Tanz- und Ausdruckstherapie, INTAT, Vienna, Austria; University of Central
Lancashire, UK.

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