Kevin Finnan, joint artistic director of Motionhouse Dance Theatre, explains:
We are very clear that we are not therapists, care workers or missionaries. We are artists. We acknowledge that our own experience of our work has taught us that it can be therapeutic, liberating, empowering and affirmative. It can offer these things but because it is art it can also be disturbing, painful, challenging and a bloody grind as well. A therapist uses a set of tools to help a person to recover. We do not know how to do this – we have not trained to do this. We know how to make art and we attempt to share this experience because we believe it to be a vital and fundamental element of the life force that sustains us all and helps nourish our humanity. When we share art we are being present to the moment together. In our work there is an exchange.
(Quoted from page 51 of Community Performance, by Petra Kuppers. Routledge, 2001.)
For biographic words about Kevin Finnan, click here. For Motionhouse Dance Theatre’s web page, click here. For Petra Kuppers web page, click here. For information on the American Art Therapy Association, click here.
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