Elissa White

Interview by Joan Ingalls

Elissa and I met by her car on First Avenue. Over the din of the traffic, I heard a voice calling “Joan.” We recognized each other although we haven't seen other for probably 20 years. We soon found a quiet Thai restaurant in the neighborhood, and settled into our conversation.

Elissa is the current president of the ADTA, and she will be running for a second term. I was eager to hear her and share with the membership her answers to the many questions that we at the NYS Chapter executive board have for her. Elissa was, along with Claire Schmais, the founder and, for 25-years until 1996, the co-director of the Hunter Master Degree Program in dance therapy.

J: Elissa, I think the burning question for the chapter is what will happen to the registry when the licensure comes into effect.

E: Nothing. One has nothing to do with the other. We have the registry because we have a code of ethics, and standards for training. That doesn't change. Our registry allows the general public and our members to know who is qualified to teach dance therapy, to be in private practice in dance therapy, and supervise other dance therapists. The state license doesn't do that.

J: How will the licensure actually happen?

E: I don't know. Right now we are dealing with writing the regulations for the licensure. There is an issue about how the law is being interpreted with regard to “alternative routes.” It is being interpreted to mean out-of-state training and we don't want that interpretation. My understanding is, however, that every ADTR will be grandfathered in. After that, new people will have to go directly through the state licensing process.

J: What about the National Counselors Certification exam?

E: All ADTRs will be grandfathered in with or without the NCC exam.

J: Tell me something about the history of the registry. Is this the 20-year anniversary of the registry?

E: No, the registry was in place by 1974, I believe. Various states had been asking for a way to know who was qualified to be a dance therapist. So we responded to that with the registry. After a while, new graduates found themselves needing jobs to earn internship hours, and not being able to get jobs because they weren't on the registry. So, in 1984, we created a two-level registry: DTR for new graduates, and ADTR for people who were already DTRs at that point. 

J: So who was number 1 on the registry?

E: We gave that honor to Irmgard Bartenieff.

J: What vision or goals do you see for the New York State Chapter? What do you think should be the purpose of the chapter?

E: I see the chapters as primarily a place where dance therapists can go for continuing education. Chapters can also be places where dance therapists learn advocacy, and marketing. I think we need to be more political. I think we need to learn more about marketing.

J: Yes. We are getting into marketing: we have a referral service on our web page.

E: That's a real tangible benefit.

J:  Do you have a sound bite – a 30-second elevator pitch for us?

E: No. We one time wanted to do a bumper sticker: “Dance is a moving experience,” but people thought it was too corny.

J:  What are your ideas about workshops? Why should a teacher give away her knowledge – we pay only a minimum honorarium? Why should people come?

E: They help people meet their CE requirement. (CEs are different from CEUs. One CEU is 10 hours. One CE is one hour). So workshops are a service that people should take advantage of. In my opinion, it is our professional responsibility to serve – give back to the profession. If you get a non-dance therapist to present, you may have to pay that person more.

J: In selecting workshop topics, we have tried to respond to people's interest. Lately we have been offering a series of workshops in assessment tools. What do you think about assessment tools for dance therapists?

E: I think I am in the minority. I have always thought assessment tools were for dance therapists to learn how to understand their own movement styles and preferences. They should know how they look and the impact they have on others. They need to be self-conscious about their movement. But they are using assessment to evaluate patients. I think this is a mistake. It distances us from our patients.

J: What are your ideas about advocacy?

E: I think that we have to accept that we will forever have to advocate for dance therapy even more than music, art and drama therapists. We have no product to show. We live in an anti-dance culture. People don't understand dance. You have to participate to experience the benefit. Being a dance therapist is extremely hard. That said, advocacy takes many forms. One idea is to go into high schools on career day, and talk to high school students. We need to be bringing young people into the field. We need to be developing leadership for the future. Another idea is to bring in a person who can teach the chapter members how to lobby – how the government works. We should be fighting for mental health parity, for example. I think it's a women's issue that we aren't more politically active.

J: Why don't we participate more?

E: In my case, I was just happy to be working.

J: We are happy to have a crumb from the table?

E: Maybe. At Hunter we saw the students move away from the one who got it – understood dance therapy.

J: We don't support our leaders.

E: That's what we saw.

J: I am the fund raising chair on the board. Any advice for me? How to convince people that we are a worthy cause? What do we fund raise for?

E: You fund raise to run educational workshops. Find a rich patient who benefited from dance therapy. That has actually happened. The Andrea Rizzo Foundation sponsors a position for a dance therapist at Sloan Kettering. It's in memory of Andrea, who was treated at Sloan Kettering and cured of a childhood cancer at age 18 months. Andrea grew up to be a dancer, special education teacher and
graduate student at NYU in dance therapy. At 24 years old, she was killed by a drunk driver as she returned home from a dance performance at the Broadway Dance Center in NYC on May 19, 2002.

J: That's a great idea. One idea that has been discussed on the dance therapy list serve recently is our relationship to the “healing arts.” Marie Aguirra and I, for example, participated in a program run by the New York Department of Youth and Community Development called “The Healing Arts Project.” Mostly, dancers, artists, musicians, and actors were involved, not creative arts therapists. The project culminated in a daylong conference introducing NYC youth workers to the value of the arts in promoting resiliency in youth and families. Christine Zimbleman did a dance therapy workshop.

E: We are different from the Healing Arts. They don't like the word “psychotherapy.” They are bringing an aesthetic experience to patients. They perform for them. We never perform for people.

J: What don't they like about the word “psychotherapy?” I'd like to ask them.

E: I agree. We need a dialogue, and we at the ATDA want to pursue this. We need to. These groups are well represented, and they are gaining access to hospitals. They don't create jobs, but they are getting funding. We need to work with dance educators also. New dance therapists come from their programs. The national board is doing some things with the National Dance Educators Alliance.

J: Another topic on the list serve is research. Do you think we can ever prove that dance therapy works?

E: No, no more than any therapy can, but I think it is important for us to get in there with everybody else, and do some research, and make it available to dance therapists so that they can better advocate.

J: We (the NYS chapter board) are going to post the entire text of the new Pratt graduates' theses on our web page. We are going to gradually add the previous years.

E: That is fabulous.

J: This may be a boring question for you, but maybe you have some fresh thoughts now on what happened to the Hunter Program. Why did it close?

E: Ostensibly funding. But we were isolated. We didn't advocate strongly enough for our program.

J: Do you have any advice for the Pratt program?

E: Yes. Advocate for your program. Make sure people at the university know you are there, why you are important, what you are doing. Put up a big visible sign that says “Dance Therapy” where people can see it when they enter the university.