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Our Mission

Our mission is to make it possible for girls and women to have agency over our own bodies. We are identifying and developing culturally sensitive dance-based body-trust™ and self-advocacy programs to make them available on a global scale. The DTP Institute is a 501(c)3 non-profit charity. The activity infrastructure includes networking, research and development of programming, consulting, education, and training for those providing dance programs aimed at improving the health and well-being of females throughout life.

Our Rationale

Girls, women, and people AFAB deserve better education about how our bodies work, fun activities, cultural grounding, and psycho-social support. However it is that we became girls and women and whether or not we choose or are able to have children, our reproductive life cycle strongly determines the rhythm and quality of our lives. Accurate knowledge of our anatomy, its physics and physiology, hormonal drifts, assets and liabilities have yet to be established. Thus, we undertake this project: the DTP Institute.

Our Purpose

We strive to make it possible for women to have agency over our own bodies. Doing so in the law helps, but ultimately it is achieved by actualizing our soma at a profound level – something we learn through movement and acknowledgement of the circular rhythm and power of our lives. The vehicle that enables this body-trust is dance.

Our Practice

Both research and evidence-based practices show that dance produces social bonding, mental acuity, well-being, and improves health outcomes and self-advocacy throughout the life-span. As the importance of the arts in mental and physical health continues to be recognized, the impact of dance grows in value.

Our Methods

DTP relies on established dance and somatic training methods for creation of a personal sense of one’s anatomy, producing “body-trust” or the trust in one’s body to accomplish desired actions. These methods include Demonstration/Return Demonstration, Centering (balance, deep breathing, and parasympathetic flow state), Ideokinesis (imagery innervated motion), Alexander technique (natural posture), Feldenkrais (awareness through movement), and Effort/Shape (perception of how people use space, time and energy).

DANCING THRU…

Puberty
Pregnancy
Postpartum
Perimenopause
Postmenopause

More to Come…

We are constructing our website, so please return often to learn more. Information is in the pipeline on our research, development and support programs, more details about our Global Trainers project, how to join our network or become an instructor, and, and ways to help us grow!