Movement Medicine
Movement Medicine is a conscious dance and movement meditation practice that integrates embodied movement, emotional awareness, and mindfulness with insights from psychology, shamanic traditions, and contemporary neuroscience. It is practiced internationally through classes, workshops, retreats, and professional training programmes.
Movement Medicine emphasises dance as a pathway to personal healing, relational awareness, and collective responsibility, inviting participants to engage with both inner experience and the wider world through movement.
Origins
Movement Medicine was developed in the early 2000s by Susannah Darling-Khan and Ya’Acov Darling-Khan, senior teachers of 5Rhythms who were direct students of Gabrielle Roth. The practice emerged as an evolution of their decades-long work in conscious dance, psychotherapy, shamanic practice, and embodied facilitation.
The founders describe Movement Medicine as responding to the needs of contemporary life, integrating personal transformation with social and ecological awareness.
Core principles
Movement Medicine is grounded in several key principles:
- Embodiment — cultivating awareness through direct physical experience.
- Responsibility — recognising choice and accountability in how we move, relate, and act.
- Relationship — exploring connection with self, others, community, and the living world.
- Integration — bringing insights from movement practice into everyday life.
The practice views dance as medicine not only for individuals, but also for relationships, communities, and cultures.
Practice
Movement Medicine sessions typically involve guided movement journeys supported by music, verbal guidance, imagery, and intention. While there is no choreography, teachers provide clear frameworks that invite exploration of sensation, emotion, impulse, and meaning.
Classes often include:
- grounding and centring practices,
- movement explorations related to emotional states and life themes,
- opportunities for solo and relational movement,
- integration and reflection through embodied awareness.
The practice draws on both expressive and contemplative movement, balancing intensity with integration.
Maps and frameworks
Movement Medicine uses a set of teaching maps and conceptual frameworks to support clarity and depth in practice. These may include:
- The Wave (inherited and adapted from 5Rhythms),
- The Medicine Wheel and elemental perspectives,
- maps of consciousness, choice, and responsibility,
- archetypal and mythic lenses for understanding experience.
These maps function as orienting tools rather than prescriptions, supporting improvisation and personal meaning-making.
Teacher training
Movement Medicine offers an internationally recognised professional training programme for conscious dance teachers and facilitators. The training is modular and typically spans several years, combining:
- intensive residential modules,
- supervised teaching practice,
- personal process work,
- mentoring and assessment.
Graduates are authorised to teach Movement Medicine classes and workshops and are part of an ongoing professional community.
Community and reach
Movement Medicine is practiced across Europe and internationally, with teachers offering regular classes, workshops, and retreats in many countries. The school maintains an active global network of teachers, students, and practitioners, supported by online resources and events.
External links
- Official website: https://schoolofmovementmedicine.com/
