Past Grant Recipients

The Foundation offers small grants for research in DMT, TD or DW annually. HEMF recognises that the advancement of dance as a therapy and/or a healing art requires that research be undertaken and reported on. Each year small grants are made for research or discrete projects that contribute towards research, that are assessed to advance the field of dance movement therapy and/or promote the value of dance as a healing art through evaluation, research, and quality assurance activities. Below is a list of Past Grant Recipients.

2025

Ann Way – Embodied Identity – Making a Connection between Dementia Prevention and Dance Movement Therapy in Aotearoa, New Zealand

The project aims to develop a pioneering dance movement therapy (DMT) pilot programme for individuals living with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) in Aotearoa, New Zealand. The researcher proposes a staged project using various methodologies to investigate the effectiveness of DMT for cognitive health and holistic well-being, as well as reducing the risk of dementia. The initial research stage will involve semi-structured interviews with three focus groups: dance movement therapists, healthcare practitioners and caregivers of individuals living with MCI. This stage generates qualitative data that will be analysed using thematic analysis. Identified themes will inform the development of a DMT pilot programme and a two-arm randomised controlled trial in the subsequent stage. The researcher uses a mixed methods design in the subsequent stage, collecting data such as markers of cognitive and other change, including blood pressure and electroencephalogram (EEG) measures of memory loss, movement observation data and self-report. The feasibility and acceptability of these measures will be determined in the pilot/intervention phase. The outcome of this project is to examine the pilot DMT programme’s effectiveness and validate the themes identified in the initial stage.

2024

HEMF was recently delighted to award Mioi Forster-Nakayama with funding in the 2A research stream for her investigation into how stored, preverbal trauma in children is processed within individualised dmt sessions. Titled, The embodied life story of Preverbal Trauma and Restoration of Attachment, Mioi’s interest in this work stems from her therapeutic engagement over several years with a young trauma survivor. Her study utilizes trauma-informed practices and psychodynamic psychotherapy approaches that allow the therapist to access the client’s unconscious thoughts, feelings, and movements to relieve emotional strain brought on by inner conflict. Mioi aims to bring understanding as to why some children return to the baby stage when processing preverbal trauma. Is this connected to their desire to re-establish safety? And by what process do they reposition attachment within an embodied therapeutic space? Can this process be supported by embodying a child-parent relationship within the shared therapeutic engagement?

Through this study, Mioi intends to add to the acknowledgement of the benefits in “bottom-up” pathways which focus on somatic interventions for client trauma restoration. By bringing specific attention through dmt to pre-verbal trauma and the mind-body of young trauma survivors, she hopes to educate those who currently support trauma survivors within early childhood settings, such as those under the care of the Department of Child Protection, about dmt theory/practice and its benefits for this population.

Mioi’s report on findings from her study will be made available later this year.

2023

Natalie Ivin Poole was awarded the Stream 2A Grant to obtain mentoring for her project Translating The Maps of Narrative Practice into Dance Movement Therapy Landscapes: Embodying and Embedding.

In her Masters of Narrative Therapy (The University of Melbourne, 2021), Natalie began a research dialogue between narrative therapy and dance-movement therapy. She produced the innovative research project, Tiny Dancer, where she invited the body to speak and express in narrative therapy conversations. She brought the dance, into narrative therapy. In this study Natalie wishes to bring narrative practice into dance-movement therapy, animating the process into a bodyful experience within the group environment.

2019

Verity Danbold was awarded $2500 to conduct her research study, Through the Web. This study sought to explore if, and how, DMT could be practiced safely and effectively online. It further aimed to address the gap in research and practice in online DMT, recognising a global trend towards online psychosocial care which accelerated during Covid-19. Verity’s report will be published in the DTAA journal, Moving On, in 2022.

2017

Alexandra Jordan was awarded $3000 for her participation in the project Dancing Together: Developing, trialling and evaluating a program of dance movement therapy for Indigenous Australians recovering from trauma in remote areas of Australia. Exploring whether indigenous Australians’ recovery from trauma can be supported by dance movement therapy. The Chapter, The Dance of Life with Aboriginal and Torre Strait Islander Peoples was published by Jordan, A., Searle, S., and Dunphy, K. (2017) in Dance Therapy Collection 4, 51-66.

2016

Jung-Hsu Jacquelyn Wan was awarded $2,500 for her participation in the project entitled Implementing of iPad app for DMT assessment in dance therapy clinical practice in New Zealand – a project across contexts and cultures, which explores the possibility of establishing an agreed set of objectives and related measures for specific areas of DMT practice. A report on this project is published in Moving On.

2013

Marita Jacobson received a grant of $2,000 for her project titled; Researching dance movement therapy approaches to well-being for women in Timor-Leste. This project was intended to build on a pilot study previously undertaken in Timor–Leste by Australian dance movement therapists. It aimed to develop a better understanding of how dance movement, offered in conjunction with other creative arts therapies, can contribute to women’s health and well-being in Timor-Leste, where individuals have experienced significant traumatic events due to decades of political and civil strife. A report on the project is published in Moving On.

Kim Adele Peel received a grant for her project, Capture, to document the history of a DMT group that has been in existence for more than 30 years. This project was intended to investigate what contributes to the longevity of a group and the difference the group has made to the lives of the participants. A compilation of historical and current film footage, and recorded interviews with the dance movement therapists and participants of the group were presented in a combined package of DVD and written media. This project makes available archival material to the DMT community for educational use. It also enables the contribution of dance movement therapy to be better known in the community at large

2012

Kim Dunphy and Sue Mullane were awarded $2000 to assist with the development of an app for assessment in dance movement therapy which is a conversion of their Framework for Dance-Movement Therapy Assessment. The project was intended to provide a user-friendly tool for dance movement therapists as well as practitioners in related disciplines. The app also received an ‘Award for Innovation in Dance Movement Therapy’ from the American Dance Therapy Association in October 2015. The project was completed and documented in Moving On.

2011

Sue Mullane was awarded a grant for her study entitled How Effective is the Framework for Dance-Movement Assessment (developed by Kim Dunphy and Sue Mullane) when used within the DEECD assessment framework in the context of a dance movement therapy program in a special needs school. Her report was published as Evidence of Learning – how can we know about student progress in school-based DMT programs in Moving On.

2009

Jessica Lesosky was awarded a grant for her study Intergenerational Dance/Movement Therapy: Connections Between Two Generations. This project was completed in 2009 and was reported in Moving On.

2007

The first grants were awarded in 2007. Kim Dunphy and collaborators Tessa Hearnes and Professor John Toumbourou were awarded a grant to undertake a survey of dance movement therapy to document and map current practice in Australia. This project’s results were presented at the DTAA Conference in November 2007, and the American Dance Therapy Conference in October 2008.