Movement Matters

Olivia Bowers (B.F.A. ’17, dance) is studying to make dance her career, but her time volunteering with Movement Matters, a new community outreach program at the Boston Conservatory, has proven a powerful reminder about her art form’s most fundamental ability.

Movement Matters, a program for low-mobility seniors, was created in 2014 to give dance and musical theater students an opportunity to give back to their community.

“I was totally taken aback by the level of interest, given students’ hectic schedules,” says Kim Haack, director of external relations. “The weekly program meets during the school year with an average class size of 8 to 10 seniors, with students teaching different styles of dance.”

Haack describes the program as very personal, with one-on-one instruction that requires motivated students with an “all-in” mentality.

“Students sit among the seniors and hold their hands. In one class, a woman started singing and the student next to her sang along,” Haack explains. “There’s a real sense of community in the experience.”

Linda Brown, resident service coordinator at Morville House, an affordable housing community near the Conservatory, says residents there participate in Movement Matters as much for the socialization and confidence as the exercise.

“For many of them, English is not their first language, but dance is a universal language and the program speaks to all of them,” she says. “People are able to express themselves even when they weren’t sure they could.”

Bowers, who continued leading classes into the summer, says every lesson sparked memorable moments. She recalls the Valentine’s Day class in which one gentleman, twisting his torso to visualize the moon, stopped to let Bowers know he was imagining his late wife. On another occasion, a woman who had never before spoken in class said: “All the pain is gone.”

“That moment resonated with me so deeply,” says Bowers. “In a professional career, dancers have a close relationship with pain, but to be able to take pain away from someone is enough of a reason to do it the rest of my life.”

In spring 2016, the Boston Conservatory will also launch Step by Step!, a dance and social skills program for children on the autism spectrum. For more information on Movement Matters and Step by Step!, contact Kim Haack at khaack@bostonconservatory.edu.

"Movement Matters first appeared in the WINTER 2015 issue of STAGES, the Conservatory's bi-annual magazine. The article appears in its original form.