July 19, 2022
I’m Dr Pauline Manley and I live in sunny Sydney, Australia. I love Sydney. Surrounded by natural beauty, I am within walking distance of oceanic waters and abundant parklands.
I am nearing 60 years, and for the last few years I have been running a wellness and counselling program called New Moves.
At the heart of this program is movement. I have danced all my life. I have been a student, performer, director, teacher, choreographer and a dance studies academic. Dance has given me great joy, some intense struggles and disappointments, creative satisfaction and maybe, at times kept me alive.
I had a very bad start in life. Raised in an abusive home, I couldn’t wait to get out. But I was ill equipped and traumatised. By 17 I had substance abuse problems. I was a lost girl. But I kept dancing.
I tried many ways to manage life. Living in different places, with different people. Different jobs. All the time trying to run away from my trauma.
But, by the time I was 40 I had worked hard, maybe too hard, and was a successful academic with 20 more years of opportunity and ambition ahead of me.
But the pain I had never dealt with finally demanded to be heard. So, at 47, I decided to work part time while I did intensive therapy and a lot of healing. I kept dancing. Slowly, slowly I healed as I faced my demons. Dancing became more about healing and joy than ambition.
How could I embody this change?
I started teaching dance classes for women my own age. I wanted to bring to them the wonderful lightness of dance. The health benefits are so many; improved mood and confidence, the heightened body awareness that ameliorates the pains of ageing, the rediscovered sensuality of a body moving in pleasure, neurological improvement, and physical fitness. And all the while I was doing all these things for myself too.
Perhaps I started teaching these classes as a healing interlude to my academic career. But now, now I know that I no longer want the madness of an extreme workload. Now, I want to dance for health, freedom, pleasure, joy, strength, camaraderie, creativity, healing.
I want to dance with mature women. I love them, their wisdom, self-knowledge, and humour. I want to be among my own.
Like me, they are people who have lived through many trials. They know the shortness of time and the importance of connection.
We have found each other.
Dr. Pauline Manley