Dance, movement and sensory experience: belly dance as an expression of self

Abstract

Art is considered a tool for promoting, preventing, and restoring the integral health of human beings. This study presents an account of the author's experience leading a belly dance workshop at an academic scientific event. The research is qualitative, with data collection through observation and investigation through experience, configuring participatory action research. The analytical methodology is phenomenological-existential. The objective of the workshop was to provide the experience of living belly dance and movement through different sensory stimuli, techniques, and possibilities for promoting body awareness, self-esteem, and (re)cognition of oneself as a tool for care through art. The participants consisted of 12 people, both men and women, representing different age groups, socioeconomic status, race/ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, and profession. The workshop lasted 3 hours. It is concluded that the group work provided encounters that allowed for the experience of the body, in the free expression of its wholeness and spontaneity, so that corporeality was experienced with self-knowledge, body self-perception, reflection, awareness, self-recognition, improvements in self-image, self-care, self-esteem, and autonomy.