Dramatherapy - Volume 39, Issue 2, 2018

Billy Lindkvist’s demonstration at a Sesame Seasonal School of foot and rhythm work for connection, sense of self, and grounding, was an inspiration for me to train as a Sesame practitioner. In this paper, I will explore the origins of this work in Billy’s experience and how she developed it, how it has continued in Sesame training, and lastly show how I have used this associated aspect of a basic strand of the Sesame Approach, Movement with Touch and Sound, from RCSSD placements through to current client work, describing its application and adaptation for different client groups including people with dementia, ASD, Parkinson’s, and physical and learning difficulties.

This article is based on a visit to the Sesame Institute Archive. It uses an autoethnographical approach to examine five items from the archive: an ‘Open Sesame!’ pamphlet; a series of letters; photographs of Kats rehearsals and work with groups; a typed manuscript and a paper from a conference on ‘Mental Retardation’. The enquiry concludes that the autoethographical research illuminates elements of Lindkvist’s relationship to drama, movement and creativity, in particular: the role of collaboration and interdisciplinarity in her work and its development; how new conceptual spaces were created by her and how these were in a mutual relationship with innovative practices; the centrality of the concept of the client as a creative individual, full of potential.

This case study explores how the Sesame approach and specifically Marian Lindkvist’s ‘Movement with Touch and Sound’ (MTS) became the fertile soil for the psychological support and healing of refugee women in an innovative community centre in Athens. Expression through movement, ritual, imagination and play created the fine line of working obliquely yet deeply with severely traumatised women, most of whom were survivors of gender-based violence (GBV). The archetypal image of the tree, which develops new roots after the so called ‘transplant shock’, is a guiding metaphor that emerged through the therapeutic process and held an enormous significance as a representative unconscious image of the women’s inner and outer journey of transformation.