Gail Baranello is no stranger to the healing power of movement, having been a professional dancer and teacher for many years with an undergraduate degree in psychology and dance from Stony Brook University. For the past 16 years, with her husband, Adam Baranello, she has owned A&G Dance Company, which is based in Hampton Bays.
Last year, she deepened the connection between her two interests, developing her own program of movement healing called Moving Through. Before the Covid-19 shutdowns, she taught different aspects of it at Stony Brook Southampton Hospital’s wellness center, Artful Homecare, The Dunes recovery center in East Hampton, and the Riverhead Library.
The first two segments of the program were on grief and stress. The first, at the hospital’s wellness center, “was on the topic of loss, and I based it off the Kubler-Ross model of the five stages of grief,” Ms. Baranello said.
Her latest module, on isolation, is being taught virtually to help people with the feelings of loneliness and disconnectedness that the shutdown has engendered. She hopes to make it more interactive in the coming weeks in a video chat format.
She begins with some discussion of the negative feelings everyone is facing during this time. The virtual workshop is modeled after her in-person classes. “We start with a little introduction, a meditation, and then we get into writing down our feelings.”
Then she guides participants through a gentle warmup. “Once we are warmed up, we take a look at our emotions that we wrote down, and instead of reading the words aloud, we replace the word with a movement or body position.”
She encourages instinct over style or a strict interpretation of a feeling. “It’s not charades. The movements do not have to be literal.” This is where “things get interesting, because we start to see where people truly store their feelings.”
According to Ms. Baranello, there are a number of studies that show how people store emotional energy and trauma in the cells of their bodies. If the energy is not dissipated, it stays trapped and can manifest itself as chronic physical ailments.
“It is believed that when we have trauma and we do not process the event, our nervous systems get confused and stuck, if you will.” Finding the spot where the body holds the memory can help release it and help the nervous system recover. “It almost seems like magic, but I’ve seen it work. I can usually guess where people hold their stress by the movement they choose.”
Those in her regular workshops are often amazed at her ability to find that spot, she said, “but they are telling me by where they are touching or holding themselves.” She once asked a woman if she had arthritis in her hands. “She asked how I knew. I said, ‘Well, your movement was based around clenching your fists, so it was an indicator.’ “
In a group setting, participants would share their movements with one another and say the emotion out loud with the movement. This is important because it connects the mind and body simultaneously, Ms. Baranello said, but it can still be done in a private setting. “This is called somatic movement. Movement with mental intention.”
The current lack of work causes her stress, and she misses her students, friends, and family. “I am a very social and hands-on person, so I am feeling depleted,” but she practices what she preaches in getting herself through the difficult moments.
How to Do It
“The technique I use is from my Moving Through Isolation workshop. I identify my emotions, which are anxious, worried, and overwhelmed. I then come up with a movement to represent each emotion. I then say them aloud and do the movement three times, creating a set. So I say ‘anxious’ and do my move, ‘worried’ and do my move, ‘overwhelmed’ and do my move. Repeat three times. This will get the emotions moving through and eventually out of the body. You will feel refreshed and rejuvenated.”
