The ADTA’s First Half-Century: Ma(r)king History with an Eye to the Horizon

Abstract

The author, as co-editor of the American Journal of Dance Therapy, introduces six essays by a small group of experts, invited to share reflections on the social, political, economic, scientific, and cultural context for the development of the profession of dance/movement therapy (DMT) over the first half century of the American Dance Therapy Association (ADTA). Through allusions to pivotal events in the United States circa 1966, this introductory editorial characterizes the U.S. zeitgeist around the year of the ADTA’s founding. Specific references are made to the signing of the Voting Rights Act, the establishment of Medicaid and Medicare, the founding of the National Organization for Women, as well as the violent targeting of civil rights marchers in Selma, Alabama, and the spontaneous launching of the modern LGBT rights movement with the Stonewall Rebellion in New York’s Greenwich Village. Commentary on the six essays to follow the editorial includes discussion of DMT as a female-dominated profession, which has apparently suffered the economic consequences of gender bias. Strategies for countering devaluation of the profession and building respect for it—including improving dance/movement therapists’ cultural competence, upgrading both quantitative and qualitative research, and fostering alliances between the ADTA and sister institutions—are likewise advanced.