Anna Halprin's Darkside Dance

The sharp, strained movements and demonic screeching in Anna Halprin's 1975 improvisational piece, Darkside Dance, make it is easy to understand the amount of despair Halprin went through upon hearing that she had been diagnosed with colon cancer a second time. In an interview, Halprin described her feelings regarding this diagnosis when she said, “For those of you who have cancer or have had cancer, you know how life threatening it can be. You're unprepared suddenly to face the possibility of dying.” Darkside Dance was the way in which Halprin released built up emotions, and as a result, she believed physical healing could occur. She goes on to say, “My only way of dealing with any of my life's issues was to use the arts. That helps me to move on, literally move on, helps me from just being stuck” (Halprin, 2012). The 1970's were ultimately a time of healing; healing of a nation and it's people. It was not until 1975 that the Vietnam War finally ceased, and the country was ailing to move forward (Bondi, 1995, p. 337). Due to a loss of faith in the leadership of our nation, citizens began looking elsewhere for solutions to their problems in the same way that Anna Halprin sought inner healing through the arts when medicine failed her. As a child, Anna Halprin lived in Chicago with her mother and grandfather. “My very first dance experience was when I was four, seeing my grandfather pray at temple. Because he was a Hassidic Jew, he would pray by singing, jumping up and down, and flinging his arms in the air. I thought this was absolutely beautiful,” she recalled (Poynor & Worth, 2004, p. 2). Since Halprin's first vision of dance involved watching a spiritual experience, it is no surprise that her life's work with dance was focused upon dance as more than a form of entertainment. Instead, she was interested in the way in which dance along with other art forms could provide healing and unity for communities (Halprin, 1995, p. 111).
At the age of fifteen, Halprin