1: I didn’t study this subject, but I believe that animals in captivity can get traumatized, and often are traumatized. Think of a tiger walking ‘neurotically’ up and down his cage in the zoo, or the mass suffering of animals in the bio-industry. See also note 4.
2: I like Victor’s use of the word ‘crazy’ here. Apparently a certain amount of ‘being crazy’ can help to overcome a psychological problem..
3: Such relations with choreographers or dance-teachers that are about much more than dance or dance-technique are very common in the dance world.
4: On the internet you can find quite some discussions on the ‘horse head shaking syndrome’. This is a compulsive behavior of horses in captivity. Until now there is no agreement on the cause of this. (Again) I am not a biologist, but based on the work of Levine, what comes to my mind is that these horses could be traumatized. They could have been in situations which they experienced as very threatening, without being able to release the energy caused by this situation, maybe because they didn’t have enough space, or because they were forced to stay calm by humans..
On a website I found this text:
Some say it is caused by stressful events. This theory doesn’t sit right because horses are prey animals and you can’t get much more stressful a situation than being eyed up as a predator’s meal! If this was true then head-shaking/flicking would be observable in wild herds which it is not.
I believe Levine’s theory could offer an answer to this.. Horses don’t have a neocortex, but could it be that they are intelligent and/or social enough to get traumatized? And that this syndrome is a failed attempt (like an addiction) to release their traumas?
5: The documentary ‘Zij gelooft in mij’ from John Appel, beautifully shows the struggle with stage fright of Andre Hazes, and suggests a connection between this struggle and his troublesome childhood.
6: Maybe artists who work very conceptually form an exception on this..
7: Apart from the ‘jumping exercise’ or similar ways of bringing the body in a ‘situation of emergency’, I believe that there are also ‘softer ways’ to bring the body out of it’s ‘daily structure’ in a state that it ‘itself starts thinking’. The thirst image that comes to mind are the slow movements of Tai Chi practitioners.. Levine advises people to do soft movement-work (yoga, dance) aligned with somatic experiencing to get in touch with their ‘felt sense’.
3.3 A Comparison between the Work of Emio Greco / PC and Some Principles of Peter Levine’s Theory of the Human Body and Trauma Healing
Bram Vreeswijk 