"Dance was made for the body, not the body for dance."

Amelia was determined to reduce injury and physical distortion in the practice of dance. The goal was to bridge the gap between dance’s extreme relationship with gravity and a more healthful and ultimately restorative movement practice: movement that fed the body.

Amelia knew one-on-one practice was at odds with the economic status and time pressure underlying dancer’s lives. Rather than extract dancers from their professional context, she tried to marry somatic work to accustomed dance practice. This took the form of daily, group-led classes to train and warm up the body. Training dancers in Toronto, she focussed on how the Mitzvah principle could be applied to technical dance training.

Focussing on direction of energy, she built movement combinations seated on small stools, based on the Graham floorwork of her training. The resulting series offers an experience of what happens when the body aligns with the direction of energy. The weight of the bones acts as the creative force and muscle takes a supportive role.

Regina student dancers were influenced fundamentally by Amelia through the training they received from Elaine Hanson, who taught the Itcush into Dance work.

Roxanne and Michelle Korpan, students of Youth Ballet of Saskatchewan: "We danced with Elaine from when we were 10 years old, the year we started dancing, and Amelia’s ideas and exercises were our first introduction to modern dance. I didn’t know that modern dance was that different - I thought there were stools in every modern class!"