We are pleased to introduce American Journal of Dance Therapy, Volume 37, Number 2, just at the moment that our profession is poised to reach the end of its first half century. The five articles that follow in these pages reflect a range of research approaches for appraising the impact of dance and dance/movement therapy (DMT) interventions with various populations.

  • First, a team of authors affiliated with Toronto’s York University conducted a critical examination of existing literature on the effects of dance interventions with elderly populations on cognition, sensorimotor performance, and underlying neurobiological factors.

  • In the phenomenological study that comes next, Alexa Elizabeth Palmer drew on semi-structured interviews with five dance/movement therapists who have worked with persons diagnosed with eating disorders as a way of investigating these practitioners’ “lived experience” in the field.

  • A research team mounted a 3-month DMT intervention program in Spain with a group of 30 adults with intellectual disabilities. This third study’s authors, using Human Figure Drawing as a measure of development, found significantly improved body knowledge among the participants.

  • The fourth and fifth research articles each examine dance and DMT with adolescent females in the United States. Kendall Pauline Hagensen placed DMT at the center of a holistic wellness curriculum and looked at its effectiveness. Her individual case study with a pre-teen used both quantitative and qualitative data to demonstrate how engagement with that curriculum enhanced the participant’s knowledge about herself and the functioning of her body.

  • Etalia Thomas, working with a small group of adolescent females in a school setting, adopted a model of community-based participatory research, designed to allow for the exploration of race and gender. Applying a movement-based re-interpretation of narrative identity theory, the author engaged participants in various roles within the study—from collecting and analyzing data, to creating a dance performance and considering the dance’s impact on its audience.

Following these five new studies is Lora Wilson Mau's book review of Judith Lynne Hanna’s Dancing to Learn. The Brain’s Cognition, Emotion, and Movement. Book Review Editor Jenny Lee’s compendium of recent publications of interest to those in the DMT profession, Of Note, is next. Closing the issue is Elissa Q. White’s tribute to her colleague and friend, Claire Schmais, in a revealing In Memoriam that draws extensively on the beloved DMT educator’s own words to tell the story of a committed life well lived.

As is so often the case when preparing an issue to make its way to libraries across the globe and the homes of DMT practitioners everywhere, we are delighted to be delivering the latest research in our field and eager to share much more. Perhaps the most salient commonality among the diverse studies published here is the need for continuing research to expand knowledge of the effectiveness and value of dance and DMT interventions. We wish to encourage and support DMT scholarship wherever it exists, and will continue looking for ways to highlight the most pertinent and compelling work available.

Correction: The photo caption on page 69 in Volume 37, Number 1 incorrectly identified those pictured. Shown standing from left to right are, in fact: Arlynne Stark, Elissa Q. White, and Catherine Pasternak (not Stephanie Katz). Seated are Marian Chace and Sharon Chaiklin.