About DTAA

History

The Dance-Movement Therapy Association of Australia was formally incorporated in 1994. This followed many years of hard work by a steering committee and operations as the Dance Therapy Working Party, a sub-committee of Ausdance.

We have approximately 100 members, with the main overseas membership being from New Zealand and the USA.

The executive committee is based in Melbourne because this has been where the majority of training has taken place, hence the major population of practitioners in the field. However, there are dance-movement therapists in all states and we have an active interstate liaison committee. The association encourages the attainment of a 'Professional Membership' to those dance-movement therapists who apply for this status who meet the criteria that has been set by our professional membership committee. We also provide our membership with communication and information via four publications per year; run conferences (two so far, the last being on an international level in Feb. 2000, with Joan Chodorow being our keynote speaker); provide opportunities for professional development (this includes awarding bursaries to applications for special projects), and keep a resource file of practitioners working in Australia. We have also published two volumes of Dance-Movement Therapy Collections, which reflect the work and growth of dance-movement therapy in Australia.

Code of Ethics and Rules of Professional Conduct for dance-movements therapists in Australia (PDF)