DTAA Committee

The general committee has a responsibility to DTAA members to fulfill the organization's functions as expressed in the Aims, which are part of the Constitution. The Aims include providing identity, representation and criteria for certification and registration (Professional Membership) of Australian dance-movement therapists. They also include providing opportunities for networking, publishing a newsletter, producing professional literature, organising in-services and conferences (professional development), and establishing resources (library; responding to enquiries). Others include addressing industrial and /or employment issues.

To achieve the Aims, a number of sub-committees are in place that report back to the general committee. These are Newsletter and Publications; Professional Membership; Professional Development; Interstate Liaison and Outreach; Promotions and Publicity; Industrial Relations and Employment and the Hanny Exiner Memorial Foundation. All DTAA activities or business come under one of these committees. The central committee meets every six weeks (at Jenny Czulak Riley's house in Hawthorn, where thanks to Jenny, we receive warm hospitality, conducive to pleasant and social meetings).

Newsletter and Publications

The DTAA produces a Quarterly journal, distributed to members. Regular e-mail bulletins provide contact and up-to-date information in between Quarterlies. We ask members to provide their e-mail addresses to the DTAA, if they haven't already done so and / or notify us of any change of address.

Professional Membership

The business attached to PACFA (Psychotherapy & Counselling Federation of Australia) comes under the Professional Membership Committee. Following a great deal of hard work by the committee, particularly by our former President Denis Kelynack, we are now full members of PACFA. This move enables DTAA professional members to be included in the PACFA register, together with a list of professionals from other helping professions who will also have reached approved standards. The committee continues to meet on an as needed basis to handle professional membership enquiries and applications and to continue to address and upgrade the criteria needed to reach the required standards.

Professional Development

Regular professional development activities are organised by this sub-committee, led by Iris Solomon. For further information see DTAA Events

Interstate Liaison

With so many of our members now on e-mail, and a thrust for the newsletter of drawing the community news into the newsletter, we hope to have more interstate liaison via that source and available for the full membership to read. However, if any of our interstate representatives would like to take a more active role, we would be pleased to hear from them.

Industrial Relations and Employment

Yet another committee which will hopefully develop further in the future, following enquiries regarding employment issues. We will do our best to address these, but if there are any members willing to assist in this area, we would be delighted to have you aboard.

The Hanny Exiner Foundation

The Hanny Exiner Memorial Fund was established in 2001. Its existence is due to the vision of Hanny's late husband, Bob, and the generosity and interest of their sons, Ron and Jess Exiner. The Fund is now a Foundation whose major purpose is to provide financial assistance for people undertaking research in the field of dance-movement therapy. It also aims to encourage a broader range of research and to increase understanding of dance-movement therapy methodology and its effects.

Committee Members:

Jane Guthrie (President)

Jane (B. App. Sc. Phyty, Grad Dip Movement and Dance, Dance Therapy Certificate, M.Ed {advanced studies in movement and dance}, Professional Member of DTAA) is a physiotherapist who has worked with dance for 30 years, mostly with physical populations, specializing in head injury. She has also worked with pain management, children with special needs and elderly patients and has done community work in preventative care with seniors and other groups. Jane is the author, with Jan Deans (Roydhouse) of Come and Join The Dance. She currently lectures in the RMIT Post-Graduate Dance Therapy program.

Kim Dunphy (Vice-President, website and resource sales)

Kim Dunphy (B.A., Grad Dip Movement and Dance, M. Ed.) is a community dance educator who has worked in the field of disability, including groups for adults and children in day training centres and special schools in Melbourne and country Victoria, at Noah's Ark Toy Library, in hospitals and as director of the community-based group BreakOut. Kim is co-author with Jenny Scott of Freedom to Move: movement and dance for people with intellectual disabilities. Kims is a Past-President of Ausdance. She currently lectures in the RMIT Post-Graduate Dance Therapy Programs and is Manager of the Cultural Development Network, a small non-profit organisation that advocates for the central importance of cultural vitality in community life.

Kim is responsible for DTAA's website and for sales of DTAA publications. She can be contacted on kimdunphy@optusnet.com.au or 03 9598 0635.

Teri McNeil (Secretary)

Judy Gutteridge (Treasurer)

Judy (B.A., Prof Dip. Adol and Child Psychology, Grad Dip Arts Education, M.Ed, Professional member of DTAA) has danced all her life, and has been a dance teacher for 25 years. Judy uses dance as a vehicle for therapy in her psychological practice, treating depression and anxiety disorders and with very young children.

Naomi Aitchison (Convenor of Hanny Exiner Foundation sub-committee)

Naomi's (Grad. Dip. Movement and Dance (IECD)) interests and endeavours in and on the edges of the field of dance-movement therapy have been wide ranging. Her professional life has included working with elderly people in many settings, psychogeriatric residents in institutions, young children, babies and their families, and intellectually and physically disabled people of all ages. She has also taught about her methods of working to students and practitioners of various professions. Naomi's involvement with DTAA goes back to the early 1980s before the association was dreamt of. As a member of AADE (now Ausdance) Victorian Branch, she was convenor of a dance therapy special interest group which eventually, through many transformations and much work by numerous individuals, led to the formation of the DTAA. Naomi's tasks on behalf of the DTAA have also been varied. She has served as Newsletter Editor and Compiler, Secretary, President, Resource Person, Librarian and Convenor of the Hanny Exiner Memorial Foundation sub-committee. Naomi can be contacted at naitchison@optusnet.com.au

Ben Assan

Ben (Grad Dip Movement and Dance), Bach Applied Science, Nursing, Post-Grad Dip in Family Therapy) works as a family therapist in adolescent and child psychiatry.

Jenny Czulak-Riley

Grad. Dip. Movement & Dance (University of Melbourne), Grad Cert. Dance Therapy (University of Melbourne). Jenny is the author of Growing Older, Dancing On, and is an experienced dance group leader for older adults.

Dance-Movement Therapy Association of Australia