By
Lisa Lucas
Arizona Daily Wildcat
Despite high goals, research-based cancer program will have to wait until fall
The UA dance department was close to becoming more immersed in a research-driven dance world.
But this year, close just wasn't enough.
Melissa Lowe, a UA associate dance professor, and Rebecca Gorrell, a UA dance graduate student, collaborated last year to co-create a self-proclaimed Breast Cancer Support Group for local Tucson patients.
However, due to deadline complications, the group was not able to receive the essential funding to begin the program again this year, even though the program was already in its finalized form.
Still, Lowe said she intends for the next group to begin no later than fall.
"We have to go forward," she said. "We are confident this is going to go in the fall."
With the assistance of Dr. Anna Maria Lopez, an oncologist at University Medical Center, Lowe and Gorrell said they were able to recruit a group of about 18 women for the support group, ranging from the ages of 20 to 65.
"The theory was that if we helped women with things like breathing techniques, range-of-motion exercises (and) creative movement, they would get to trust their body again and also regain range of motion after their mastectomy," Gorrell said.
Although movement therapy was the basis of the group's program, Lowe and Gorrell agreed the once-a-week meetings would also serve like a more traditional support group.
Lowe said last year's program was "uplifting" and a "celebration of life."
"We talked about how the different women were doing and what they were feeling and when they were having their tests," Gorrell added. "And people supported one another and shared their thoughts and feelings, and then we had a good time - we really had fun together."
While Lowe said the women weren't particularly receptive during the first few weeks of the classes - very few of them knew one another, and none of them knew either Gorrell or herself - she said after about two or three weeks, she could feel the group coming together spiritually.
"(It was) like you'd get together with your friends and hang out," Gorrell added. "It was a very synergistic experience - and very emotionally rewarding. It was women dancing together."
After completion of last year's program, Gorrell said the participants reported a general satisfaction with the results.
"They (the patients) said that they had less depression, less anxiety," she said. "(They said) that when they were going through chemo, they were able to manage their nausea much better with the breathing exercises."
Due to this feedback, Gorrell decided to try to organize a more formal study for this year to serve as an actual scientific research experiment.
"What we (wanted) to do," she said, "(was) actually run three groups - one doing the movement therapy which we call 'internally directed exercise,' (one) doing a goal-oriented walking program and the third group would have no exercise treatment, just the usual 'standard of care' of cancer patients."
Gorrell said she hoped to prove that with the aid of creative movement the women would show greater results than if they were just given standard treatment.
"In essence," she said, "creative arts therapy, or arts therapy - music and dance - really helps heal people's spirits."
Lowe added she already received a fine arts incentive grant for the program, which she has used to purchase more equipment. She said although Dr. Lopez's first proposal for a cancer-based grant did not go through, she has already applied for another.
Lowe said she has even higher hopes for the development of the support group because of the intended November ground-breaking of a new dance theater.
She said the theater will house a "very nice, sizeable space dedicated to movement therapy, taking us (the dance department) into a new realm of research."
Lowe added she hopes the dance department can help the community further by extending the program to aid other Tucson locals. She said her goal is to "bring the community right to the dance division."
"We (want to) give back to the community," she said. "They give to us, we give to them - we want that loop closed."
Rebecca Gorrell, a UA dance graduate student, will hold a dance wellness and healing session today from 9 a.m. until 12:20 p.m. in the Ina E. Gittings building, Room 130. The session, focusing on stress relief and injury prevention, is free and open to students.
