Healing Domestic Violence Through the Arts

In July, Women’s Second Start shelter staff performed a domestic violence awareness recital for residents from all three of our shelters. Shelter Director Earla Lloyd, LCSW, uses creative movement performances by staff to help domestic violence survivors understand, discuss, and heal from their experiences.

The recital is one way that Lloyd uses creative movement to help residents heal. Lloyd will discuss this staff performance, as well as weekly group therapy movement sessions, at the Center’s October Breakfast, Transforming Lives Through the Arts. We invite you to join us on Thursday, October 23^rd for breakfast and a panel discussion about domestic violence and the healing power of art.

The video “La Bella y La Bestia” (Beauty and the Beast) and songs like Leona Lewis’s “Bleeding Love” and Christina Aguilera’s “Fighter” were used to tell a story, demonstrating the realities of domestic violence from the beginning of an abusive relationship through the survivor’s empowerment.  This event demonstrated that violence occurs in all cultures, and that children are victims too.   

As the movement pieces showed the emergence of the empowered survivor, the audience’s mood changed.  Teary eyes were dried and the shelter residents began to cheer on the performers; the residents recognized their own transformation from victims to survivors in the dancers’ journey. The recital ended with the audience joining staff on stage in celebration of freedom from abuse.

Click here for more information about the October Breakfast.