This year’s Dún Laoghaire Festival of World Cultures will include a health programme, offering a range of therapies from different cultures
SINCE 2001 the Dún Laoghaire Festival of World Cultures has offered up a world of choice in music, arts, crafts, food and culture. This year the festival is adding health to its programme and with it an array of alternative and complementary medicines from around the world.
The Health Harmony Global Therapies Fair will include treatments which have their roots in a range of different cultures: ayurveda from India; t’ai chi and acupuncture from China; shiatsu and amatsu from Japan; and ma uri, a form of Polynesian massage therapy, to name but a few.
The festival programme manager, Jane Davy, herself a homoeopath, is particularly pleased that this year’s festival will include the global therapies fair.
She says that, while some of the therapies may not be well known in Ireland, they are common practice in other countries.
“For more and more people here and in Europe, alternative therapies are becoming a lifestyle choice but in different cultures it is a way of life,” she says.
However, Davy says that Irish people are starting to embrace alternative medicine. She hopes the fair will allow people who may be curious about alternative medicines to experience different therapies for themselves.
She adds that all the therapists who have been selected to take part in the festival have been sourced through the various associations and bodies to ensure the festival has the highest level of therapists available.
One of the alternative treatments to be showcased at the festival is systematic kinesiology, which therapist Lauren McLennan describes as an “MOT for people”. Systematic kinesiology uses a combination of treatments to bring people to their “optimal level” physically, energetically, emotionally and nutritionally.
“Many of the problems people experience are related to emotional or energetic stress of some sort, and often this becomes manifest as a physical pain,” McLennan explains. “Holistic treatments are more likely to deal directly with the cause of the problem rather than merely responding to the symptoms.”
Practitioners of systematic kinesiology carry out a series of muscle-response tests to identify areas of blockage or imbalance in the chakras, the seven centres of spiritual energy in the body.
“Then we use a holistic approach to resolving the blockages,” McLennan says. As well as the initial therapy this may also include changes to a person’s lifestyle or diet, depending on their symptoms.
Trish Cavanagh practises amatsu, a therapy derived from the Japanese martial art called Bujinkan. The practice takes a holistic approach to a person’s wellbeing. The therapist takes a case history to get a full picture of a person’s lifestyle including their physical and emotional background.
“We don’t just treat the symptoms, we try to help the person as a whole,” Cavanagh says, pointing out that a huge number of different factors have an impact on our overall health. To this end, the treatment looks at a person’s lifestyle, postural habits, diet and exercise. The therapist then carries out different tests which inform them where the treatment needs to be focused.
Amatsu works on the theory that one health problem can have a domino effect on other parts of the body. For example, if a person presents with a sore neck the therapist will look for the root cause of the problem. In this case the person might have problems with their eyesight which cause them to “duck neck” as they strain to see what’s on screen.
Cavanagh says the therapy is about “the overall posture of the person and the overall alignment and symmetry of the body” describing it as a “very gentle, hands on, light touch which encourages the body to realign”.
She says it is a way of reminding people to gain awareness of their bodies in a time when stress and multitasking have taken over. “I do think that, as a society we have a tendency to just bull our way through life . . . I think a lot of it is remembering to listen to your body and to respect it,” she says.
Another therapy which will be available at the festival is Feldenkrais, a form of somatic education, which addresses subconscious and habitual practices which have a longer term effect on the body. The method, which was developed by Israeli-born Moshé Feldenkrais, draws on principles of physics, biomechanics and human development, emphasising the importance of using both the brain and body to implement change.
Mark Keogh has practised the method for more than six years. Feldenkrais uses movement and self-awareness to encourage people to change their habits aiding flexibility and combating pain. The method is also used by actors, dancers and singers who wish to expand their repertoire and to reduce limitations in their body movements.
As well as offering visitors the chance to experience the different therapies for themselves, the festival will include a number of workshops and talks over the course of the weekend encompassing a variety of different treatments and therapies.
“This allows people to delve a little deeper and might give them more confidence to select a certain therapy which suits them,” Jane Davy says. “People tend to put all alternative medicine into the one basket so this is a good way for people to see the different types of therapy.”
Visitors will also have the opportunity to take part in an open yoga session on Saturday and t’ai chi on Sunday, 10am-10.45am at the Harbour Plaza in Dún Laoghaire.
The Health and Harmony Global Therapies Fair takes place as part of the Dún Laoghaire Festival of World Cultures. It runs from August 29th to 30th and will be held in the County Hall in Dún Laoghaire from 11am to 6pm daily
For more information on the Health and Harmony Global Therapies Fair and for links to the featured therapies, go to www.festivalofworldcultures.com/health-harmony