NIGAT is sad to learn of the death on 21 October 2024 of Angela Knight, Dance Movement Therapist and friend of the Group.
Angela’s initial career was as a teacher of French and Italian, where she enjoyed language, literature and the teacher-pupil interaction, also keeping in touch with her love of dance having studied Irish dancing and ballet as a child. As she moved to working with people in multi-cultural settings, she developed her interest in dance through ballroom, contemporary creative dance, salsa and belly dancing.
Discovering Dance Movement Therapy brought together her interest in different forms of communication, movement and language and she graduated from training at St Albans, Hertfordshire in 1993. Returning to NI where she worked with individuals and groups, she qualified as a psychotherapist in 1999, using her range of skills within the voluntary sector and eventually in her private practice in Fermanagh. She was accredited by both the Association for Dance Movement Therapy UK and the Irish Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy.
Angela gave an inspiring presentation at NIGAT’s 13th Art Therapy Summer School in 2005 where her charm, and her refreshing approach endeared her to all. As an introduction to her presentation, she wrote of her intention to ‘trace the sometimes awkward steps of an emerging therapeutic intervention to the more confident graceful flow of a profession taking its place on the floor as an equal partner amongst the Arts Therapies’. Her passion for her modality and ability to ‘impart the flavour of Dance Movement Therapy’ to participants enabled even the shyest and most reluctant to take up her invitation to move within her experiential presentation. I have clear and fond memories of individuals swaying in harmony, forming a quiet sea of rhythm, connected with each other, yet separate, in response to Angela’s gentle guidance and her language of metaphor.
NIGAT offers sincere condolences to the family and friends of our colleague, Angela.
Eileen McCourt
NIGAT President
31 October 2024