Move to Connect: Susie Thiel and Amy Kostelic’s CURATE research

Video produced by UK Creative Services. To view captions for this video, push play and click on the CC icon in the bottom right-hand corner of the screen. If using a mobile device, click on the “thought bubble” in the same area.

A research team at the University of Kentucky is using movement to connect communities throughout the Commonwealth.

“A goal of Move to Connect is to meet the need for increased mental health programming, which is urgent in Kentucky, where climate-related disasters such as floods and tornadoes continue to affect our communities,” said Susie Thiel, an associate professor and chair of the Department of Theatre and Dance in the UK College of Fine Arts.

The effort began in Fall 2023, with a grant from the Igniting Research Collaborations program for a pilot project with 40 participants. Thiel partnered with Anthony Bardo, Ph.D., who was an assistant professor of sociology in the UK College of Arts and Sciences at the time, and Amy Kostelic, Ph.D., an associate UK Extension professor in the School of Human Environmental Sciences in the UK Martin-Gatton College of Agriculture, Food and Environment. Originally titled “Intergenerational Interactions: Mapping Women’s Mental Health through Movement and Creativity,” the initiative evolved into Move to Connect.

Rather than teaching choreography, the team designed the program around individual expression and personal storytelling.

“One thing that I found is the word ‘dance’ can be very daunting to a lot of people,” Thiel said. “This is not… ‘Here’s your ballet arms and now I’m going to teach you a combination.’ This is really creative movement where the participants are generating the movement material from their own ideas.”

During the eight-week sessions, exercises begin with simple reflective prompts.

“A lot of it can start with gesture. For example, I could ask our participant to journal about their idea of home,” Thiel said.  “So maybe someone will talk about cooking, and with cooking they will do a stirring motion.”

Participants then work together to build those individual gestures into group performances.

“From there, they are actually creating. They’re choreographing. And then we ask them to share their material — if they want — with the entire group, and we end with a discussion,” Thiel said.

The collaborative process leads to visible changes in participant engagement over time.

“We’re seeing them work together, collaborate, discuss, share and perform, and their energy and their attitudes are completely different from the start to the end of a session,” Thiel said.

To expand Move to Connect beyond the pilot research phase and into communities, Thiel and Kostelic worked together to develop a way to train UK Cooperative Extension Service agents who had no formal dance background.

“Our Extension agents in Kentucky are wonderful, but if you’ve never led dance or creative movement, it gets tricky and daunting for some people,” Thiel said.

Funding from a Celebrating University Research Across the Enterprise (CURATE) grant from the UK Office of the Vice President for Research provided the solution.

The CURATE grant helped to hire a videographer, a photographer and pay participant models to demonstrate the activities. Because most Extension agents do not have a formal dance background, the videos allow them to observe the movements and instructional techniques before teaching the program locally.  

“This project could not have taken place without cross-disciplinary collaboration,” Kostelic said. “We came from theatre and dance. We came from sociology. We came from Cooperative Extension. Bringing these areas of expertise together, we created something pretty special. And I think that’s where innovation really happens — when people come together with the same mission or the same goal in mind, but coming at it from a different lens.”

By partnering with UK Extension county agents who serve in local communities, the project brings research directly to Kentuckians. 

“Extension translates research into practical evidence-based educational programs that address real community needs,” Kostelic said. “Our county extension educators have built trusted relationships and communities across the state, making them uniquely positioned to bring that research directly to the people they serve.”

“I think Move to Connect is a wonderful example of the university’s land-grant mission in action,” Kostelic said. “It brings together the research, teaching and extension to improve the lives of Kentuckians.”

Through surveys, focus groups and social network analysis, research from the pilot study indicates that Move to Connect strengthens social ties and fosters belonging.

“My hope is that Move to Connect helps people feel less isolated and more connected to people around them,” Kostelic said. “Even small increases in belonging can have meaningful effects on mental health and overall well-being.”

For Thiel, the ultimate vision is to integrate creative movement into standard community health practices.

“There’s something deeply human about using your body to express yourself,” Thiel said. “My goal by the time I retire is to have prescribed movement and social connections and art in the community setting.”