Click here to see a news report on "For the Health of It" Consultation Services

MORE ARTICLES

Fuzión family members test their voices - May 2012
Leymis Bolaños-Wilmott, the artistic director of Fuzión Dance Artists, says the first place she ever danced was in her living room in front of family members - "a safe place where I could explore in front of a supportive audience."

A modern day return to The Red Tent - March 2012
Women have long sought a place to gather away from the interference of children, husbands or fathers.

The Colleyville Journal, Texas
Cancer Survivor's Day - June 2005
"We're alive, and it's a day to celebrate that fact"

"Laugh For the Health of It"
Read Hedda's article on Laugh For the Health of It

Tribune Star article - June 2004
Cancer survivors laugh way to health

Best stress reducer? Laughter - February 2003
Laughter is a healing, cathartic release, says social worker Hedda Matza-Haughton.

Crain's New York - February 2000
Coach builds her practice on medicinal mirth

2000 Patient Family Conference:
Aplastic Anemia & MDS International Foundation
View the entire PDF from the 2000 Conference
(see pages 3 and 7).

A modern day return to The Red Tent

by Carrie Seidman of The Herald-Tribune
March 11, 2012

From book clubs to breast-feeding groups, sewing circles to coffee klatches, women have long sought a place to gather away from the interference of children, husbands or fathers.

But the original “no men allowed” feminist stronghold is centuries old.

“You talk about the first support group? This was it,” says Hedda Matza-Haughton, a social worker, theater director and actor who will perform in Fuzión Dance Artists’ sixth season concert, “The Red Tent.” “This is where young ladies became women, a sisterhood, a motherhood. The Red Tent speaks to all the times that women had experiences to get through and got the support of other women to go through them.”

For those who aren’t familiar with concept of the Red Tent, it began as a sacred gathering place for women in biblical times. Thought to have a mysterious power during their menstrual cycles and when giving birth that many men found alarming, or even threatening, women chose a segregated spot where they could find support amongst their own. Because red was a color symbolic of female strength and power in ancient cultures, that place became known as the Red Tent.

There have been Red Tent revivals, in various forms, for centuries. Fuzión’s latest interpretation can be traced back nearly a decade, to a graduation performance at Florida State University by the company’s co-founders Leymis Bolaños-Wilmott and Rachael Inman. Both of Arabic descent, at the time their research into their ethnic backgrounds and the Red Tent’s origins provided a way to unite their differing choreographic approaches.

Ever since, Bolaños-Wilmott, Fuzión’s current director, has been considering the idea of a revival concert, mulling it over with Inman, now a professor in Tennessee, who has since developed mind/body/spirit workshops based on similar empowerment concepts. With the birth of her first child three years ago, and after meeting Matze-Haughton, a two-time cancer survivor and an active participant in the ’60s feminist movement, the time seemed especially ripe.