Alexandria Ingram works at the Midwest Center for Youth and Families, providing dance and movement therapy to children. After work, Ingram and her mother, Maria Koontz, spend their time leading the South Central Theatre. They work together to ensure students are provided with the best opportunities possible for optimal learning experiences.
Ingram went to Ball State University and received a BFA in dance performance, a BS in psychological studies, and a minor in autism spectrum disorders as well as classical voice performance. She went to grad school at Antioch University in Rhode Island and she secured an internship at the Midwest Center for Youth and Families to gain experience in this area.
“It's a what's called a residential treatment center. The kids who are there, ages 10 to 18, are all experiencing severe psychological distress. Most of them have stayed in acute hospitals and now they're staying with us. We've had kids who lived there as long as a year before, and usually, it's upwards of a month or two,” Ingram said.
Ingram provides sessions for both individuals and groups. She uses dance movement therapy to connect the body to the mind, and the mind to the body
“What I say to my kids is dance movement therapy is about connecting the body to the mind and the mind to the body. So, making sure they're working together as one unit instead of the mind controlling the body or vice versa,” Ingram said. “It's about building self-esteem, self-awareness, building a community building self-trust, and different exercises. It's very spontaneous and very in the moment.”
Some examples of session activities include creating art, and moving based upon what the art is, and even creating an anger dance. The children were able to create and share a dance that represented what anger feels like to them and then discuss healthy coping mechanisms.
“It gives the kids a place that feels more comfortable to express themselves. Instead of having to talk about everything and name everything that they might not even understand is happening, it gives them a safer space to be themselves and be authentic, and exist as they are,” Ingram said.
Ingram said her favorite part of her job is building connections with the children who really need them. She is able to provide a comfortable environment for the children to share and be able to express and learn to understand their emotions through movement.
“These kids are living in this facility that could be states away from home. We do family therapy over zoom, but they don't really get to actually see their family, hug their mom and dad, say hi to their brother and sister in real life,” Ingram said. “Being able to get to know them and understand what they need and making a difference in their life and seeing their progress is probably my favorite part.”
Making connections and seeing progress is exactly what Ingram and Koontz do while working together at the South Central Theatre. Koontz worked at the K-12 school as an elementary music teacher and a junior high and high school choir teacher when she first moved to the area. One of her colleagues asked her if she would be willing to help her with the musical, and she agreed.
After a while of teaching and helping out with the musical at South Central, Koontz moved schools. As time passed, her children grew older and began to get involved in band and drama club at South Central. Koontz was the President of the booster club and always offered her assistance to the new teachers if they needed it.
“As Alexandria got older, I got much more involved with the theater, helping the prior director do all the shows. I helped organize parents and set up concessions and tickets. I did all the leg work so she didn't have to do it,” Koontz said. “Then she decided she didn't want to do the drama club anymore. She was too busy, and asked me if I wanted it.”
Koontz did not want to take on such a heavy workload on her own, so she reached out to her daughter, and they agreed to take over the drama club. Since they began with just the musical, they have taken over the play and the International Thespian Society, which is an honor society for those involved in theatre, as well.
“At the end of last year, our kids got very excited and they were like, 'we need to do more shows, we need to perform more, we need more opportunities.' Before, we would just do a fall play and the spring musical. Alexandria and I talked about what we can do for these kids because they really want to do extra,” Koontz said. “We did a theater history class after school a couple of days a week, and Alexandria started a dance class for some of the kids that were really interested in doing dance. That has evolved into a tap dance class because they really wanted to learn how to tap.”
After the students still showed interest in doing more, Koontz and Ingram decided to put on three shows this year. This meant starting auditions the first week of school for the first show, and again the week before Christmas break for the second two shows.
“They're a very driven group of kids, so I'm sure that they will take the challenge on, and we try to do things to ease up the pressure. Maybe we won't rehearse on Fridays, or we'll end 30 minutes early or we'll play a game for 30 minutes or something like that to try and keep them active,” Ingram said.
Koontz and Ingram focus on doing what is best for the students. Most of the students involved in drama club are also involved in other activities within the school, so they work with their schedules to ensure they are able to be a part of all of the activities they are passionate about so they do not have to choose one over another.
“We try to let them do everything that they can, as long as they are getting their stuff done and memorizing their lines and scenes. We call it splitting time 50-50, then we really try to make it work so that they don't have to like make that decision,” Ingram said.
Koontz also explained that South Central does not have an auditorium, but has a stage in the gym. It is their dream to have an auditorium for their students so they will be able to have their own space.
“Our school is so small, it doesn't have an auditorium, but it has a stage. It's in the gym so we call it our Gymnatorium. We have to compete with sports, so we're in there for volleyball and basketball and sometimes baseball and softball when they first start conditioning. We're up on stage behind a curtain and all of a sudden a softball comes, right up onto the stage, or a buzzer goes off for the end of a quarter,” Koontz said.
Koontz and Ingram work extremely hard to ensure that their students are provided with the best possible opportunities that are available to them. They are also able to provide a positive environment for students to thrive both mentally, and performance-wise.
“For me, the best part is knowing that drama club and theater is like a safe space for a lot of them. It's their whole world and it makes such a difference to them to be able to like be somewhere and be seen and be heard and be proud of what they're doing and where they are and who they are,” Ingram said. “We had a kid who wrote us each individual thank you notes at the end of the last show, and like that kind of stuff makes all the like hard stuff really worthwhile when you know that it really means something and really makes a difference for a kid. That's the whole reason to keep going.”