Over 3 sessions in August, I learnt about Totsu-Totsu dance (TTD) from Michael Cheng. Across the 9 hours, I learnt the basic principles of TTD by experiencing some of the activities. The group also had a chance to try out facilitating TTD amongst ourselves.
Personally, TTD's "unsophisticated" dance philosophy connected to my exploration of a non-verbal (performing) art form that engaged communities. In particular, some of my rudimentary understandings of Dance Movement Therapy with Movemental Co. (2025-2026) and Relational Choreography with Dik Danstheater (2025).
BACKGROUND
Totsu Totsu dance practice originated from Japan and was designed with persons living with dementia in a nursing home in Kyoto (Cheng, 2026a, p.14). The practice is relational, initiating non-verbal, personable connection with persons with dementia who may or may not respond to activities. As such, some of the initial activities we did included exploring how we could connect through distance (moving closer and further from another) and with eye contact.
LEARNING POINTS
I truly appreciated the perspectives of the other participants to be mindful about how some of the exercises might be received by clients. For example, one course mate shared how Boal's Hypnosis Tower, an exercise many theatre students are familiar with, might evoke Malay superstitions, especially with the palm in another person's face - which the more superstitious might associate with witchcraft.
We also got to try out the Passing Tissue activity from the TTD toolkit (Cheng, 2026a, p. 34). The activity helped to elicit / provoke various kinds of movements as one passes a piece of tissue with one's other body parts, apart from fingers. While transforming an everyday object into one of play, a participant wondered about how tissues might be imbued with other meanings of hygiene or being unsanitary, especially within an institutional facility like a nursing home. Ultimately, I thought it would be hard to predict how materials and movements might be received by clients / the community. The only way would be to be reflexive and adapt on the spot.
In my mini facilitation, I experimented bridging this practice with Dik Danstheater's relational choreography, specifically the language of "windows". In relational choreography, it is two dancers forming an opening with their bodies and allowing a third person to pass through that opening (akin to children playing "London Bridge is Falling Down"). While the activity had potential to infuse TTD principles - specifically room for one facilitator to model movement as they pass through windows created by the seniors, I was reminded to slow down the pace of the activity and invite participants in. A relational practice like TTD need not be preoccupied with ensuring a spectacle is happening at every moment.
APPENDICES
REFERENCES
Cheng, M. (2026a). Facilitator's toolkit for Totsu-totsu Dance. torindo. https://torindo.net/wp-content/uploads/2026/03/toolkit.pdf
Cheng, M. (2026b, June). Hi dear friends, some of you know that I've been involved with Totsu-totsu dance for a while now. Every time we've had a chance to use TTD with seniors, the response has been amazing. Perhaps some of you were also there at the launch of the toolkit at Lasalle earlier [Image attached][Post]. LinkedIn. https://lnkd.in/p/euPf3Wub