| History | Chloë Gardner graduated in 1944 from the London School of Occupational Therapy and went on to work at Springfields Hospital, London, in 1945. Previously she had studied concepts of Effort and Space at the Jooss/Leeder summer school in 1931 and then with Rudolf Laban, Lisa Ullmann and Warren Lamb. She too employed Laban movement skills in her work, and in 1950 moved to Friern Hospital, London as Deputy Head Occupational Therapist.
She and Audrey Wethered sometimes worked together as professional therapists and as lecturers in movement therapy training. One major area of their work together was with three Sesame projects: working with schizophrenics at the Goodmayes Hospital, Ilford (1970), disturbed adults at the Leavesden Hospital, Hertfordshire (1972), and with autistic children at the Smith Hospital, Henley (1974). Although neither was trained in Sesame teaching methods, the studies were run and documented as Sesame projects. In another major joint project, Wethered and Gardner were visiting tutors at Cleveland University Summer School (USA) in 1987, where they gave lectures, classes and demonstrations on the use of movement principles in therapy. In 1973 Wethered published 'Drama and Movement in Therapy' (London: MacDonald & Evans); the second edition of which, entitled 'Movement and Drama in Therapy' (London: Jessica Kingsley, 1993), had a foreword by Chloë Gardner. They co-authored a chapter in 'Therapy Through Movement' (Lorraine Burr ed., Nottingham Rehab Limited, 1986). |