Kolcio K, Pyvovarenko M, Rose J, Kharechko V, Shevchyk V. Feasibility of implementing and collecting data on somatic methods during wartime Donbas, Ukraine. Pol Merkur Lek. 2025; 53 (1): 56-68.
doi:10.36740/Merkur202501108
PubMed URL: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.
This article reports on the implementation and evaluation of a somatic movement-based psycho-social care model developed in Ukraine (2014-present) to address the challenges faced by Ukrainians during the Russian invasion and war. In 2020-21 the program, named Vitality Project, was implemented and evaluated on a large scale throughout the Donbas region. Survey data were collected from 460 respondents-clients over seven months. Providers entered data using a tablet with a custom Psychologist Package app.
Vitality Project Donbas has been recognized by the UN Inter-Agency Standing Committee as one of 12 examples of peacebuilding projects in the world (2024).
Kolcio, Katja; Kovalova, Marta; Magdasiuk, Lyudmila; Melnik, Antonij;
Pyvovarenko, Marta. Lesya Ukrainka Volyn National University, 2022.
2nd printing: Vinnytsia, Ukraine: Tvory Press, 2024.
ISBN 978-617-552-700-9.
The Force of Breath: Somatic Skills for Psychological Recovery is a methodological manual for somatic means of recovery from trauma during war. The program and methods described in this book were developed by Katja Kolcio, Ph.D. (Wesleyan University, USA) and Marta Pyvovarenko (Development Foundation, Community Self Help and Volyn University, Ukraine) over 6 years working with Ukrainian psychologists, veterans, military personnel, scientists and war relief workers. The program was first published in the form of a field manual for soldiers, and beginning in 2017 the National Guard academy incorporated the methods into its training programs. By 2022, over 3,000 National Guards had completed the training. In 2020, a United Nations funded Vitality Project Donbas, led by principal investigators Marta Pyvovarenko and Katja Kolcio, expanding the program throughout the region of Donbas. The project included a feasibility study assessing the impact of the program in Donbas, yielding positive results. In 2022 Kolcio and Pyvovarenko partnered with faculty at Volyn National University in Lutsk, Ukraine, to publish this text. It introduces the somatic approach within a psychological framework followed by a detailed practical description of somatic methods.
2nd printing: СИЛА ДИХАННЯ: психологічні засоби відновлення. The Force of Breath: psychological means of recovery. Liudmyla Ivanivna Magdysiuk, Antonii Petrovych Melnyk, Katja Kolcio, Marta Oleksiivna Pyvovarenko, Marta Oleksandrivna Kovaleva. Vinnytsia, Ukraine: Tvory Press, 2024. ISBN 978-617-552-700-9.
Kolcio, Katja. Wesleyan University Press, Middletown, CT, 2010.
Movable Pillars traces the development of dance as scholarly inquiry over the course of the 20th century, and describes the social-political factors that facilitated a surge of interest in dance research in the period following World War II. This surge was reflected in the emergence of six key dance organizations: the American Dance Guild, the Congress on Research in Dance, the American Dance Therapy Association, the American College Dance Festival Association, the Dance Critics Association, and the Society of Dance History Scholars. Kolcio argues that their founding between the years 1956 and 1978 marked a new period of collective action in dance and is directly related to the inclusion of moving bodies in scholarly research and the ways in which dance studies interfaces with other fields such as feminist studies, critical research methods, and emancipatory education. An impeccable work of archival scholarship and interpretive history, Movable Pillars features nineteen interviews with dance luminaries who were intimately involved in the early years of each group. This is the first book to focus on the founding of these professional organizations and constitutes a major contribution to the understanding of the development of dance in American higher education.
Other Publications
Somatics and political change: Ukraine’s Revolution of Dignity, Contact Quarterly, May 16, 2016.
Сила Дихання (Force of Breath) copyright Katja Kolcio, 2016. Brief summary of somatic methods in Ukrainian language.
“Moving Self, Moving Earth: Studying the Environment and Ecology Through Movement and Dance,” Chapter in Accelerated Motion, electronic edition. Wesleyan University Press, 2009.
“Faking It: The Necessary Blind Spots of Understanding,” Cultural Studies↔ Critical Methodologies, 9:2, May 2009.
“A Somatic Engagement of Technology,” International Journal of Performance and Digital Media, Volume 1, Issue 2, 2005.
Editor, Branching Out: Oral Histories of the Founding of Six National Dance Organizations, NYC: American Dance Guild (2000). Nominated for De La Torre Bueno Prize in dance publication.
