Article in the Honolulu Advertiser Posted on: Thursday, March 9, 2000
Reprinted with permission.

Not hard bodies, but on the MUVE
By Beverly Creamer Advertiser Staff Writer

The music sweeps over the bodies leaping and bending, dipping and bopping, jumping and hopping in front of Maggie Kunkel. Their briefcases are in the car, their cell phones are silent, their children are playing quietly on the carpeted area.

Sociology professor Pat Steinhoff sways to the beat of African drums,a smile playing over her face as clinical therapist Zakira Portenya lets her arms drift skyward and her body flex. She, too, is smiling. Sister real estate marketers Evangeline Yacuk and Elizabeth Reilly, appear to be creating their own personal jazz routine. And a good one at that. "I'm under-slept, over-caffeined and over-stressed," said Reilly, "and I walk into her class and, an hour and half later, I walk out with joie de vivre."

You could call it the power woman's workout – professionals taking time for themselves as an antidote to stressful lives. But Kunkel calls it MUVE – a hybrid of dance, workout and spiritual retreat. "

The idea is to move every part of your body and work it out as much as you want to work it out," said Kunkel, a 43-year-old advertising agency art director, who has taken leave both to treat newly diagnosed breast cancer, and to rebuild her physical endurance. She launched MUVE a year ago because she just loves to dance and to offer a way to get both herself and others back in shape.

Through word-of-mouth and brochures dotted throughout the community, the MUVE network has grown. Now attorneys and professors, social workers and policy makers are coming to these unorthodox twice-a-week sessions where just about anything goes. In addition, she provides several classes for seniors.

"We're certainly not the hard bodies," jokes Geri Marullo, chief executive officer of Child and Family Service and a former state Health Department deputy director, who joined the class when she realized that – Ooops! – time was passing. "It just all came on me at once," said Marullo. "It was the 'Three Ms – maturity, mortality, menopause.' And this was something different than the joint-pounding aerobics and the bungie-cord jumping."

Steinhoff, who had a double bypass in 1993, says she's dedicated to her treadmill but MUVE "is much more fun." It gives her not only a healthier heart but a chance to rediscover muscles she'd forgotten she had. "At the beginning, there was no way I could have done those roll-overs getting your legs completely over your head," said Steinhoff. "But then, it never would have occurred to me to do it."

Kunkel's powerful and compassionate personality, along with her background as a dancer and her fascination with eclectic music from around the world, is part of what keeps participants coming back.

"Am I going to make a fool of myself here?" wondered painting contractor Ahbi Lafontaine, who is pushing 60 and says he "needs all the help I can get" staying healthy and fit. "But the more you participate in her classes, the more you realize it doesn't matter," said Lafontaine. "It's your dance to express yourself. And I've gotten into yoga since the class, which I have always wanted to do." Lafontaine said the dancing "dissolves" the aches and pains he gets from painting, and so does the morning "warm-up" that he's added to his day as a result of Kunkel's class. "It was a catalyst for seeing where I was – rigid, mentally and emotionally," said Lafontaine. "I'm not a dancer, and I'm not in the most flexible condition."

Kunkel stresses that you can never do anything wrong in her classes. "It doesn't matter what it looks like, only how it makes you feel," she said. "You can walk it and you can hop it. You make that decision. Call it structured improvisation. You don't have to remember any step combination. But it's not just come and do your own thing either, because people aren't comfortable with that."

Participants appreciate that as they explore the music with eyes closed, or follow Kunkel's lead. Sweat soaks T-shirts, trickles down faces and drives people to regular water breaks, at Kunkel's suggestion. At one moment they may be prancing around the room, at another lying on mats waving legs and arms in the air. Rarely in unison. "These are people in their prime," said Kunkel. "Working executives with kids. Women who have families, careers. They're into life but realizing there's one part missing, which is taking care of their physical body. And that helps you mentally with everything else."

Susan Chandler, director of the State Department of Human Services, says the class helps her "calm down and commune with the music." More than that, it just makes her happy. "It's the enjoyment of an hour and a half of feeling your body relax," said Chandler. "You get kinks out of your neck. You even feel taller. I'm not a very good dancer but it's impossible to make a mistake. I've been trying to find happy dance classes all my life."

But MUVE is more than dance/exercise. It's also an informal e-mail Dance Company network that Kunkel activates when she hears of a chance to dance, or when she puts a dance party together. Every other Friday, she uses space at the Atherton YMCA near the University of Hawaii for people to come together and, well, dance.

What holds many dance lovers back, she says, is not having a partner, or not wanting to hang out in a smoky bar and fend off unwanted advances. At her dance get-togethers, people can dance together or get up on the floor and move alone. "

There are a lot of people who don't want to go to a class. They don't want to be structured at all. They just want to dance. ...And I want to create space for people. People used to dance more. Now everything is just watching."

Evangeline Yacuk, who lifts weights, hikes, power walks, kick-boxes, roller-blades and does a form of Korean martial art, ends an hour-and-a-half workout with Kunkel on a blissful note."It maintains me," she said. "To me, physical activity is like food. If someone says 'Let's go to dinner or let's go work out,' I'd say 'Let's go work out.' "But her class gives me a sense of freedom from within. Her mood and her music touch me. It's a wonderful balance."

Click for Star Bulletin article with pictures of Seniors Muve® class