Having spent last weekend dancing away, to Persian music celebrating Nowruz (Persian New Year), then at an engagement party and lastly attending the annual Ballet Icons Gala at the London Coliseum on Sunday (the house of the English National Opera), I thought I would dedicate this essay to one of the things I love the most - dance. I’ve been dancing since I can remember myself, from classical ballet, to latin, and anything and everything in between. Outside of school, you would most likely have found me at the studio or dancing at home. See photos below for proof.
Outside of the cultural and historical aspect of dancing, there is also a psychological and physiological component to it - it is a sport that combines art. Of course, depending on the dance type, one may have different strengths and abilities. Say, the flexibility seen from a classical ballet dancer are probably not present on a hip hop dancer. But at the end of the day, regardless of type, it is cardio - meaning your heart and lungs directly benefit from it. And obviously, coordination and balance is a big bonus. And yes, even for those of you that know me and how clumsy I am, I do have v good coordination and balance. Although some may beg to differ…
I will argue that the biggest benefit is that on the brain, from picking up combination on the spot and having to remember the choreo too and at the same time performing and picking up the style. I personally, think one of the reasons I’ve got such good memory is partially due to it. It has been proven scientifically, that the neurological effect of dancing is of complex mental coordination, so neuroscientists concluded that the synchronisation of music and movement, i.e., dance is a pleasure double play. What this means is that the music stimulates the brain’s reward centres and at the same time the dance activates its sensory and motor circuits. And not only, dancing as an activity has been linked with reduced risk of dementia1, but also it can be therapeutic for patients with Parkinson’s disease2. Which reminds me of this video of this old lady with Alzheimer’s that is moving her arms in the choreography of Swan Lake when she listens to the music. It’s like she’s coming back to life, you can see how her face lights up.
I would love to also go down the route of the mathematics seen in dance, like patterns and shape formation as well as the physics of it, but I think it will be a tad too nerdy - so I shall spare you!
Hanna Poikonen of the Cognitive Brain Research Unit of the University of Helsinki did her doctoral dissertation of “Dance on Cortex” 3, where the cortex of the brain plays a key role in memory, thinking, learning, problem-solving, emotions, and a lot more. So, you can tell its importance is quite multifaceted. She looked at both dancers and musicians during a contemporary dance piece, and assessed ERPs and Phase Synchrony. Those (ERPs) are event-related potentials, they are measured brain responses which are directly linked to a specific sensory, cognitive, or motor event and they detect them using EEGs, which simply reads your brain activity. While phase synchrony is the coordination of neural oscillations between different parts of the brain at specific frequencies - simply it shows if those areas are working together at that moment.
What she found was multimodal interactions are of high importance, and that dancers’ brains responded faster to musical changes showing reflexive reactions prior conscious awareness. On the psychological aspect, dancers had heightened synchronisation in the low theta frequency, that is associated with emotional and memory processing (so maybe my theory was right). So, theta synchronisation is central for all interpersonal interaction and self-understanding / self-awareness.
Just as writing is one of the ways one can express themselves, so is dancing. It has a healing aspect too, which has been known for decades. The act of performing could probably be related to a meditative state as your sole focus is that and hence the personal expression. Simply put, dancing connects mind, body and emotion, with its beauty being that each style poses something difference, ballet is precision and grace. So, put some music on and let yourself free to dance away, you’ll find it very healing and therapeutic.
I’ll leave you with a picture of the beautiful Coliseum and one of the dancers that performed on Sunday at Ballet Icons, which included one of my favourites, Natalia Osipova of Royal Ballet performing Don Quixote as the finale. Also, got to see Skylar Brandt of American Ballet Theatre (NYC) for the first time live, last year it was another of my favourites, Iana Salenko of Berlin State Ballet.
As usual, I’ve added some links below. I hope you enjoyed - see you next week! :)
Verghese, J., Lipton, R. B., Katz, M. J., Hall, C. B., Derby, C. A., Kuslansky, G., & Buschke, H. (2003). Leisure activities and the risk of dementia in the elderly. New England Journal of Medicine, 348(25), 2508-2516. https://doi.org/10.1056/nejmoa022252
Earhart GM. Dance as therapy for individuals with Parkinson disease. Eur J Phys Rehabil Med. 2009;45(2):231-238. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2780534/
I heard Dacher Keltner speak about Awe last week and he talked about dance maybe being the greatest thing we can do for our brains. It makes sense as dance has been part of being human FOREVER!!