Sway, Swing and Rock your Way to Better Health

Healthy Living
Physical Activity

What can dance do for your health?

In addition to promoting cardiovascular health, muscle tone, balance and posture, dance improves your immune system and elevates your mood.

Don’t believe us? Here are some interesting findings from studies on dance to support our stance:

Dance has been used to help Alzheimer’s patients become more socially adjusted and emotionally well. (Bumanis and Yoder. 1987)

It helps cancer patients boost self-esteem and cope with their illness, and body image. (Cohen & Walco, 1999; Dibbell-Hope, 2000; Sandel & Judge, 2004; Serlin, Classen, Frances, & Angell, 2000)

It helps reduce fatigue, anxiety and depression, and helps improve the risk of falling in older women. (Shigematsu, Yabushita, et al, 2002)

Dance has found to regulate seratonin and dopamine in the brain, acting as an anti-depressant. (Jeong and Hong, 2005)

Dance programmes in schools can decrease violence and aggression among kids. (Koshland and Wittaker, 2004)

Dance can help you gain an awareness of what is beyond science or study – the self. Says Joan Dexter Blackmer, author of ’Acrobats of the Gods’, "Dancing is a way to become consciously aware of the true self, without imposing expectations or feminist anger to distract from full awareness. Dancing brings together concrete matter and instinct with feminine love and wisdom." The same is true for masculine dancing.

Whatever form of dance you choose, its effects on your health will be positive. Try a variety of dances until you find the one that suits you – ballroom dancing, belly dancing, Latin dancing, modern dance, and just hitting the town with friends are all great ways to be healthy. Have fun, play and get to know others in a whole new way. While you’re there, get to know yourself, too!

It’s a fun way to improve your posture, balance, muscle tone, and cardiovascular health. You can suit it to your ability and energy. Plus, you can perform this exercise at home, in some gyms, at studios, and if you are really in a mood, even in the middle of a street. And you can enjoy a solo dance or a group dance.

Dance is the oldest form of exercise which has been practiced in cultures around the world for centuries. History shows that it was an integral part of our ancestors’ lifestyle. It brought families together, acquainted friends and lovers, relaxed souls and celebrated life.

Some cultures are passionate about mind-body exercises even in present times such as tai chi (Chinese gift of good health to the world) and yoga (Indian contribution to global wellbeing and holistic health).

We respect the age-old idea that the body is the house of the spirit. We understand that a tense body creates a tense mind. Consequently, dance is seeing a revival around the world as a way to better health. In North American culture, this revival is a result of efforts of pioneers like Martha Graham, who developed a dance that was an expression of the soul. Says Blackmer, dance training helps "realise the spirit hidden in matter and transform matter itself."

In some cultures, dance is an essential component of life, necessary for proper communication. In many African and Asian cultures dance communicates fun, courtship, religion, politics, health, healing and education. So be it an inauguration of a new building or a high profile political meeting, if you are there, be ready to shake a leg.

According to Anthropologist Judith Lynne Hanna, dance and language have common characteristics. The vocabulary of dance is made up of gestures. Grammar is the flow from one movement to the next. Semantics occurs as "dance strings together the sequences of movement to make phrases and sentences."

Let’s consider the somersault, often performed in acrobatic dance. Blackmer notes that the "somersault often precedes, seeming to cause, an important transformation. The somersault, in itself a moving circle, is a mandala, a symbol of the self, one which causes change through human motion." Another move is bringing your head low, which connotes a new point of view.

The distance people keep from each other, touches, smiles, and glances, can all add extra meaning to the basic motions of dance. For instance, the Ubakala Igo in Nigeria use dance to communicate gender roles. Women are seen as life givers; men as life-taking warriors. To symbolise this, women dance slowly and effortlessly. Men dance quickly and with tension.

It would not be an overstatement to say that dance can express what words cannot. It can communicate ideas beyond any language. Furthermore, different dances express ideas in different ways. Peter Martins of the New York Ballet once said that classical ballet and modern dance speak the same language, but with different dialects. Some dances, like ballet, are like poetry. Others, like the elaborate, codified gestures of Indian dance, are more like prose.

So, whether you like poetry or prose, you can always find a dance style to suit you.