Nia - The Neuroscience of Dance
Posted: Aug 31, 10:21 AM
In Nia we believe that everybody can dance. We get to see it every time someone new walks in and says, “I can’t dance!” So you think you can’t dance? Think again. Everybody can dance. How do we know this is a fact? The body is kept alive and healthy from movement. In Nia we view everything in the universe as a dance. The dance of life is what we teach people, so much so that Nia’s lifestyle for learning to “Live In Pleasure” is called, Dancing Through Life. It is the movement that lights up, turns on, and keeps Nia people coming back time and time again. They know, and their bodies know, what’s good for them. Dance has always been a part of cultures, and it’s about time America claimed its own style of dance. We call Nia, “Now I Am” dancing the American way. We are blessed to have scientists who can bring to light information we can use and share with our students to make them appreciate the magic of their bodies and of Nia. Science is proving what we already know, i.e. Dancing is good for the whole body because it is The Body’s Way!
“The Neuroscience of Dance” Scientific America, July 2008, Page 78-84. By Steven Brown and Lawrence M. Parsons. The first ever neuro-imaging study of dance, recent brain imaging studies reveal some of the complex neural choreography behind our ability to dance. Their big question, “Do the same neural mechanisms scale up to enable maneuvers as graceful as a pirouette, and why do people dance in the first place?” How did they do it?
Researchers scanned the brains of five women and five men using positron-emission tomography, which records changes in cerebral blood flow following changes in brain activity; researchers interpret increased blood flow in specific regions as a sign of greater activity among neurons there. Subjects lying flat inside a scanner, heads immobilized, able to move legs and glide feet along an inclined surface, are asked to execute a box step, pacing their movements to the beat of instrumental tango songs heard through headphones. Scanning the dancers, they flexed leg muscles in time to the music without moving their legs! Subtracting the brain activity elicited by plain flexion made it possible to hone in on brain areas vital to directing the legs through space and generating specific patterns. What some experts view as evolutionary, and novel among humans, we in Nia have known for over 25 years that the power of dance lies not only in what can be measured, but also in what can not be measured, in what we personally sense, feel and can see in the faces of our students.
I loved this article, a result of brain imaging studies of amateur and professional dancers! Casey Bernstein in for Black Belt gave it to me to read. She’s so good at sending me stuff I like to read. She knows my passion for medicine, something we share, as she is also a nurse. While the article focused on answering questions related to coordination and the execution of steps, I was thrilled to read what to me validates the work of Nia. Every time I read a piece of research, I feel compelled to sit quietly and go into The Body’s Way, into what I refer to as Body Gratitude, a tool used in the Five Stages practice, where you take time to speak to the body and share gratitude by speaking out loud about what you observed as self-healing results from your practice. After reading the article I sat quietly and connected to The Body’s Way and here’s the gratitude that came through me. It is in print so that you can read it out loud to celebrate The Body’s Way!
“Thank you, body, for dancing with me, and for allowing me to experience the rhythmic journey I know you know. Rhythm is the dance of your survival a dance you manage with every beat of my heart. Thank you, body, for the gift and magic of moving, for my brain and for the specialized parts of me that science can measure to know what parts of my brain help me to dance and stay on the beat. Special parts that come into play to help me move my arm when I want to move my arm. Parts that respond immediately when I say, “Arm, move up and down” 5) Andy: create webpage to link to all text and create link here in text to read more..)
Thank you, body, for knowing how to move energy even when I am in stillness, always dancing, even when I am unconscious to the rhythm of life. You, the one playing in the Universe who causes me to tap my foot, sway my hips, or wobble my head without even knowing I am dancing. Your movement wisdom keeps me connected from the inside out to the dance of life, connected to living and healing through movement.
Thank you body, I will listen to my 75 trillion cells as they speak, listening with more than my ears, listening with the subcortical areas in my brain that are designed to bypass higher auditory areas, tapping into The Body’s Way, a design and map that makes us all dancers.
Thank you, body, for the interpersonal experience of moving in and through space. Thank you, Nia, for the opportunity to move and express myself, giving credence and respect to the art and power of self-expression, something Nia knows that scientists are just now beginning to explore as something that might hold valuable information for creating positive health and well being in people. The ancient ones know and have never forgotten the power of community dance.
Thank you, body, and Nia for keeping me in awe of the body and of the art of moving. Thank you for what naturally happens when a region in my brain located toward the back of the brain called the posterior parietal cortex, translates visual information to me. Instruction I use and turn into motor commands, signals that are sent forward to the motion-planning areas in the pre-motor cortex and supplementary motor cortex of my brain.
Thank you, body, for creating neural impulses, what I need to dance. Signals of information that travel to my spinal cord and then to my muscles so that my muscles contract and pull on my bones, moving them so I can shimmy, kick, sink and rise.
Thank you, body, for the amazing and wise sensory organs that make it possible for me to move and measure, to know where I am in space–even with my eyes closed. Amazing little organs that rest in my muscles and provide me with feedback and important information that is sent to my brain to give me the exact orientation of my body in space, sensors that, through muscle tell me about the sensation of squeeze, release and about the movement of rotation of my joints.
Thank you, body, for the wisdom of nerves, string-like threads that receive and transmit information. Threads that elegantly pass through my spinal cord into the cerebral cortex of my brain, making me Sensory IQ wise and so very body aware – and all without thinking and from sensing, from listening to The Voices of The Body.
Thank you, body, for the constant loving feedback you give to me, and for helping me to refine and tweak my movements so that I move with greater ease, dynamic ease and with improved function. Thank you for guiding me to choose more pleasurable ways to move via the subcortical circuits in my cerebellum located at the back of my brain and in the basal ganglia areas in my brains core. Thank you, Nia, for reminding me of the importance of FreeDancing–moving and navigating my body through space so that I activate the precuneus, The Body’s Way Body-Centered Map, found in the parietal lobe region close to where the kinesthetic representation of my legs reside. Thank you, body, for sight, what makes it possible for areas in the premotor cortex of my brain to switch on so I can mentally rehearse before I physically do what I do.
Thank you, body, for my Nia dance, and for the opportunity to interpret, stylize, imitate, and represent what I see others doing, but in My Body’s Way. Thank you for the universal language of movement, of body language, spoken in shapes, a shimmy, a pump, a push or pull, a reach, and a shake. Thank you, body, for the impulse to move, what I sense when my cells are triggered by sound, music, and emotion. Thank you for the opportunity to be in community, in my body, with other bodies, moving The Body’s Way. Dancing with Broca’s area in my brain and oh so much more, as you are the one who teaches me that we are connected and whole, moving and functioning as a unit that is alive with love, alive with light, alive with passion, and kept alive by taking the path of pleasure and Joy.
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