Illustration by Drew Shannon
Thomas R. Verny, MD is a clinical psychiatrist, academic, award-winning author, public speaker, poet and podcaster. He is the author of eight books, including the global bestseller The Secret Life of the Unborn Child and 2021′s The Embodied Mind: Understanding the Mysteries of Cellular Memory, Consciousness and Our Bodies.
Several years ago, my wife and I visited the former monastery of the whirling dervishes in Konya, Turkey, now converted into a museum and a shrine to Rumi, a 13th-century Persian poet. It was here that Rumi, who founded the Mevlevi, or a Sufi Order, originated this dance of whirling and circling while performing dhikr (remembrance of God) as part of the formal Sema Ceremony [1]. In 2005, UNESCO confirmed The Mevlevi Sema Ceremony as amongst the Masterpieces of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity [2].
In the sanctuary, we found Rumi’s tomb, covered with what looked to me like a Persian carpet embroidered with golden threads. As we walked about looking at some of the other tombs, a great sense of peace enveloped us. Frankly, it felt a bit otherworldly. Perhaps even spiritual. Before we exited, we noticed an inscription on the wall: Dance, when you’re broken open. Dance, if you’ve torn the bandage off. Dance in the middle of the fighting. Dance in your blood. Dance when you’re perfectly free.
Returning to the present, I wonder why people have since time immemorial taken to dancing. There is no culture in the world that does not have a history of music and dance. They are inseparable. Like eggs and bacon, or gin and tonic.
Music is assumed to have originated concurrently with language, around 150,000 years ago. Travelling back in time even further, there is evidence now that the impulse to dance may have existed already in early primates before they evolved into humans, as demonstrated by Prof. Yuko Hattori, at Kyoto University.
Prof. Hattori played a repetitive piano note attempting to teach a chimpanzee in her lab to keep a beat. The chimp would try to tap out the rhythm on a small electronic keyboard in hopes of receiving a reward. This went as planned. However, to everyone’s surprise, in the next room, another chimpanzee heard the beat and began to sway his body back and forth, almost as if he were dancing. “I was shocked,” Prof. Hattori says.
“I did not expect that without any training or reward, a chimpanzee would spontaneously engage with the sound.” Prof. Hattori has now published her research showing that chimps respond to sounds, both rhythmic and random, by “dancing” [3].
I thought it would be interesting to speak to a person who has lived and breathed dance since early childhood. Donna Feore, the director-choreographer of this season’s Stratford Festival’s fabulous musical hit, Something Rotten, told me that she started ballet classes at the age of 6. Then in her 20s she became a professional dancer.
In 1990, while she starred in Guys and Dolls at the Stratford Festival, Richard Monette, artistic director of the festival, requested that she choreograph the Feast of the Lupercal in his production of Julius Caesar. That gig started her on a long and illustrious career as a choreographer and later director-choreographer.
When tasked with directing and choreographing a show, she always starts with a story. To her, every dance that she choreographs must tell a story. Followed by the musical score. “I am obsessed with rhythm. And I love the collaboration with the actors.” She continues, hardly taking a breath, “We are athletes. I want safe but fearless from my dancers. Be bold. Try new ideas.” To her, in dancing we create beauty, body architecture.
I ask her if she likes to dance when at parties. “I am the first one on the floor. You can’t hold me back.” Her enthusiasm is palpable and infectious, and I am sure informs the long line of successful musicals she has directed.
What is it about music that makes us want to move in response to the beat, and what happens in our brains when we do so? Music stimulates the brain’s reward centres, while dance activates its sensory and motor circuits.
Concurrently the limbic system, which is involved in emotion processing, triggers the release of feel-good hormones, such as endorphin, oxytocin and dopamine, while the cerebellum integrates input from the brain and spinal cord and helps in the planning of fine and complex motor actions.
Mirror neurons also play a role in our enjoyment of dance. As their name implies, mirror neurons are brain cells that are activated when we see other people doing something [4]. We automatically yawn if the person sitting opposite to us yawns. Watching people dance makes us want to join them and dance. When we do so, we are no longer alone but feel part of a group.
According to Prof. Gerlinde A.S. Metz, department of neuroscience, University of Lethbridge, who I conferred with recently, brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) is crucial for the survival and development of neurons, acts as a modulator of neurotransmitters and is vital for learning, memory, movements and dance.
It is extensively found in the central nervous system, the gut and various other tissues. When a person dances, especially with others, their body also produces oxytocin, the love hormone, which then heightens the concentrations of BDNF in the blood circulation producing more of the beneficial effects described above.
Prof. Metz, jointly with Prof. Birgit Arabin in Berlin, and the Berlin Symphonic Orchestra, is presently involved in several clinical trials that investigate how dance and music can improve mental and physical health and relieve stress in pregnant mothers and improve their birth outcomes [5].
The French sociologist Émile Durkheim proposed that dance is an expression of “collective effervescence” and serves to unify the group [6]. Abundant and robust research now confirms that a sense of belonging is crucial for human survival [7].
Dr. Joe Verghese from the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in Bronx, N.Y., was the lead researcher of a study that examined how various leisure activities affect the risk of dementia in older adults. His group analyzed the effects of 11 different physical activities, such as cycling, golf, swimming and tennis.
What they discovered was that only dancing reduced significantly the participants’ risk of developing dementia. The researchers suggested that the mental effort and social interaction involved in dancing contribute to this protective effect for dementia and enhance brain health [8].
Exercise positively affects both physical and mental health in people. However, participation in all forms of physical activity tends to decrease with age, leading to deteriorating health. Research has shown that dance is a suitable form of activity for older adults, as it combines physical movement with cognitive and social engagement and often with hands-on contact with another person.
An example of such a such study is one undertaken by scientists from the University of Leeds. Their “Dance On” project studied 685 participants 55 and older in weekly dance classes for one year. By the end of the trial, participants maintained an increase in physical activity over the entire year with many reporting feeling stronger, more confident and “years younger.”
Dr. Sarah Astill, lead investigator, said, “We show that dance, delivered across a range of socially economically diverse communities, is a feasible way to get older adults physically active. This is evident even for the ‘oldest old’ at 85-plus years” [9].
One of the remarkable things about dancing is the effect it has on people with trauma and dementia. Kayla Connick, a board-certified music therapist in Pensacola, Fla., spoke to me recently about her use of dance and movement with survivors of trauma and people with dementia.
“Many of these people spend their days withdrawn and silent. But when I come and play music from the 50s or 60s, music that was popular when they were young, they light up,” she says, referring to people living in long-term-care settings. She remarked that even “the staff are happier and more present.”
Dancing accomplishes many things. It is one of the best forms of exercise that challenges our senses, enhances neuronal connection, relieves stress, contributes to mental health, help us to socialize and bond with friends and reconnect with our younger selves.
Apart from its health benefits we dance because it brings us the pure joy of being fully alive. Here, now, just whirling with every cell in our bodies.
References
1. Meisami, Julia Scott. (2008). Forward to Franklin Lewis, Rumi Past and Present, East and West, Oneworld Publications, (revised edition).
2. The Mevlevi Sema Ceremony. UNESCO. Archived from https://www.unesco.org/en/culture]
3. Frederick, Eva (2019). Dancing chimpanzees may reveal how humans started to boogie. Science, doi:10.1126/
4. Rizzolatti, G., and Craighero, L. 2004. The mirror-neuron system. Ann. Rev. Neurosci. 27:169–92.
5. Arabin, B., & Jahn, M. (2013). Need for interventional studies on the impact of music in the perinatal period: results of a pilot study on women’s preferences and review of the literature. The Journal of Maternal-Fetal & Neonatal Medicine, 26(4), 357-362.
6. Durkheim, Émile. The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life, new translation by Karen E. Fields, Free Press 1995.
7. Cohen, Geoffrey L, (2024). Belonging: The Science of Creating Connection and Bridging Divides. WW Norton.
8. Verghese, J., Lipton, R. B., Kuslansky, G., ... & Buschke, H. (2003). Leisure activities and the risk of dementia in the elderly. New England Journal of Medicine, 348(25), 2508-2516
9. Britten, L., Pina, I., Nykjaer, C., & Astill, S. (2023). Dance on: a mixed-method study into the feasibility and effectiveness of a dance programme to increase physical activity levels and wellbeing in adults and older adults. BMC geriatrics, 23(1), 48.