Benefits of Dance

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Using my body I was able to teach my brain, it takes exercise, discipline, a lot of work and time, but there’s something else…  There is something that we might underestimate, that can be revolutionary, which is different for each person, patient, human being… This was my something!  Born in Rome in 1974, at the moment he's working as multimedia journalist for Repubblica.it website. From 2007 he's suffering from a movements disturbing rare disease called Cervical Dystonia that's deeply affecting his life and his career. After the suitable treatments and the refuse for a neurosurgical operation he's experiencing an innovative treatment conceived by a Spanish expert in biomechanics in Toronto (Joaquin Farias). This treatment is based on the usage of movement, dance in his case, to retrain his brain retrieving movement capacity and get a correct posture. 

Dancing is one of the most releasing and necessary of all activities - but we too frequently hold back from the worry that we 'can't dance.' This film usefully reminds us that there's no such thing as not being able to dance, that the whole point is to move about wildly without shame - and that in doing so, we connect with others and with important forgotten bits of ourselves. 

Can dancing reverse the aging brain and help prevent dementia and ameliorate Parkinson's disease symptoms? Can dancing improve intelligence and empathy? In this video, Neurogal MD describes the neuroscience behind dancing and three reasons why dancing is beneficial to the brain. 

Peter is a reader in psychology and principle lecturer at the University of Hertfordshire, but his first love was dance. Before entering academia, he trained at the Guildford School of Acting and the Cecchetti Ballet, and worked as a professional dancer. Later, he went to study psychology and computational neuroscience and in 2008, he set up the first Dance Psychology Lab. This has enabled him to combine his twin passions of dance and psychology and, through experimental work, to explore the ways in which dance, and different types of dance, can affect the brain. His most recent work, and the subject of his talk, has involved investigating the effects of dance on people suffering from Parkinson's Disease. 

Cara Scrementi is an educator, choreographer, screendance maker, and dancer and is currently pursuing her MFA in Dance at the University of California, Irvine. She was the Co-Director of the After School Matters Dance Ensemble, an advanced apprenticeship program for Chicago high school students and a dance instructor at The Dance Gallery in northwest Indiana. 

Jessika is a dance activist who started the nonprofit organization Our Chance to Dance in 2015. She talks about how dance can transform people and draws from her experiences teaching dance to the blind, the deaf, orphans, senior citizens, female domestic abuse survivors, cancer patients, and the general public. She started the ‘Move to Heal’ movement worldwide which connects, heals, and empowers others through dance. Jessika Baral grew up in California. She has been dancing for the past 18 years and teaching dance for the past 7. She founded Our Chance to Dance, a nonprofit based in St. Louis focused on using movement to empower, heal, and connect. She also is a captain for the WashU Indian Classical Dance Team and competes on WashU’s Bhangra Dance Team. She is a junior at WashU studying Biology on the Computational Biology and Genomics Track. She started the ‘Move to Heal’ movement in the US and abroad through her dance workshops. . 

Kevin's talk explores the transformative power of the arts and discusses the impact it has had on him as a person who has a mental health condition.  Kevin shares his life story introducing us to his background, how he became a professional dance artist, and how his mental health interacted with his development as an artist.  Kevin studied formally at The Northern School of Contemporary Dance where he gained his first class degree. His professional engagements include working with Rambert Dance Company, Scottish Dance Theatre, Phoenix Dance Theatre, CassaniDance, Rubberbanddancegroup (Canada), Henri Oguike Dance Company, Company Decalage, Mad Dogs Dance Theatre and Roda. In the summer of 2007 Kevin was awarded the prestigious Danceweb Scholarship under the framework of ImPulsTanz, Vienna. Turner has worked in collaboration with Gansango in Seattle USA, Crossfade in Budapest, Hungary and Navala Chaudhuri in London. He has taught in most major British contemporary dance institutions, as well as Canada, The USA, Spain, Hungary and the Caribbean.