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Dancing to Learn

The Brain's Cognition, Emotion, and Movement

Judith Lynne Hanna

Dancing to Learn: Cognition, Emotion, and Movement explores the rationale for dance as a medium of learning to help engage educators and scientists to explore the underpinnings of dance, and dancers as well as members of the general public who are curious about new ways of comprehending dance. Among policy-makers, teachers, and parents, there is a heightened concern for successful pedagogical strategies. They want to know what can work with learners. This book approaches the subject of learning in, about, and through dance by triangulating knowledge from the arts and humanities, social and behavioral sciences, and cognitive and neurological sciences to challenge dismissive views of the cognitive importance of the physical dance. Insights come from theories and research findings in aesthetics, anthropology, cognitive science, dance, education, feminist theory, linguistics, neuroscience, phenomenology, psychology, and sociology. Using a single theory puts blinders on to other ways of description and analysis. Of course, all knowledge is tentative. Experiments necessarily must focus on a narrow topic and often use a special demographic—university students, and we don’t know the representativeness of case studies.

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

Pages: 230 • Trim: 6 x 9

978-1-4758-0604-5 • Hardback • November 2014 • $91.00 • (£70.00)

978-1-4758-0605-2 • Paperback • November 2014 • $45.00 • (£35.00)

978-1-4758-0606-9 • eBook • November 2014 • $42.50 • (£35.00)

Subjects: Education / Educational Psychology, Education / Arts in Education, Education / Administration / General

Dancing to Learn

The Brain's Cognition, Emotion, and Movement

Hardback

Paperback

eBook

Summary

Dancing to Learn: Cognition, Emotion, and Movement explores the rationale for dance as a medium of learning to help engage educators and scientists to explore the underpinnings of dance, and dancers as well as members of the general public who are curious about new ways of comprehending dance. Among policy-makers, teachers, and parents, there is a heightened concern for successful pedagogical strategies. They want to know what can work with learners. This book approaches the subject of learning in, about, and through dance by triangulating knowledge from the arts and humanities, social and behavioral sciences, and cognitive and neurological sciences to challenge dismissive views of the cognitive importance of the physical dance. Insights come from theories and research findings in aesthetics, anthropology, cognitive science, dance, education, feminist theory, linguistics, neuroscience, phenomenology, psychology, and sociology. Using a single theory puts blinders on to other ways of description and analysis. Of course, all knowledge is tentative. Experiments necessarily must focus on a narrow topic and often use a special demographic—university students, and we don’t know the representativeness of case studies.

Details

Rowman & Littlefield Publishers

Pages: 230 • Trim: 6 x 9

978-1-4758-0604-5 • Hardback • November 2014 • $91.00 • (£70.00)

978-1-4758-0605-2 • Paperback • November 2014 • $45.00 • (£35.00)

978-1-4758-0606-9 • eBook • November 2014 • $42.50 • (£35.00)

Subjects: Education / Educational Psychology, Education / Arts in Education, Education / Administration / General

Author

Judith Hanna earned a Ph.D. in anthropology from Columbia University, an M.A. in political science from Michigan State University, and a B.A. in political science from UCLA. She is an Affiliate Senior Research Scientist in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Maryland, an educator, writer and dance critic.

Table of Contents

Contents
Acknowledgments
Prelude: To Dance Is Cognitive, Emotional, and Moving
What Do We Know about Dance? Triangulating Knowledge
Brain Scientists Study Dancers and Spectators
Disclosure
Steps toward Understanding Dance as a Learning Medium

Chapter 1. The Brain ”Choreographs” Dance-Maker, Dancer, and Spectator
Cross-Cultural Conceptualization of Dance
The Body in Space, Time, and With Effort
Transformation of Everyday Movements for Expressive Purpose
Culture
The Moving Body Aids Human Evolution
Dancing Nourishes a Ravenous Brain
Architecture of the Brain
Neurons – Atoms of Thinking
Sparking – Neurogenesis
Dance Embodies Cognition
Senses, Interoception, and Perception
Vision, an Especially Important Sense
Mirror Neurons
Mind and Consciousness
Memory
Dance in Mind, Space, Pace, and Aging
Verbal and Nonverbal (Dance) Languages of Thought
Comparison of Languages
Many Languages and Dialects of Dance
Thinking through Language
Multilingualism in Dance
Feeling and Emotion
Stress
Recollection/ Reconsolidation of Emotion
Motivation and the Pleasure of Dance
Encore

Chapter 2. The Mentality and Matter of Learning through Dance
The Brain Sustains Dance Languages
Powerful Hand Communication
More Body Parts, More Powerful Dance
Declarative, Procedural, and Social Knowledge for Dance
Music and Dance Together
Packing and Unpacking Meaning in Dance
Symbolization
Dancing a Science Dissertation
Dimensions of Meaning in Dance (Probing with a Semantic Grid)
Dance in the Moment and Memory
Visual Images and Mindfulness
Perception of Emotion
Thinking through Memorable Images of Dance
Dance Sparks Brain Networks and Learning for Old and Young
Dance Lowers Risks for Brain Deterioration
Performing Arts in General
Acquisition of Learning Skills through Dance
Creativity
Challenges
Prompting Creativity
Encore

Chapter 3. Brain-Changing Dance Venues: From Street/Studio/Classroom to Stage and Back
Multi-linguistic Dance: Plethora of Genres
Many Ways of Learning Dance
Academic Schools
Pre-School Dance
Dance as a Discipline
Pre-professional Dance
Dance Company Schools and Outreach Programs
Arts Magnet Schools
Program within a School
New York City Public Schools
Cluster School Program
A County-Wide Multifaceted Program in all Public Schools
Dance Integration – with Other Arts or Non-Arts Disciplines
Elementary School
High School
University Dance Education
Performing Arts Organization Offerings
John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts
Lincoln Center Institute for the Arts in Education
Washington Performing Arts Society
Young Audiences
National Dance Institute (NDI)
ArtsConnection Young Talent Dance Program/ English Language Literacy Program
Community Based Dance Programs
Dance Teacher Preparation
Private Dance Studios and Conservatories
Dance Education Lab
Pulse Ontario (Canada) Dance Education Conference
National Registry of Dance Educators
State Dance Certification
In-service Workshops
National Dance Education Organization
Encore

Chapter 4. The Dancing Brain Leaves No One Behind
A Performing Art
A Liberal Art
An Applied Art
Personal Development through Dance Aids Learning
Dance Engages and Motivates
Dance and Changing Behavior
Dance Integrated with Other Subjects
Assessing Non-dance Learning through Dance
Children’s Own Dance as a Diagnostic Tool
Transfer of Dance Learning
Dimensions of Transfer
Brain Action
Teaching for Transfer
Research on Transfer
Tools for Dance Learning
Media, Cyberspace, and Social Networks
Distance Learning
“Pen and Paper”
Movement Analysis
Dance Curriculum, Standards, Assessment, and Evaluation
Dance to Cope with Stress
Bad Stress – Distress
Good Stress – Eustress
Dance a Stressor
Escape
Encore

Chapter 5. Mind and Emotion in Learning Self, Cultural and National Identities
through Dance
Dancer Identity, Career, Transitions, and Dance-related Options
Gender and Sexual Orientation
Who Is On-stage? Females
Males in Dance
Culture, Diversity, Understanding, and Choreographic Inspiration
Black/White Interaction
Regional or National Identity
Applying Cultural Diversity
Selecting Dances
Cultural Appropriation
Playing Anthropologist to Learn about a Culture’s Dance
Encore
Finale and Révérence
Dance – Cinderella of Education and Brain Science
Plié: Ready to Soar in Brain and Body
Figure 1. Elements of Dance
Figure 2. Ways of Conveying Meaning in Dance (Semantic Grid)
Appendix 1: Tools to Discover the Dancing Brain
Appendix 2: To Dance in a Classroom, Even for Non-Dancers
Images and Credits
References Cited
About the Brain
Teaching Dance
Index
About the Author

Reviews

The research for the hypothesis undertaken by Dr. Hanna and all others involved, is impressive. . . .The author's style is academic with an excellent fifteen pages of reference works and a clear and precise index. I thank the author for giving me a new insight into an art form I very much enjoy.
— ImagineMag!: A South African Arts & Culture Magazine

Hanna’s review of the extant literature on the neurological impacts of dance specifically and exercise more broadly is wide reaching…. [T]he range of material she draws on may be very persuasive to her imagined reader, skeptical about the importance of dance in education…. The many examples that Hanna reviews of dance education programs are one of the most valuable resources in the book, and a reader interested in examples of dance-integrated learning will find leads on exciting pilots and thriving dance programs…. [The] case studies are quite rich and fascinating…. On the whole, the work is wide and fast moving, a strong model of one way that comparative cross-cultural anthropology integrating neuroscience and cultural research can be deployed in educational activism.
— American Anthropologist

Dancing to Learn does not provide all the answers about the impact of dance on the brain but it does provide more than enough evidence to proudly refute any outdated, biased, and misinformed claim that dance is irrelevant to cognition and education….Dancing to Learn: The Brain’s Cognition, Emotion, and Movement encourages us to find our way back towhat first drew many of us to this profession—the healing inherent in dance.
— American Journal of Dance Therapy

Dancing to Learn

The Brain's Cognition, Emotion, and Movement

Judith Lynne Hanna

Dancing to Learn

The Brain's Cognition, Emotion, and Movement

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