May Cause Joy

Dear Solutionaries,

I just discovered that I’m a hip hop dancer. This is news to my knees. But my little California town organized a local dance festival last weekend. With a group of strangers, I learned hip hop steps under a cloudless sky next to the beach; the next day, I watched a performance by Rennie Harris American Street Dance, led by a a choreographer the New Yorker once called “the most brilliant Hip Hop choreographer in America.” Naturally, I signed up for Rennie Harris’ masterclass the next day, a little intimidated to realize I would be dancing alongside the very performers who had performed back flips and somersaults the evening before. Their feet seemed to move impossibly fast.

I’ll admit it - the speed was beyond my abilities, but the 90 minutes workshop was still exhilarating! The dancers were unflinchingly kind, even when my feet stubbornly refused to follow their example.

My new obsession with dance began last fall, when musician David Byrne, the founder of Reasons to be Cheerful, performed at the sold-out Dolby Theatre in Los Angeles. The entire crowd was on its feet for nearly the entire show. I danced enthusiastically for two hours straight, feeling a kind of unfiltered joy that’s rare to access in everyday life.

The experience reminded me that I used to love dance but somehow lost the habit. The following month I signed up for “Groove Therapy” with a local dance teacher, Leah Lynn. The youngest in our group is 16, the oldest over 70. Twice a week, we play out a verb each of us brings to class — release, celebrate, resist, sparkle — and we translate that abstract intention into motion. It sounds faintly ridiculous. It’s also, disarmingly, effective. Within minutes, something shifts. Stress loosens. Then for the next hour, we learn hip hop routines and swing our hips to Kool & the Gang or Beyoncé. I always return home exhausted and exhilarated.

I’m sharing this here because modern research is now catching up to the fact that dance is medicine, a deeply effective intervention for physical, cognitive and emotional health.​ Behind the feel-good performance lies hard science. On a purely physical level, dance improves cardiovascular fitness, strength and coordination. In a longitudinal study, seniors who took part in regular dance training fell less often and were “physically better off and mentally fitter” than those in the control group.

Though the body benefits are impressive, the neurological ones are what make scientists lean forward. Dancing activates a wide network: auditory pathways, visual and motor cortex, the amygdala and, above all, the somatosensory cortex and networks that keep track of where your body is in space. Each change in rhythm or melody is processed in milliseconds and translated into new steps, adjustments and expressions. Your brain is multitasking while your body is throwing a party.

Essentially, if you want to be smarter, fitter, healthier, dance is an answer. It is also just so much fun!

Find out how even wheelchair-bound patients and Parkinson’s patients can become dancers and read the full story on Reasons to be Cheerful.
May Cause Joy: The Full-Spectrum Health Benefits of Dance

If you’ve been looking for a sign to dance again, this is it.

Your five-step doesn’t have to be perfect. Mine isn’t, but who cares?

Cheerfully,

Michaela