{"id":9549,"date":"2024-07-15T12:16:21","date_gmt":"2024-07-15T12:16:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=9549"},"modified":"2024-07-15T12:28:43","modified_gmt":"2024-07-15T12:28:43","slug":"you-think-so-you-can-dance-science-is-on-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=9549","title":{"rendered":"\u2018You Think, So You Can Dance?\u2019 Science Is on It."},"content":{"rendered":"
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How does an art of the body affect the mind?<\/p>\n

\u201cEpiphany Machine,\u201d a performance that\u2019s also a scientific study, paints a picture of the brain on dance \u2014 onstage and in data. Two dancers move through a simple sequence of steps while wearing electroencephalography caps, which track their brains\u2019 electrical activity. Lab technicians monitor the caps\u2019 data on laptops. And on a large screen, kaleidoscopic projections illustrate the performers\u2019 brain activity for the audience, in real time.<\/p>\n

Feathery fractal trees grow, branch and recede. Chains of numbers snake around in circles, turning blue, then black. It is beautiful and eerie: a pas de quatre for two dancers and their busy minds.<\/p>\n

\u201cEpiphany Machine,\u201d performed last month at Virginia Tech, is a product of the young field of dance neuroscience, which explores dance\u2019s unusual brain-body connection. Sophisticated imaging technology has helped reveal that dance\u2019s multifaceted demands engage the mind as intensively as the body; that dance can root our minds more firmly in our physical selves; and that dancing together can help us relate to each other.<\/p>\n

These are ideas that dancers grasp intuitively. Unsurprisingly, many scientists in the field are also dance artists, like Elinor Harrison, whose course on the neuroscience of movement at Washington University in St. Louis is subtitled \u201cYou Think, So You Can Dance?\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cThe way dance integrates the mind and the body, that\u2019s something I\u2019ve felt myself,\u201d Harrison said. \u201cSo when we see evidence of these things on a functional magnetic resonance imaging scan\u201d \u2014 which measures blood flow in the brain \u2014 \u201cit\u2019s the science justifying this embodied knowledge dancers have.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Julia C. Basso, a creator of \u201cEpiphany Machine.\u201d \u201cDance is joyful and mindful for everyone,\u201d she said, and \u201cespecially powerful\u201d for those whose brains are having difficulty communicating with their bodies.<\/span>Jonathan Mehring for The New York Times<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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How does an art of the body affect the mind?\u201cEpiphany Machine,\u201d a performance that\u2019s also a scientific study, paints a picture of the brain on dance \u2014 onstage and in data. Two dancers move through a simple sequence of steps while wearing electroencephalography caps, which track their brains\u2019 electrical activity. Lab technicians monitor the caps\u2019 data on laptops. And on a large screen, kaleidoscopic projections illustrate the performers\u2019 brain activity for the audience, in real time.Feathery fractal trees grow, branch and recede. Chains of numbers snake around in circles, turning blue, then black. It is beautiful and eerie: a pas de quatre for two dancers and their busy minds.\u201cEpiphany Machine,\u201d performed last month at Virginia Tech, is a product of the young field of dance neuroscience, which explores dance\u2019s unusual brain-body connection. Sophisticated imaging technology has helped reveal that dance\u2019s multifaceted demands engage the mind as intensively as the body; that dance can root our minds more firmly in our physical selves; and that dancing together can help us relate to each other.These are ideas that dancers grasp intuitively. Unsurprisingly, many scientists in the field are also dance artists, like Elinor Harrison, whose course on the neuroscience of movement at Washington University in St. Louis is subtitled \u201cYou Think, So You Can Dance?\u201d\u201cThe way dance integrates the mind and the body, that\u2019s something I\u2019ve felt myself,\u201d Harrison said. \u201cSo when we see evidence of these things on a functional magnetic resonance imaging scan\u201d \u2014 which measures blood flow in the brain \u2014 \u201cit\u2019s the science justifying this embodied knowledge dancers have.\u201dJulia C. Basso, a creator of \u201cEpiphany Machine.\u201d \u201cDance is joyful and mindful for everyone,\u201d she said, and \u201cespecially powerful\u201d for those whose brains are having difficulty communicating with their bodies.Jonathan Mehring for The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and\u00a0log into\u00a0your Times account, or\u00a0subscribe\u00a0for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?\u00a0Log in.Want all of The Times?\u00a0Subscribe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":9551,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9549","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9549","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9549"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9549\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9552,"href":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9549\/revisions\/9552"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9551"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9549"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9549"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9549"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}