Translator: Tanya Cushman Reviewer: Cristina Bufi-Pöcksteiner
So, hello, um, wow! This is amazing, amazing, amazing!
Hello up there, hello.
Great. Right.
So, I'm interested in the psychology of dance,
and I want to know things like "Why do we dance?"
What's the point of us dancing?
And I want to know things like "How do we communicate through dance?"
How do we communicate different things through our body movements?
In the past, I've spoken about studies where we look at the relationship
between your hormones and the way you get funky on a dance floor.
We're not doing that today, I'm afraid.
But what we are going to do -
Could we start by all just clearing our laps? Clearing our laps.
Marvelous.
And can you just shake your hands out, just shake your hands out.
Get your shoulders moving, okay, lovely.
Okay, I want to find out what happens - I'm going to play some music,
and this is all about the psychology of the groove,
(Laughter)
and I want to know how groovy you are,
and I want you to just kind of feel this piece of music -
we'll have music playing, and I want you to kind of dance in your mind,
and just see what happens with your body - if anything happens at all.
Just sitting where you are, and just to see ...
First piece of music, please.
(Music)
A bit louder.
Marvelous. Okay, just listen to it.
There you are.
So did anyone feel that?
(Audience) Yes.
Marvelous. This time please stand up.
Stand up, stand up, stand up. This is marvelous. This is great.
And this time -
Now there, we were thinking
about how you kind of might think about music in the body -
this time I want you to kind of move your body a bit more to the music.
Let's have the music, please.
(Music)
Okay.
Thinking about this piece of music.
Oh, we've got a groover up there in the front. Fantastic!
Okay, just let your body go.
Just like that.
Just let that go. Oh, doesn't that feel good? Oh!
Thank you very much.
(Music ends)
Sit down, jolly good.
Right. So ...
(Applause)
So, now why am I interested in this?
Well of course, the reason I'm really interested in it
is to try to understand the function of dancing.
I want to know, "Why do we dance and what point is there to dancing?"
Now of course, in the lab we look at all kinds of functions of dancing.
And one of the big things we're interested in looking at
is the relationship between dance and Parkinson's disease.
So, we know that Parkinson's disease is a neurodegenerative disorder,
and it affects all kinds of aspects [having] to do with balance and walking.
It can impact on people's mood;
it can make them feel depressed and more anxious.
I'll have some water ...
And what we know about these people
is that most of them take some kind of medication
to try and relieve some of the symptoms.
So, we have Parkinson's patients, who have these various symptoms,
and what was found, coming out of America a few years ago,
was that when these people with Parkinson's
engaged in recreational dance,
some of their symptoms reduced.
There are a half-dozen studies published showing that when people dance,
their balance improved or their walking improved.
And there were all kinds of medical improvements in these people.
So what we did at the University of Hertfordshire was to start a study
looking at what happens psychologically to people with Parkinson's disease
when they start to dance.
Of course, there are other studies in the UK too, happening here.
Our study is particularly interested
in looking at the physical, the cognitive and the emotional issues
of people with Parkinson's disease.
So, we have so far run two studies,
and in both studies, what we've done:
We've got patients; we've assessed them for a couple of hours each
on physical conditions,
and then we've put them through
about a dozen dance classes of different styles.
One dance style was using contact improvisation,
which is very kind of weird, and kind of ...
something you see on the stage here a lot, probably.
People kind of, you know, abstract, oft amusing, rolling around ...
And the second study we did, we looked at kind of party dancing,
so we did things like cheerleading -
we had everyone do it with pompoms on the beat.
We'd go through a Bollywood dancing to-do.
A whole range of different dance styles.
The critical thing was in study one we asked people to dance off the beat,
so there was no metric beat or anything to work with;
in the second study, they were really working on the beat all the time.
So for ten weeks, they were just dancing on the beat.
And then we looked at changes in all kinds of areas of their lives.
And one of the major things we found was big changes in their physical ability,
so their balance and their walking - which confirmed other people's studies.
We also found an improvement in their quality of life,
which was quite amazing.
So their physical discomfort scores went down.
We also found big changes in their mood.
So we found that their anxiety levels were reduced and vigor levels went up.
And of course, these are really important things for people with Parkinson's disease
because there are aspects of the condition where anxiety might be a large problem.
There was all kinds of other findings too that I don't have time to tell you about.
But one of the questions I was left with was, "Why are we having these benefits?"
What is it about dancing which is helping these different types of people?
Is it just the case that it makes their body feel good -
it loosens them up in a kind of muscular way or a joint way -
and that's what helps them sleep, maybe?
Or is something actually happening in the brain?
Because we know that Parkinson's disease is a neurodegenerative disorder.
It comes from a certain part of the brain.
So, of course, it is very hard for us to look at the brain while people dance,
but we've done a big lot of searching the literature,
and what we found is there are three elements in dancing
which are vital to improving health.
And these three elements can sometimes distinguish dance
from other forms of exercise.
Now, the three elements are -
One, it's social - there's a lot of social interaction in dance.
Two, it's very physical.
And three, it's cognitive - it's a kind of learning, problem-solving thing.
And what we know, for each of those three things
there's quite a lot of research
which shows that when you engage in those things,
you have changes to your brain.
The first study, published study,
found that those people who are more socially engaged -
engaged in the kind of way that you are when you're dancing -
were less likely to get dementia five years later.
There's a relationship between social engagement and the onset of dementia.
A study of 5,000 people in America, followed up three to five years later,
found that link.
So, let's have a practice of some social engagement in dance.
So, we'll stand up.
Right.
So, now we've got some helpers:
Rebecca down in Brighton, and Sabina up in Addenbrooke,
so they can come up as well in their regions.
So, starting off with your right hand,
just follow me.
I want you to do this; it goes like that, one and two.
Other side. We go three and four.
Now be very social; I want you to boogie.
And boogie, but look at the person next to you.
(Murmuring) (Laughter)
Okay, let's practice that one again.
So it goes one, two, three, four.
We boogie, five, six and seven, eight.
The next bit, right arm up in the air like this.
And we clap from the lap,
and then come back again there, and go there again.
Now, we click twice here: click, click,
click, click.
Now do it again, the other side.
We go one, two, three, four,
and click and click.
Now here it gets difficult - just watch me now.
I want you to do this - woah dadal dum -
and the other way, the other way.
But like a Mexican wave, starting on this side of the theatre and over there
and going right away across through the three tiers.
So, everyone down here, you ready?
And we're going to follow the person on our right,
so here we go and over the top.
Brilliant. Now bring it back again.
Get faster now. Faster, faster, faster. Come faster now.
Right. So let's do this thing altogether, shall we? Here we go.
So it goes five, six, and seven, eight.
We go one, two, three, we're going to boogie to the beat.
Other arm goes one, two, three, four;
we click and click.
It goes one, ba, a two, ba, and click.
Over the top, we go one, two, three, four, and eh la dum, bum bum, bum bum.
Brilliant, brilliant.
So you can sit down now.
(Applause)
Sit down, sit down, sit down.
Okay, the next bit.
Physical activity is absolutely vital.
There's a part in the brain called the hippocampus.
And the hippocampus is thought to be responsible
for some of our short-term memories.
When you get into middle-age, sometimes your memories can start -
you can start losing your memories, just ever so slightly.
It's thought that the hippocampus shrinks by about one to two percent every year,
and our memory gets worse and worse and worse and worse.
There's a great study: took 120 people.
60 of them had to do physical exercise of the sort like it was dancing,
three times a week for a year.
The other group had to just stretch.
The stretching group, their hippocampuses carried on shrinking across the year.
The physical exercise group,
their hippocampus actually grew -
grew by one to two percent over the year, measured by fMRI -
which is incredible.
And what those seem to be suggesting
is that physical exercise might be good for structures like the hippocampus,
which might help people's memory and help them retain their memory.
So, let's do some physical exercise now.
So stand up, please. Stand up. Some physical exercise.
Starting with your right foot, we're going to march forward -
we can't march very far forward -
but we're going to march for three steps.
It goes one, two, three, clap.
And then we go backwards: we go one, two, three, clap.
And forward again.
And back. Now we're going to go that way.
It goes one, two, three, clap.
And one, two, three ...
And again, one, two, three ...
Now this time, this time - just watch this, just watch this.
It goes like this, in a circle.
We go one, two, three, clap, and back, two, three, clap,
and a one, two, three.
If you don't want to do that, you can just do this.
One.
(Laughter)
So, and eight.
So, here we go.
In a circle: a five, six, seven, eight.
We go one, two, three, clap, and back, two, three, clap,
and one, two ...
and back, two, three, clap.
Right, let's do that all together.
It goes five, six, march forward.
It goes one, two, three and clap,
and back, and two, three, clap,
and one, two, three, clap, and back,
and now we go that way.
Dubba dubba doo bamp bamp, and, again, it goes one ...
Now with a turn, and it goes one, two, three,
and around, two ...
Right. Sit down, sit down, sit down. Oh, it's so exciting.
I've got four minutes left.
The last element is the cognitive element.
The cognitive element.
Some studies have found that when you do cognitive training,
you become better at problem solving.
And that training can be dancing-type training where you learn,
so you're using your memory and spatial ability and spatial awareness.
And those people who go with mild cognitive impairment -
people at my kind of age who are just beginning to forget things -
and they go along and do training
in these memory strategies and problem-solving strategies,
they get better at problem solving.
But more areas of the brain light up when they do brain scans,
which suggests, perhaps, that more areas of the brain
are supporting particular types of problem solving.
So, problem solving is a very good thing to do,
and so let's do some memory work right now.
So stand up again. Please stand up.
Okay, this time, what we need to do:
We do our right foot, get our heel forward.
It goes a heel and back, and heel and back,
oh huh, two, three, four.
(Laughter)
There we are.
And then it goes a one, a two, and a three and a four,
and a John Travolta, John Travolta.
So on this one, the heel section -
the idea here is to use spatial awareness, which part of the body is working when.
We'll start off with our heels.
It goes five, six, seven, eight.
It goes one, two, three, four, um bapa bapa do ba dum,
and one, two, three, four, and John Travolta, John ...
And again, do again: And a one, a two, a three, and a four,
and a five and a six and a seven and an eight.
And a one, two, a three, four, and a five, six, seven, eight.
Now stay standing, stay standing.
Because what we know now is, of course, for dance to have health benefits,
it needs to have these three elements:
It needs to have a social element - well, very helpful if it does -
it needs to have a physical element to raise your heart rate,
and it needs to have a cognitive element
so that you're thinking or problem solving.
It was, of course, my dream to stand on this stage.
If anybody else wants to come join me on this stage to dance,
you're very welcome.
So, we're all going to do that dance all together,
all three parts together.
We're going to do the social, the cognitive and the physical
up here on the stage,
and I'll dance with anyone who wants to come and join me - please, please do.
Everyone's too scared.
It's wonderful up here, wonderful, wonderful.
Okay, let's have some music then.
Let's have some music, and we'll do this a last time.
(Music)
So, we start with this hand here and then go there.
So, just relaxing now.
Oh, it's going, it's going.
And a one, two, three, four, we boogie and look from side to side.
It goes one ...
Ah, lovely.
Other side.
Over the top.
Oh, lovely.
Now we do it again.
One, two, three ...
Now we go that way.
Now with a turn. Here we go.
Now the cognitive bit. There's one, two, three, four.
Lovely.
One, two, three ...
a John Travolta, John Travolta.
Go one, and two, three, four, five and six, seven.
From the top, last time ever.
Over the top.
Now wait. (Music ends)
(Laughter)
(Music resumes)
Ah, there we go.
Okay, that way.
Now with a turn.
The cognitive bit.
Oh, John Travolta.
(Music ends)
Hey. That's it.
(Cheering)
Thank you very much. Thank you.
(Applause)
That's it. Thank you very much.
(Applause)