Prelims

Half Title Page

DANCING

Series Page

ARTS FOR HEALTH

Series Editor: Paul Crawford, Professor of Health Humanities, University of Nottingham, UK

The Arts for Health series offers a ground-breaking set of books that guide the general public, carers and healthcare providers on how different arts can help people stay healthy or improve their health and wellbeing.

Bringing together new information and resources underpinning the health humanities (that link health and social care disciplines with the arts and humanities), the books demonstrate the ways in which the arts offer people worldwide a kind of shadow health service – a non-clinical way to maintain or improve our health and wellbeing. The books are aimed at general readers along with interested arts practitioners seeking to explore the health benefits of their work, health and social care providers and clinicians wishing to learn about the application of the arts for health, educators in arts, health and social care and organisations, carers and individuals engaged in public health or generating healthier environments. These easy-to-read, engaging short books help readers understand the evidence about the value of arts for health and offer guidelines, case studies and resources to make use of these non-clinical routes to a better life.

Other Titles in the Series:

Title Page

DANCING

BY

NOYALE COLIN

London Contemporary Dance School, UK

And

KATHRYN STAMP

Coventry University, UK

United Kingdom – North America – Japan – India – Malaysia – China

Copyright Page

Emerald Publishing Limited

Emerald Publishing, Floor 5, Northspring, 21–23 Wellington Street, Leeds LS1 4DL.

First edition 2025

Copyright © 2025 Noyale Colin and Kathryn Stamp. Published by Emerald Publishing Limited. This work is published under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY 4.0) licence. Anyone may reproduce, distribute, translate and create derivative works of this work (for both commercial and non-commercial purposes), subject to full attribution to the original publication and authors. The full terms of this licence may be seen at http://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0/legalcode

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No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, transmitted in any form or by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without either the prior written permission of the publisher or a licence permitting restricted copying issued in the UK by The Copyright Licensing Agency and in the USA by The Copyright Clearance Center. No responsibility is accepted for the accuracy of information contained in the text, illustrations or advertisements. The opinions expressed in these chapters are not necessarily those of the Author or the publisher.

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN: 978-1-83753-915-4 (Print)

ISBN: 978-1-83753-912-3 (Online)

ISBN: 978-1-83753-914-7 (Epub)

Dedication Page

We should consider every day lost on which we have not danced at least once.

Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)

Contents

List of Figures

Foreword: Creative Public Health

The ‘Arts for Health’ series aims to provide key information on how different arts and humanities practices can support, or even transform, health and wellbeing. Each book introduces a particular creative activity or resource and outlines its place and value in society, the evidence for its use in advancing health and wellbeing and cases of how this works. In addition, each book provides useful links and suggestions to readers for following-up on these quick reads. We can think of this series as a kind of shadow health service – encouraging the use of the arts and humanities alongside all the other resources on offer to keep us fit and well.

Creative practices in the arts and humanities offer a fantastic, non-medical, but medically relevant way to improve the health and wellbeing of individuals, families and communities. Intuitively, we know just how important creative activities are in maintaining or recovering our best possible lives. For example, imagine that we woke up tomorrow to find that all music, books or films had to be destroyed, learn that singing, dancing or theatre had been outlawed or that galleries, museums and theatres had to close permanently; or, indeed, that every street had posters warning citizens of severe punishment for taking photographs, drawing or writing. How would we feel? What would happen to our bodies and minds? How would we survive? Unfortunately, we have seen this kind of removal of creative activities from human society before, and today, many people remain terribly restricted in artistic expression and consumption.

I hope that this series adds a practical resource to the public. I hope people buy these little books as gifts for family and friends, or for hard-pressed healthcare professionals, to encourage them to revisit or to consider a creative path to living well. I hope that creative public health makes for a brighter future.

Professor Paul Crawford

Preface

The arts have long been engaged in communities to support the vital work happening in a multitude of health settings, as a means of maintaining or improving health and wellbeing. Increasingly, dance has been put forward to offer solutions for social recovery through educational, community and social care projects. Dance has become a significant contributor to the therapeutic ethos permeating all facets of culture. Dance offers a unique approach to tackling health and wellbeing due to its dual identity as a physical activity and a creative form of expression. Whereas the experiential aspect of contemporary dance is particularly relevant to a therapeutic context, there are many other forms of dance that are supporting health.

Dance and movement are everywhere, in all different settings. Formalised dance delivery can take place in care homes, studio spaces, dance clubs, church halls and at home, to name only some. This volume will introduce a number of dance and movement styles that are used in community and health settings, including ballroom, ballet, modern and contemporary dance and Asian dance, as well as fitness-based forms such as Zumba. Many case studies come from the UK, but there are a number from elsewhere in the world, so some cultural and national dance forms are explored. While the primary focus is on amateur engagement with dance, the benefits of undertaking dance professionally and in formal training is explored through our evaluation of dance as an activity with therapeutic benefits.

There is a growing need for accessible, guided literature about how dance can advance health and wellbeing (Chappell et al., 2021). While physical activity is directly linked to health, dance has not always been associated with healthy practice. Safety and accessibility issues in dance have been at the centre of recent research that has contributed to new insights and recommendations for safe and inclusive dance practice for a wide range of participants in both professional and amateur contexts (Quin et al., 2015; Whatley et al., 2018). Less focus on physical aesthetics and virtuosity and more emphasis on the experience of the participants in dance have allowed a shift in the understanding of safe practice in dance. It is within this shifting landscape that the relationship between the physical, mental and social in dance has been more significantly applied to the treatment or support of a range of conditions. While increased participation is a welcomed, positive shift, dance must be delivered safely by facilitators who are trained/experienced. Dance activities for vulnerable people must be carefully managed to avoid harm and address issues of accessibility. For example, dance for people with dementia should be delivered with care and particular attention to what dance engagement could trigger, similar to dance movement psychotherapy as a therapeutic treatment option.

There are dance practitioners working across the globe, offering non-clinical but effective ways to maintain or improve physical and mental health and wellbeing. This volume documents, unpacks and recommends ways that individuals can utilise dance as a tool to manage aspects of their health and wellbeing. Written for both those new to dance and those well-experienced in it, Dancing gathers case studies from the UK and beyond that explore the ways in which dance is being utilised to tackle a range of health and wellbeing-related issues, including physical inactivity, Parkinson’s and depression. This book is constructed as a guidebook for individuals to use, either solo or as part of a bigger group, with inspiration for guided activities that people can undertake, information on how to get involved in dance, case study examples to use as motivation to explore dance as a physical and creative activity. This guidebook approach, we hope, will equip you as readers with practical ideas for using dance and movement in developing bodily awareness, sense of self and engagement with others, key factors in maintaining healthy identities and improving social relationships.

Acknowledgements

Our first thanks must go to the organisations and individuals who serve as case studies in this book. Our mission with Dancing was to spotlight some of the brilliant, groundbreaking practice in dance and health spaces that, for many, is the result of years if not decades of experience. We thank you for your time and support in co-writing these small snippets of much bigger, nuanced practices. We hope we have captured something of the transformative work you do.

We are very grateful to the team at Emerald for their guidance and support in the development of the book. Special thanks goes to Katy Mathers and Prof Paul Crawford as fierce advocates for the message at the heart of this book series, and for supporting us in the maturing of our ideas through the proposal stages. Thanks also to Charlotte Maiorana and Pavithra Muthu for your guidance through the publication process.

This book was created through collaboration and many of the ideas flourished out of conversations we have had with colleagues and peers at certain events. Thank you to the attendees at the Dance for Health Research Network Day, held at the University of Winchester in June 2023. Thank you to Dr Emma Meehan and Dr Supritha Aithal for the time spent in conversation about the developing area of dance and health.

Thank you to colleagues at the Centre for Dance Research (C-DaRE) at Coventry University for their continued support in developing writing and cultivating a culture for dance research in which ideas can be challenged and nurtured. Similarly, we would like to thank colleagues at the University of Winchester and, in particular, Dr Catherine Seago for her stimulating contribution to this project. Funding received from University of Winchester and Coventry University facilitated our collaboration and in-person co-writing sessions, which were invaluable, as well as helping to make this publication open access.

With continued thanks to our proofreaders Dr Tim Fletcher and Jonathan Stamp for always answering our call!

Above all, we are hugely indebted to all the dance participants who have shared (directly or indirectly) their personal experience of dancing and how it has transformed their health, wellbeing and overall, their lives. These testimonies have been the propulsion for writing the book and have cheered us along at times when we needed to just keep on dancing.