Grad student, Dance Ensemble combine art and research
Does dancing change the way we think? For countless centuries, human
societies have used dance-from the Catalan saradana, to Hopi rain ceremonies,
to American Shaker dances, to the all-night Raves of the nineties-to build a
sense of community and reach higher states of consciousness. And dancers
themselves spend countless hours mastering intricate steps and complex patterns
and rhythms.
Dartmouth Dance Ensemble members Mary Chris DeBelina '05 and graduate student
Emily Cross (photo by Joseph Mehling '69)
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Does this leave measurable changes in the brain? Emily S. Cross, a Dartmouth
graduate student in Psychology and Brain
Sciences, has been working with student dancers from the Dartmouth Dance
Ensemble to answer this question. Cross has been researching the dancers as
they master Sky Light, a demanding 25-minute work by the distinguished
American choreographer Laura Dean for their upcoming spring concert,
Amplitude.
"The purpose of study is to investigate changes that occur in the
brains of dancers as they learn difficult movement sequences," said Cross,
who is conducting her research in the Lab of Action at Dartmouth's Center for
Cognitive Neuroscience. "Because brain activation is associated with
changes in blood flow, functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) technology,
which measures changes in blood flow over time, can be used to learn more about
brain processing."
The Dartmouth dancers had an fMRI scan of their brains taken once a week for
20 to 30 minutes over six consecutive weeks of the rehearsal process. During
each of the scanning sessions, they watched the same 36 five-second movie clips
of their instructor performing either movements taken from Sky Light
or improvised movements not related to the Sky Light choreography. The
lab research took place from the middle of October to the end of November 2004,
as the dancers learned the piece.
In her study of the dancers' fMRI scans, Cross looked at brain areas
responsible for thinking through movements and actions. She hypothesized that
the dancers would show different types of brain activity when watching
movements they were learning in rehearsal than when they watched improvised
dance movements they were not attempting to master.
"My prediction is that brain areas involved in action planning and
execution will demonstrate distinct patterns of activation," explained
Cross, "depending on whether the observed movement is from Sky
Light or is movement the dancers are not currently rehearsing.
Additionally, I expect the distinction between these two patterns of brain
activation to become more pronounced over the six weeks of testing."
In other words, if Cross' theory is borne out by her research, she will have
shown that dancing really does change the way our brains work. If she is right,
dancers' brains will automatically pick out and respond to movements they are
learning themselves and the responses will grow as they master the
material.
The use of Sky Light (1982), one of Laura Dean's most admired
works, is an interesting choice as the basis for a brain study. "As one of
the dancers in the Ensemble," Cross said, "I am very vested in the
piece. When we began rehearsals, I was struck with how irregular and difficult
the piece was. Motor control studies are usually done with very simple
movements, like bending a finger. As someone who has danced for years and
years, I was more interested in how the body observes and produces more complex
movements.
"Laura Dean's style is one of the most challenging I've worked with
personally. The counts are very different from what you usually find in ballet
or modern dance. At first, in rehearsal, we were baffled over the unusual
counts and the changes of time signature.
"I was just sure that as we drilled the movements every day and the
piece began to make sense, brain changes were taking place. So I spoke to my
advisor, Scott
Grafton, Professor of Psychological and Brain Sciences and Director of the
Dartmouth Brain Imaging Center, and he
said, 'Go ahead and do a study.'"
One of America's leading modern choreographers, Laura Dean studied at the
School of American Ballet in New York and worked with a number of distinguished
modern choreographers, including Merce Cunningham and Meredith Monk.
Dean began choreographing on her own in the late 1960s. She became well
known for her dances inspired by such ritual dance traditions as the famous
"spinning dances" of the Islamic Sufi mystics-works which used
patterns and repetition rather than narrative structures, like many Western
theatrical dances.
Sky Light begins with a consecration ceremony, based on Pueblo
Indian rituals, in which dancers enter one at a time to perform a salutation to
each of the four directions. Later sequences suggest African or Asian
dance.
Dance critic Marilyn Hunt has called the result "the dance equivalent
of world music, because it works with the universal, basic building blocks of
dance." Hunt finds the essence of Dean's style in "the simple
repeated steps, geometric floor patterns and sense of community."
Dean, who disbanded her own ensemble in 1994, now choreographs for other
groups, including the New York City Ballet, the Joffrey Ballet and even ice
dance companies. The Dartmouth Dance Ensemble will be the first college dance
group authorized to perform Sky Light.
As Cross analyzes her data from her Sky Light study, she is sure
she will find many surprises. "It's fun to speculate where this sort of
research might lead," she says. "For a dancer or athlete, just
watching practice or rehearsal may affect the brain in different ways from
other people-in a kind of mental rehearsal."
If dance is like music, dancers may have distinctive brain patterns, just as
brain research has shown trained musicians do. "We might be able to watch
a person's brain activation patterns while they are watching dance and say,
'Yep, that person is a dancer' because their brain is making a lot of sense of
the movement."
Sky Light will appear in the Dartmouth Dance Ensemble's
Amplitude: Winter Concert, to be performed on Friday, March 4 and
Saturday, March 5, at 8 p.m. in the Moore Theater, Hopkins Center. Tickets are
$12, Dartmouth students $3, all other students $5. Call 646-2422 for ticket
information.
By PETER WALSH
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