In regards to adolescence: I am wondering what is it that is the enjoyable side of coming to classical ballet, if the aim is not to become (ballet) dancers? What is it that makes them come to dance? Why do many quit during the adolescence years? What are the experience for adolescence in dance? What are the stories that the adolescence tell themselves about dance?
Dear Maria:
It has been known for many years that training in what we call "the arts" enriches the life experience of the practitioner. Recently transdisciplinary studies incorporating advances in neuroscience are showing us how this happens.
I recommend this book, freely available on the web:
Learning, arts, and the brain, the Dana Consortium report on arts and cognition, organized by Michael S. Gazzaniga, Carolyn Asbury and Barbara Rich, editors, New York/Washington, Dana Press, 2008, pp. 51-59 (http://www.dana.org/workarea/downloadasset.aspx?id=88374, access: February 22, 2015).
It has a chapter entitled "Dance and the brain," by Scott Grafton and Emily Cross, on pages 61-69.
Dear David,
Thank you for your reply. I have now downloaded the book and it is quite interesting.
Maria
Hi Maria,
it's worth having a look at Judith Lynne Hanna's publications - her latest book is Dancing To Learn: The Brain’s Cognition, Emotion, and Movement. It's either just come out or is about to. She makes the link between recent neuroscience research on learning and the way dance integrates a whole raft of different aspects of human learning and development.
Apart from that, a Google Scholar search might help... :)
Maria, my PhD thesis on community-based creative dance for adolescents and their feelings of social wellbeing (Queen Margaret University, Edinburgh, 2009) might shed a ray of light on your subject, if only to offer more suggestions of relevant literature. Google it and it should come up in its entirety.
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