DANCING in NATURE Healing Benefits
Ecosomatic dance teaches us how to connect kinaesthetically, imaginatively, spiritually and experientially with the natural world, bringing us more powerfully into our bodies, awakening our aliveness, creativity and wellness.
Through dance, we can experience a renewed sense of self and a radical change in the way we view our relationship to the environment. For example, different elements offer us different possibilities in movement:
Working in rocky terrains, brings our awareness to the strength and versatility of bone and the body’s capacity for endurance and stability
Our relationship to blue spaces speaks to us of the tides of change, of the 60% water that makes up the average human body, of the rhythmic pulse of our life force and the flow of bodily fluids
Plants and trees support us to work with concepts of verticality, the cycle of life and the connection between the earth and sky
Air reminds us of our vitality, our breath and the flow of energy required to fill space with full-bodied expression
Nature offers us a freedom and playfulness reminiscent of childhood and an uninhibited use of body, unapologetically moving through and with the land. Dancer Steve Paxton (2011) believes the natural world teaches us about our bodies and their capacity for movement, empathy and reciprocity.
https://www.derby.ac.uk/blog/what-can-dance-teach-us-about-our-relationship-with-nature/
RESEARCH on DANCING in NATURE
Positive effects of dancing in natural versus indoor settings: The mediating role of engagement in physical activity
Using different environments, we tested how engagement in dancing may lead to positive emotions. We also explored the mechanism responsible for the effect natural environments have on emotions by testing the mediational role of objective engagement in physical activity. Regular dancers (N = 64) participated in a salsa-solo session either in an indoor (dance room) or an outdoor (park) condition. We assessed positive exercise-related emotions and perceived exhaustion before and after the dance session. We measured objective engagement in physical activity with accelerometers. A beneficial effect of dancing was observed for all variables. The dancers in the park, compared to the indoor group, reported a greater increase in positive emotions after the salsa session. Objective engagement in dancing was much higher among the dancers in the park than in the dance room. Finally, we found that dance has positive psychological effects in natural settings through engagement in physical activity.
7 Benefits of Dancing Outside
https://www.lnktnk.com/post/7-benefits-of-dancing-outside
Environmental dance
Abstract
Efforts to maintain and protect the environment have recently gained notable attention. Scientists, philosophers, educators and artists, among many others, have initiated positive actions that seek to change the ways that humans relate to the ecosystem. As well, members within the dance community have inadvertently established new movement values that seek to promote and encourage ecological balance. New ideologies in environmental ethics support a non-anthropocentric value theory that recognizes the intrinsic value of all species to the function of an ecosystem.
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