The Hidden Benefit of Dance

We all know there are many health benefits of dance: cardio, anaerobic exercise, firing all parts of the brain, there’s also emotional release…but there’s a benefit to dance class that is very culturally relevant today.

There’s this combination of “instant gratification” and “learned helplessness” that all of us have developed because of technology. Have a question? Google it. Need to learn how to do something? Watch a tutorial. It’s easy.

The problem is that this is very passive.

That means our brains aren’t absorbing this new information, it’s basically in one ear and out the other. You don’t have to do anything about it. There aren’t any consequences. If you wait and do nothing, someone else will do it for you.

Learning, thinking critically, and problem solving are skills that a lot of us, especially kids, aren’t developing or practicing on a daily basis. In fact, a lot of kids aren’t taught how to learn or study. It’s just an expectation, like it’s common knowledge. But it’s not at all common knowledge and our culture makes it a point for everything to be dumbed down.

There seems to be a trend in school and at home where kids don’t care about bad grades or consequences anymore. Or that anything can be solved if they recruit their parent to fix things for them (the era of the snowplow parent). Or that they don’t care about their impact on other people even though they really care about how they’re perceived.

But in dance, there is no way for someone to do the work for you. Dance isn’t easy. Dance requires problem solving skills. Dance requires teamwork. And there are consequences that many kids care about. That makes dance even more valuable.

The consequences of not showing up to class, not taking corrections and applying them, not figuring things out are that they will look bad when they perform and their teammates will judge or resent them for it.

When they don’t show up for themselves or their team, they’ll be the ones who look clueless on stage and there’s no one who will save them. If a kid or parent blames others for their own shortcomings, they’ll be asked to leave the studio or group.

There’s also the issue of perfectionism. Kids will want to be good at something right away and that’s not how life works. They’re trying not to embarrass themselves in front of their peers, but what’s considered embarrassing is entirely subjective.

Dance forces you to be ugly, to be wrong, to look or feel weird all alongside being beautiful and powerful and strong. It takes time, practice, and patience.

The fear of failure can often lead students to be small or timid in their movements. There’s a consequence to that as well and it’s the same one as before. When dancers aren’t moving big enough, performing with their faces, or adjusting their bodies to create the right images, they’ll look small and scared on stage.

I have to tell my students that it’s going to feel weird and stupid, but it’ll look good, it’ll create the impact we need. Making dance class more fun and judgement free helps loosen up my kids, especially the tweens. When we’re rehearsing a number, I ask them to do their moves so small, barely moving…then I ask them to do it the biggest they possibly can. It gets ridiculous, but they have a lot of fun when everyone is just as goofy as they are. Then I say, dial it back a bit and we get to the level of energy and performance we were looking for all along.

For kids who don’t show up or miss a lot of class, I do record videos of their routines. It’s their job to practice and ask questions and if they don’t, that’s not on me. If they’ve missed too many classes, I pull them from the number. Another thing I do in my classes is to use the Socratic method of teaching. Open ended questions help kids think critically and problem solve. I don’t answer many questions directly and I make it a point to acknowledge good questions.

An activity for building those problem solving skills is to ask them to create an eight count of choreography or to improvise. Many kids hate this because they don’t know what to do or where to start. I never give them the answers, I simply guide them. Think of one move…okay, which foot is free…where can you step it…what arm do you think works…what’s next?

As adults, we have to hold our kids accountable, set a standard, and allow for teachable moments and compassion. For dance, this is created in studio culture. The more kids who are willing to face their fears, to mess up, the more comfortable others will be to do the same. The more we ask of our students, to make them think critically, the more coach-able they will become and the better teammates they will be. Not just better students, but better future adults.

And that’s the hidden benefit of dance class I absolutely love.