Dance Therapy

Dance Therapy is the therapeutic use of movement, to improve the physical and mental well being of a person. The basic focus is on the connection between the mind and the body, to promote health and heeling. Thus dance therapy will be the use of choreographed of improvised movement, as a way of treating social, emotional, cognitive and physical problems. Dance therapy harnesses the power of movement in a therapeutic setting, and uses it to promote personal growth and well-being. It works on a basic belief that mind and body are inter related and work together. The mental and emotion problems are often held in the body in the form of muscle tension and constrain movement patterns and this state of body can further affect the attitude, feelings, and emotions both positively and negatively.

The benefits of dance as a therapy might be grouped as physical, emotional, mental, or cognitive and social level.

Physical Level: - On a physical level, dance therapy provides the benefits of exercise i.e. improved health, well-being, co-ordination and muscle tone. The total body movement enhances the functions of other body systems such as circulatory, respiratory, skeletal and muscular. It will help in enjoying the pleasure of creating rhythmic motions within the body, which in turn ease muscular rigidity, diminish anxiety and increase energy. It will also help to improve the neuromuscular skills, which involves largely balance and co-ordination of the body.

Emotional Level: - It helps to feel more joyful and confidant and would help to express feeling such as anger and frustration. It is a non-verbal way of communicating feelings or emotions. The basic idea is to relive the specific emotion and hence release or channelize them so as to get relieved of anxiety and depression.

Mental Level: - It seeks to enhance cognitive skills, motivation and memory. It helps in particularly free and vital opportunity for creating self-expression, in turn helping to improve body image, self-esteem, and attentiveness and communicating skills. It will encourage creative self-expression and will open up new ways for a creative mind.

Social Level: - It helps in bring people out of isolation, creating powerful social and emotional bonds and generates the good feelings that come from being with other. Especially in choreography, it involves with others because in any choreography you have essentially to work along with 2 or more numbers of people. Thus you help to achieve interpersonal interaction, which is an effective outlet for communicating feelings.