Dancing for Health - Conquering and Preventing Stress
Released on = October 10, 2006, 1:21 pm
Press Release Author = Judith Lynne Hanna
Industry = Healthcare
Press Release Summary = Dance is a healing art for all kinds of stress, from 9/11 and Katrina to everyday issues, according to contemporary science and performance in different cultures, past and present, nonwestern and western, religious and secular, amateur and professional.
Press Release Body = An unprecedented terror attack in the U.S. created a new kind of stress worldwide. Anthropologist Judith Lynne Hanna turns to different cultures, to make the case that dance is a healing art for all kinds of stress. Indeed, to dance in order to resist, reduce, and escape stress is human. Science has shown the mind/body integration and benefit of exercise. Hanna explains how dance is exercise plus aesthetic communication. Yet, she points out, dance can also induce stress. Hanna presents illustrative cases of dance and stress--past and present, nonwestern and western, and she adds her personal experience. To cope with stress, humans meet their gods and demons through dance. They have expelled spider venom and shaken off death, sin, and evil. Humans come to terms with life crises, resolve conflict, revitalize the past, and face the future through dance. Hanna discusses dance-stress connections played out on theater stages, in the professional dance career, and in amateur dance. These cases suggest the potential of dance as a key strategy in the arsenal against stress. The broad perspective may lead to innovation in life and culture and further understanding of meaning in movement. Hanna's book will be of great interest to anthropologists, dancers, health researchers, therapists, and people interested in coping with stress in their lives.
2012
