Dance is a beautiful, enriching arts activity for young children, but will it benefit them later in life? Anne Green Gilbert, the developer of the BrainDance, says it will. Research has shown that the movement patterns she teaches all of her beginning dancers are crucial to the wiring of our central nervous system, and performing them on a regular basis can actually help reorganize the neurological system.

The BrainDance is comprised of eight fundamental movement patterns based on the same patterns we move through as infants in our first year of life. The dance is a full body and brain warm-up that contains the following eight elements:

• Breath: Take four to five deep breaths through the nose and out the mouth filling the belly, diaphragm and lungs.

• Tactile: With your hands, squeeze strongly each arm, each leg and the torso, back and head (whole body). After that, tap the whole body lightly, then slap the whole body sharply, and then brush the whole body smoothly. Explore a variety of other tactile movements such as scratching, rubbing, soft pinching, tapping, etc.

• Core-Distal: Move from the center out, through and beyond the fingers, toes, head and tail. Then, curl back to torso while engaging core muscles. Movement that grows and shrinks, stretches and curls into big Xs and little Os is great!

• Head-Tail: Move the head and tail (lowest part of spine or coccyx) in different directions and pathways. Play with movement that brings head and tail/pelvis together curving forward and backward and side-to-side. Keeping the knees bent helps to release the pelvis. Wiggle the spine like a snake.

• Upper-Lower: Ground the lower half of body by pressing legs into floor with a slight knee bend. Swing arms in different directions and stretch and dance upper body (arms, head, spine) in different ways. Ground upper half by reaching arms out into space with energy as though you are hugging the earth. Dance with lower half: try marching in place, simple knee bends, jumps, leg brushes, and other actions.

• Body-Side: Make a big X with your body. Dance with the left side of your body while keeping the right side stable (still). Then keep the left stable and dance with the right side. With knees and elbows slightly bent like a "W" bring the left half of the body over to meet the right half and vice versa (like a book opening and closing). Follow your thumb with your eyes as it moves right to left and left to right. Do the lizard crawl with arms and legs open to the sides: reach left arm and knee up then right arm and knee up like a lizard crawling up a wall. Move your eyes right to left and left to right (looking at the thumb near your mouth helps) to develop horizontal eye tracking.

• Cross-Lateral: Do a parallel standing crawl with knees and hands in front of you. Let your eyes travel up and down looking at one thumb as it reaches high and low for vertical eye tracking. Do a cross-lateral boogie dance finding as many ways of moving cross-laterally as possible, such as touching right knee to left elbow, left hand to right foot, right hand to left knee, left hand to right hip, skipping, walking, crawling, etc.

• Vestibular: This pattern may be done at the beginning of the BrainDance. Choose a movement that takes you off balance and makes you dizzy. Vary the movements you do each week. Swing upper body forward and backward and side-to-side. Make sure head is "upside down." Tip, sway, roll, and rock in different directions (any movement that makes you dizzy). Spin 15 seconds one direction, breathe and rest 15 seconds, then spin 15 seconds the other direction. Take three to four deep breaths to center yourself after spinning!

Students at the Creative Dance Center practice upper body movements.
Photo by Terri Hermann

Gilbert developed the BrainDance around 30 years ago when she became interested in the body-brain connection and began integrating the Bartenieff Fundamentals into her studio classes. At the same time, she reconnected with her colleague Bette Lamont who was working with Florence Scott in Neurodevelopment Movement Therapy and realized that crawling, creeping and other basic early childhood movements help integrate our brains and bodies. After being thrilled by the technical and expressive strides her students made after introducing these concepts, Gilbert made the Fundamentals a staple in every class.

In the interest of allowing all of her students to learn the patterns fully, she created a short sequence of standing exercises that quickly move the students through the eight elements of movement listed above. The results were amazing, and this series came to be known as the BrainDance.

While the BrainDance can be performed as an isolated series of movements, Gilbert says
that at the Creative Dance Center in Seattle, WA. which she owns, they begin every class with this series, regardless of age or dance style. With students under the age of 5, she uses simple rhymes. With older students, she uses a variety of music or just voice as accompaniment.

“Having introduced/reviewed the eight patterns at the beginning of each class we then use that vocabulary to teach technique,” Gilbert says. “A plié is lower body pattern. Port de bras is upper body. Tendu [is] body-side. Chainé turn uses the body-side and vestibular patterns. Spirals use cross-lateral pattern. Changement is cross-lateral and vestibular, etc.”

She adds that the BrainDance can also help difficult concepts seem easier.
“When students have problems mastering a step we use the BrainDance pattern vocabulary and it helps them understand the step better,” Gilbert says. “The dancers' technique have improved considerably since beginning every class with the BrainDance.”
Much like a typical dance studio, the Creative Dance Center teaches a more exploratory, creative movement-based class to younger children. Gilbert says they do introduce simple ballet steps, movement combinations, and dances at around age 3 1/2, but she and her faculty always refer to the BrainDance patterns to introduce these concepts.

Even if you are a classically trained dance instructor, there is a place for the BrainDance in your technique class, Gilbert says. In most cases, you may be teaching BrainDance vocabulary at the barre without even knowing it.

“When [teachers] start to be intentional and use the vocabulary in every class, the technique will become stronger,” she says. “I think the hardest part for teachers is coming up with new ways to do the BrainDance—just as they have to find new ways to teach barre.”

Gilbert recommends the BrainDance outside of the dance classroom as well. Her website describes the series as “an excellent full body and brain warm-up for children and adults in all settings” and recommends that it be done “at the beginning of class; before tests, performances, and presentations; and during computer work and TV watching for brain reorganization, oxygenation and recuperation.” Schoolteachers who implement the dance in their classrooms have reported positive feedback in regard to students’ behavior and test scores. And it holds a great benefit for teachers as well.

“The BrainDance also aligns the body by making us aware of all our connective parts—how they move separately and together,” she says. “After doing the BrainDance, my students are focused, energized and ready to learn. I, as the teacher, am relaxed and ready to teach.”

Gilbert’s book “Brain-Compatible Dance Education” is a comprehensive resource on the topic of body-brain connectivity and integrating these topics into the classroom. Gilbert also has an 85-minute DVD that includes demonstrations of dance students of all ages performing variations of the BrainDance. She also collaborated with composer and Creative Dance Center music director Eric Chappelle to create a BrainDance CD that includes appropriate music to accompany the BrainDance. She is currently working on a new BrainDance DVD with more variations and explanations about how to integrate the movements into a more traditional dance class.

Gilbert also runs the Summer Dance Institute, a seminar for teachers that takes participants through sample lessons based on brain-compatible principles. She helps teachers discover how incorporating these principles into your teaching and workplace can positively affect class management, behavior, learning and focus. The Institute is held annually at Creative Dance Center. Additionally, she and Creative Dance Center faculty hold BrainDance-based workshops in Seattle on a regular basis. These workshops are aimed at educators, dance teachers, teaching artists, early childhood specialists, physical therapists, parents and more.

While the BrainDance was designed to fill in many gaps in the brain-body connection, it obviously can’t fix every dilemma that an instructor may encounter.

“It is not the whole answer to the many problems we face today as educators, but it is a positive beginning,” Gilbert says.

To find out more about the Anne Green Gilbert, the BrainDance or Creative Dance Center, visit creativedance.org.

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