Dance for Life

Before humankind could talk, tell stories, or build collective endeavours, dancing gave shape to the human social instinct to collaborate.

Dance supported a massive switch in human orientation. It is dance, the rhythmic movement in time of human bodies with one another, that sets that stage for our extraordinary evolutionary journey to our current moment. Dance played an important part in human cooperation and collaboration for hunting, territorial belonging, language, co-habitation, music and song, making science and trade ultimately possible. Dance has transformational power. In dance, shared movement, energy, and spaces are forged, fears and concerns are overcome, common bonds, purpose, and identity evolves.

What inspired our ancestors can fuel us today. That is the central proposition of this book. A compelling invitation to dance in order to evolve. As humans in the Western world, we lost our dance in the second half of the last millennium. In our troubled and divided world, dance has a role to play. We must revive dance in our lives.

The author is Julia Franks, a psychotherapist who has danced with a million people. In her 20s she ran raves in London for a decade. In the 1990s she led 'Spirit in the House', exploring the ecstatic rave experience without taking drugs or drinking alcohol. Now she is a conscious dance leader in London and at events and festivals everywhere. What is the conscious dance? Dancing with freedom, as if no-one is watching; it is the opposite of 'self-conscious' dance. The transformation experienced by numerous people dancing together with Julia led her to a serious enquiry: how and why is dancing good for us today?

First, dancing is a form of physical exercise that can be as demanding as a gym session, a long run or a game of any sport. It also involves stretching and extending our bodies in ways that can increase agility.  Second, dancing is a social and collaborative activity. We dance with others, and they react and respond to us, as we do to them. We create the dance together and produce an experience that is both personal and social.  Third, dancing has a freeing and spiritual dimension. Moving together unites us and allows our minds to quieten and other experiences to emerge. In the recent COVID19 pandemic many people wanted to find ways to decompress without breaking the rules. During those hard months, Julia led conscious dance sessions online with people from all over the world.

With these proven benefits of dance, this book reviews how dance is now being employed to tackle health and social challenges from isolation and depression, to Parkinsons, Dementia, Addiction and Obesity.

This book invites us to get dancing and gives us options for how to do it. The voices of dancers and Julia's own reflections, form a dance alongside the core narrative, providing rich texture and shape to the reading experience. The hope is that they will awaken curiosity and sound a call to the rhythm of your own dancing body.