How Watching Dance Performances Makes You a Better Dancer

Hello again, BU Dancers! We’re back on the BU Dance Blog this #TerrierTuesday to share how watching dance performances can make you a better dancer.

Believe it or not, there are numerous studies that show watching dance helps you develop many skills useful to dancers, both in the classroom and in their lives! Here are just a couple of ways that watching dance performances in action makes you a better dancer.

Still not convinced? To test these theories for yourself, visit us at our Fall 2018 Dance Showcase in the Boston University Dance Theater on 9/21 and 9/22 at 8pm. You can buy tickets at Danceshowcase2018.eventbrite.com. Don’t miss this opportunity to better your dance abilities – and even have fun doing it!

Watching Dance Makes You Empathetic

Ever heard of kinesthetic empathy? It’s the idea that while watching dance, spectators feel as if they are participating in the movements they are watching, and experience emotions related to those movements. In other words, watching dance makes you a better dancer by helping you connect to the stories and feelings that inspired those dances. Outside the theater, this can help you instill more passion in your movements in the classroom and rehearsal.

Watching Dance Brings Back Fond Memories

A 2011 study published in Dance Research journal showed that dancers who watched dance were more likely to process dance performance through social cognition – in other words, they associated fond social memories with their fellow dancers with the moves they watched on-screen. This just goes to show that watching dance can make you a better dancer by creating a positive association with fond memories.

Watching Dance Influences Your Perception of Time

Know the saying “time flies while you’re having fun?” Apparently, time also flies while watching fast dances – and slows down while watching slow ones. Thanks to a December 2017 study, we now know that dance greatly impacts our perception of time. As a dancer, this heightened perception will help you nail the timing of fast and slow moves alike.

Watching Dance Enhances Learning

A 2009 study published in the journal Cerebral Cortex found that dancers activated the same regions of the brain watching a music video as performing it, enhancing their ability to learn and remember complex choreography. thus, even in the audience, you can become a better dancer – and a better student – by watching a dance performance!