By Bean Gast, Staff Writer
On September 17th, from 12 p.m. to 1 p.m., Professor Lisa Henderson will be lecturing on the parallels between dance and human connection. Since the idea was introduced to her last fall, Professor Henderson has been conceptualizing “The Human Dance.”
As a psychology major and someone who loves dancing despite being terribly uncoordinated, this lecture is right up my alley. Although we are only three weeks into the semester, I’ve already learned so much in Professor Henderson’s Psychology of Human Development course; her teaching style is interactive which encourages engagement and conversation amongst me and my peers.
Since my work schedule interferes with her lecture, I thought this was the perfect opportunity for me to converse with her about it myself:
Bean: This lecture has kind of combined two parts of your life into, is it an hour?
Henderson: Yes, an hour, 60 minutes, 50 minute lecture.
B: When I first saw the poster, I was thinking, “how does dance connect with psychology?” I was thinking boundaries and communication and also the release of energy. And expression. So that’s really cool that you’ll be speaking on that.
H: Yeah. Definitely nonverbal communication, right?
B: Yeah. So do you feel like dance has strengthened your relationships in life or how you understand people in general? Since you grew up dancing, I’m sure that had an influence on your perception of people.
H: Yeah. Well, for me, it was mostly a social endeavor. So I loved doing teams and that was more synchronized in lines, right? Or formations. Partner dance is very different because you have to get comfortable. Usually the first four or five months, you do not want to look that person in the eye. You know, you’re looking down and it’s very uncomfortable to wrap your arms around another human being. And then when the song’s over, go to the next human being, and keep wrapping your arms around all of these strangers. Very awkward [….] There is that connection once you get comfortable, you’re in the moment, like nothing feels like that. When you get two or three years of dance experience under your belt and then you get to dance with somebody that you really connect to feels amazing.
B: Wow. Yeah. I haven’t experienced that before, and I won’t say that I am coordinated at all. But I have experienced dance in the way where, say you’re at a party, everyone’s dancing, and there’s thoughts going into my head of like, oh, I look so silly, like, what is this person thinking about me right now? And the beautiful part is recognizing that yes, all of those things could be happening and that I don’t care because I’m having fun.
H: That’s right. And so, for me, the psychology of dance has helped me come into my myself as a person and really accept that. There’s always going to be judgment, always people going to be observing you in a way. And you just accept that that’s happening and say, oh, I’m going to do it anyways. It’s that parallel to just life, right? You feel that way in life all the time. It’s the same thing on the dance floor. […] So when you go to those new places like Miami and New York and you know, you’re very intimidated at first because there’s always much better dancers. But once you go there a few times and you make friends because you do that in every dance community, over time you’ll start to relax and you’ll start to understand just like in life. Yeah, people are going to judge me. People are gonna look at me, but most of the time I’m gonna enjoy it.
B: So. It’s interesting, too, because I’m saying this kind of from my outside perspective, but my perception is you’re kind of having to learn that person’s energy in the moment and pick up on cues without there even being vocal communication. So it’s like a whole other step of feeling body language and picking up on energies and matching them. That’s so complicated.
H: It is. That’s what makes it so much more sincere and real is because it’s not verbal.[…] I don’t even know some of the names of the people I go and dance with in Atlanta, but every time I go back, they grab me, you know, because that person’s energy, you just know that’s who I want to dance with. And the age makes no difference, because I’m old, right? But I’ll be dancing with people in their 20s and 30s, right? Or I’ll dance with somebody older than me, you know, but it’s the person. And like you said, it’s the energy, it’s the movement, the nonverbal communication. There’s just a connection, is what I call it. And you just have it with certain people, more so than others, right? Human connection.
B: What do you hope will come out of this lecture?
H: I’m hoping that by using dance as a metaphor. Because most people have danced, even if they don’t get on a stage or perform, they’ve either danced or they’ve watched other people dance and they have some sort of emotion about that, right? So I want them to think more critically, more deeply [about] their own relationships, right? By using dance as an example or as a metaphor, because I think that will help people. Because we’re always hearing the cliches of how and the hacks of how to have healthy relationships. But I feel like when you can combine that with something that you know how to do that is not a relationship, it helps you to see it more clearly.
B: That’s a good way to put it. And also with dance, I feel like you have to feel safe in your body and have that confidence to be able to dance with a stranger in a very structured way, it seems. And so in life, when you’re faced with these relationships where maybe someone is making you feel unsafe, you have to still be grounded in the safety of your own body to be able to speak up for yourself.
H: Yeah, that’s a great way to put it. And that’s why going and dancing and getting up in front of people is a great way to practice being confident anywhere. That’s why you want to raise children dancing and doing sports and activities. It builds confidence because all of us are going to worry about people judging us or looking stupid. So it’s a great way to help people to practice relationships, just going out and being brave enough to get on the dance floor.
After speaking with Professor Henderson, my biggest takeaway is the significance of nonverbal communication. In the digital age we live in, constantly being glued to our devices, the development of social cues becomes increasingly important. Dance is the perfect place to start.
