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What is BrainDance?

This is an excerpt from Creative Dance for All Ages 3rd Edition With HKPropel Access by Anne Green Gilbert.

The BrainDance, developed by Anne Green Gilbert in 2000, is a full body-brain warm-up exercise based on developmental movement patterns that healthy human beings naturally move through in the first year of life. These movements integrate reflexes that are the foundation for healthy brain development. The movements develop our whole brain (brain stem, mid-brain/limbic system, and cortex). As babies, we did these brain-developing movements on the floor. However, cycling through these patterns at any age—daily or weekly while lying, sitting, or standing—has been found to be beneficial in oxygenating the brain, reorganizing the central nervous system, and enhancing core support and alignment. The BrainDance is a satisfying and supportive way to warm up and focus yourself and your students at the beginning of class. Some BrainDance patterns are adapted from Bartenieff Fundamentals. More information about the BrainDance and other variations may be found in Brain-Compatible Dance Education, Second Edition (Gilbert, 2019). Video clips of BrainDances are available on HKPropel. Instructions for doing the basic BrainDance patterns, the reflexes underlying the patterns, and the benefits of this exercise follow.

1. Breath pattern (Moro reflex). Exhale through your mouth, forming a small “o” with your lips, as if you were blowing out a candle. Take a deep breath through your nose, filling your belly, diaphragm, and lungs with air. Also explore nasal breathing: breathing out and in through your nose. Repeat this pattern four or five times, releasing carbon dioxide on the exhale then filling all the cells of your body with oxygen on the inhale. Benefits: Increases flow of oxygen to the brain; brings awareness of the importance of breath for ease and flow of movement; reduces stress and enlivens brain and body.
2. Tactile pattern (palmar and grasp reflex). With your hands, scrub each of your arms and legs, your torso, your back, and your head. Explore other forms of touch, such as squeezing, scratching, brushing, patting, rubbing, and pinching. Benefits: Increases circulation; moves the fascia; develops appropriate sense of touch and proprioception.
3. Core–Distal pattern (Moro reflex). Curl into your torso as you exhale and engage core muscles. Inhale as you move from the center out, through, and beyond your fingers, toes, head, and tail (distal ends). Keep your core muscles engaged as you shrink and grow, close and open, fold and unfold. Benefits: Strengthens relationship to self and others; develops full-body extension; creates awareness of core support for correct alignment.
4. Head–Tail pattern (tonic labyrinthine reflex, spinal Galant reflex). Bend and stretch your spine from the top (bridge of the nose) to the bottom (coccyx) in different directions and pathways. Rotate your spine. Keep your knees slightly bent to release your pelvis. Twist, wiggle, undulate, and shake your spine gently. Circle your head and hips. Do yoga poses such as cat-cow, cobra, and downward-facing dog. Benefits: Increases spine flexibility, strengthens back, neck, and shoulder muscles; helps one move through space with ease; creates an open path for the central nervous system to function fully.
5. Upper-Lower pattern (symmetrical tonic neck reflex, Landau reflex, plantar reflex). Stabilize the lower half of your body by yielding into the floor (or chair) with relaxed knees and core support. Swing, bend, stretch, and twist your whole upper body (arms, head, spine, shoulders) while varying the speed, level, and direction of your movements. Allow your lower body to quietly respond to upper-body movements rather than holding it completely still. Stabilize your upper half by reaching your arms out into space with energy, as though you were hugging the earth, or keep your upper body relaxed. To dance with your lower half, try marching, bending your knees, bouncing, swinging your legs, and other actions. Allow your upper body to quietly respond to lower-body movements rather than holding it completely still. Benefits: Articulates body halves for mobility and stability, function, and expression; develops emotional grounding through connection to the earth with the whole body.
6. Body-Side pattern (asymmetrical tonic neck reflex). Bend, twist, stretch, swing, and shake the left side of your body while keeping the right side stable but not frozen. Then keep your left side stable, not frozen, while moving the right side. Alternate moving right and left sides by doing a body-side walk or lunging in different directions. Do the lizard crawl on your belly, or stand with your arms and legs open to the sides—reach your left arm and knee up, then reach your right arm and knee up like a lizard crawling up a wall. Benefits: Articulates body sides; strengthens and balances both sides of the body and brain hemispheres; develops side dominance.
   

   

7. Cross-Lateral pattern (all reflexes). Do a cross-lateral dance, sitting or standing, finding as many ways of moving cross-laterally as possible, such as touching your right knee to left elbow, left hand to right foot, right hand to left knee, left hand to right hip, skipping, and spiraling. Explore contralateral movements by shaking, swinging, twisting, bending, and stretching your left arm and right leg, then your right arm and left leg. Benefits: Integrates brain hemispheres; develops complex, three-dimensional dancing and thinking.
8. Vestibular pattern (all reflexes). This pattern develops and strengthens the vestibular system. Choose a movement that takes you off-balance and makes you slightly dizzy. Vary the movements you do each week. Swing the upper body forward and backward and side to side. Tip, sway, roll, and rock in different directions and on different levels. Spin or walk in a circle for 5 to 15 seconds in one direction, breathe, and rest for 15 seconds; then spin or walk in a circle for 5 to 15 seconds in the other direction. Stillness allows the brain time to come to equilibrium, thereby strengthening the balance system. People with compromised balance systems should do this pattern seated. Benefits: Develops proprioception, balance, and coordination; builds the vestibular and proprioceptive systems in the early years that develop physical, social, and cognitive skills; strengthens these systems throughout one’s lifetime.
9. Eye-Tracking (all reflexes). Encourage your students of all ages to eye-track in different ways throughout the BrainDance. Dancers may close their eyes during the breath pattern to rest the visual sense and strengthen their balance. They may follow their hand with their eyes as much as possible in the tactile pattern. Follow your hands in the core–distal pattern as your hands curl into core and then reach out through space. Alternate which hand you look at each time you reach into space for near and far eye-tracking. In the upper-body pattern, track your hands again as they move in different directions for near and far eye-tracking, vertical eye-tracking, and horizontal eye-tracking. In the body-side pattern, open and close each side of your body as you track your right hand when that body-side opens and closes, and then track your left hand when that body-side opens and closes to strengthen horizontal eye-tracking. Lift your right arm and leg up and down as you track your hand up and down, then lift your left side up and down to strengthen vertical eye-tracking. To strengthen far and near eye-tracking, stretch your right hand away from you and back to touch your nose. Repeat with your left hand. Benefits: Develops eye convergence and tracking necessary for balance, coordination, reading, and writing.

More Excerpts From Creative Dance for All Ages 3rd Edition With HKPropel Access

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