“Movement never lies. It is a barometer telling the state of the soul’s weather to all who can read it.”

― Martha Graham

For the late, great choreographer, the energy and passion a dancer presented on stage was every bit as important as nailing the specifics of a particular piece. Graham was fascinated by the act of translating one’s spirit into artistic motions capable of conveying essence and emotion.

How that happens, though, has long been a mystery locked inside the minds of dancers. Now, a researcher from the University of Maryland is exploring the brain-body connection using cutting-edge wireless technology in an effort to understand what our minds do when we move.

A recent article in Terp Magazine outlines how Associate Professor Karen Bradley of the UMD School of Theatre, Dance and Performance Studies and her colleague neuroscientist Jose Contreras-Vidal, formerly an associate professor of kinesiology at Maryland, now working at the University of Houston, tracked dancers through a variety of activities.

The study examined five experienced dancers who were asked to perform three activities: moving without a specific intention; thinking about dancing in a way that would convey a specific quality, such as lightness, or strength; and actually dancing in a way that would convey the particular quality. Bradley and Contreras-Vidal recorded the dancers’ brain activity during these three states, and found it was different in each case.

Usually, brain-mapping requires subjects to lie motionless in a large MRI machine, a scenario less than conducive to the study of how physical activities relate to cognitive functioning. But Bradley and Contreras-Vidal made use of a new, light-weight type of sensor array that fits neatly over the scalp and allowed their subjects to dance freely.

For more on Bradley and Contreras-Vidal’s findings and the implications they could have on the larger study of how the brain processes and activates movement, read the full Terp Magazine article here.