Dance to Build Healthy Communities
At REDed, it’s no secret that we are lovers of dance and everything it can do to help little people grow up to be awesome big people! In the school environment, we know that engaging in dance gives students a unique avenue to deeply engage with their peers and their school community – it brings people together in a pretty magical way.
In today’s digital world, where children are often using screens as the sole source of entertainment or social outlet, it’s a challenge now more than ever to promote and seek alternative activities that nurture children’s creative, interpersonal and physical development rather than relying on devices. Raising children who are confident, healthy and happy is the underlying mission of our dance programs, so we can encourage young people and their communities to be strong, fit, confident and connected.
Read on to discover how you can dance your way to building a healthy happy community!
What does ‘Health’ really mean?
Health is a multidimensional state of being, not merely an absence of illness. That means it’s about achieving a sense of balance across social, physical and mental aspects of your life. Having regular exercise, social time, and the opportunity to take on challenges that provide a sense of reward will help to improve your overall health and wellbeing. Let’s take a look at each of them up close:
Physically Healthy
Dancing is an activity that people of all ages and abilities can participate in to stay active and strong. It can help to build your strength and flexibility, holding poses or extending your limbs to create beautiful movements and shapes. In the same respect, dance is also a fantastic way to improve your coordination skills and balance, as you move your body through different movement sequences or hold poses that require precision, focus and refined proprioception – the ability to be aware of the movement and position of your body in a space. One of the most significant ways dance can support your physical health is by strengthening your cardiovascular and aerobic fitness, which is important to keep your heart and lungs healthy throughout your whole life. At REDed, we also use chanting throughout our dance routines to encourage strong respiratory endurance (and it also helps us remember the dance moves!)
Mentally healthy
It’s impossible to overlook the many benefits that dance offers, particularly whenchildren are at a critical developmental stage. Cognitively, the patterns and repetitions that appear through dance routines are crucial for promoting problem-solving skills, improving mental capacity and ability to reason. Dance also helps students build confidence in their appearance and ability through repeated practice, skill refinement and presentation skills fostered through rehearsals all the way to performances. Moreover, dance provides an avenue for individuals to hone in on their ability to be resilient. You won’t always get the moves right the first time, and you won’t always be able to place first in a competition, but being equipped with the capacity to emotionally manage and push past any setbacks is a sign of strong psychological wellbeing, and is easily nurtured through dance.
Socially healthy
Social health is all about maintaining and forming healthy relationships and engaging positively with others to enhance you overall wellbeing. While dance can be enjoyed as a solo activity, troupes or training classes are a great way to engage with a group of people who may differ from your regular group of friends! Competitions through dance, like eisteddfods, can provide an opportunity to build teamwork skills, as well as encourage and uplift one another and develop a positive social network. Recreational dance can also be a really great chance to not only build foundational dance skills, but to form friendships that are fulfilling and founded on mutual enjoyment for an activity! There are so many styles of dance, and as such many different ways to express and communicate ideas without needing to speak – the details in the physicality of dance speaks for itself!
What does dance mean to you?
The social and mental benefits of dance will be more significant for some, while others may love it as an outlet for physical activity! Whatever dance means to you, it can be shared with friends, family and school communities to improve health and happiness! Our team of Instructors are champions of inspiring young people to move their bodies in joyful movement – many of them began dancing when they were as young as our current REDed rock star dancers, and each has a special perspective on what dance means to them – you can find some of these on our Instagram page!
Addressing Curriculum Needs, Always.
The Arts is still an essential part of the curriculum, and is one of the best ways to ensure that students are able to engage and achieve the General Capabilities outlined in the Australian Curriculum. At REDed, this is at the front of our minds when delivering programs in a school context.
Through script reading, keeping the beat or rhythm, and counting out dance steps, students enhance Literacy and Numeracy skills. They also foster Critical and Creative Thinking by interpreting movement or scenarios, innovating creative additions to a performance, and problem-solving when they rise to a challenge. An inherently group-based activity, we encourage students to develop socially, emotionally, and academically through The Arts, and build Personal and Social Capability through collaboration, empathy, and self-expression. Through many of our programs, students engage in reflection and rehearsal of performance outcomes, plus through feedback and by exploring different perspectives, they improve Ethical Understanding. Inherently, through shared movement and storytelling, students are also led to develop greater Intercultural Understanding with their peers and wider community.
As well as General Capabilities, our programs are designed to align with the specific curriculum areas of music, dance, and drama, and can be customised to focus on specific skill sets – whether it’s pitch and dynamics, space and relationships, or character and improvisation. Each session we run is carefully crafted to build on what’s already happening in the classroom, offering specialist artistic input that eases the load for teachers, leading students to make connections with what they’ve learnt through the performing arts, and how this applies to their other subjects.
Engaging with The Arts allows individuals to perceive and make sense of the world through their senses, making learning through sight, sound, and movement both meaningful and effective. Get in touch with us today and build The Arts into your 2026 budget in a beneficial way.
