Julia F. Christensen - Dancing Is the Best Medicine: The Science of How Moving To a Beat Is Good for Body, Brain, and Soul

First published in English by Greystone Books in 2021 Originally published in German as Tanzen ist die beste Medizin, copyright 2018 by Rowohlt Verlag GmbH English translation copyright 2021 by Katharina Rout Illustrations by Julia F. Christensen

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All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written consent of the publisher or a license from The Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency (Access Copyright). For a copyright license, visit accesscopyright.ca or call toll free to 1-800-893-5777.

Events, individuals, and places mentioned in this book are based on real events, individuals, and places. They have, however, been altered to fit the narrative.

Greystone Books Ltd.

greystonebooks.com

Cataloguing data available from Library and Archives Canada

ISBN 978-1-77164-634-5 (pbk)

ISBN 978-1-77164-635-2 (epub)

Editing for the English-language edition by Linda Pruessen

Proofreading by Jennifer Stewart

Cover design by Jessica Sullivan and Fiona Siu

Text design by Fiona Siu

Cover illustrations by Macrovector / Shutterstock

Greystone Books gratefully acknowledges the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh peoples on whose land our office is located.

Greystone Books thanks the Canada Council for the Arts, the British Columbia Arts Council, the Province of British Columbia through the Book Publishing Tax Credit, and the Government of Canada for supporting our publishing activities.

We need this. This is not a luxuryit is a necessity.

SIR SIMON RATTLE

Dance is Esperanto with your whole body.

FRED ASTAIRE

Dance is the only art of which we ourselves are the stuff of which it is made.

TED SHAWN

[When I dance], I sort of disappear, I feel a change in my whole body... theres fire in my body... Im just there... Im flying like a bird, like electricity.

FROM THE FILM BILLY ELLIOT

Wherever the dancer steps, a fountain of life will spring from the dust.

RUMI

If life brings you to your knees, do the limbo dance.

ANONYMOUS

On with the dance! Let joy be unconfined.

LORD BYRON

Sometimes you get lucky and find a soul that dances to the same beat as you do.

ANONYMOUS

You got to dance like nobodys watchin.

SUSANNA CLARK

DEAR READER,

When we wrote the German version of this book in 2018, our aim was to share our excitement about our favorite hobbydancingand to get everyone dancing along with us. Well tell everyone about the amazing scientific discoveries around dancings health effects, we thought, and that will make the whole world get out of their chairs and onto the dance floor! We couldnt wait!

But when the time came for the English version of the book to be published, the world was in the midst of a pandemic, and dancing was forbidden.

This, too, shall pass, goes a Middle Eastern saying. The words come from an inscription on a mystical ring once gifted to a king to boost his morale. And they are so true, even for bans on dancing.