Essay On Ballet Dance Therapy

Ballet dance therapy creates many benefits to the physically and mentally challenged. Ballet dance therapy is “The psychotherapeutic use of dance and movements to enhance communication of emotions and behaviors and also improve motor ability.” This form of ballet includes many techniques to help the person fight their disability. It involves mirroring the movements of the dance teacher therefore increasing movement vocab, the dance teacher imitating the patient, and touch therapy which includes using props to show the child or adult how to do a bigger movement. Ballet therapy also teaches social skills by students being able to interact with each other during class. It teaches and improves attention by having to listen and learn dance combinations that the teacher is teaching …show more content…
First of all ballet dance therapy improves external movement due to the fact that music is a cue to this. In addition, ballet dance therapy helps with the teaching of specific movement strategies because in ballet there are specific components to each move. For example, a dégagé is when a dancer moves their leg of the floor with a pointed toe. A tendu is very similar, however the only difference is that the foot stays on the floor instead of off. In addition, ballet dance therapy improves the balance of people with Parkinson’s due to the fact that in ballet a dancer needs to be able to control his or her balance in order to do the moves correctly, hold the positions, and not run into other people. Improving balance reduces a person with parkinson’s risk of falling and improves their gait and posture. Lastly, ballet dance therapy improves the flexibility of a person with Parkinson’s. This is great, because if they fall in an uncomfortable position it will not hurt them as bad as it would have before they started doing dance therapy