For more than twenty-five years I worked as a 'creative' in graphic design. My role involved both running the business with my partner and providing creative input. Long before I discovered academic theories on the role of the left and right hemispheres of the human brain, I was aware of moments of mental hiatus as I moved between tasks that involved repetitive process and spontaneous, deadline driven creativity.

I first came across the theory of left and right brain thinking in a book by Betty Edwards called "Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain" at a time when I was teaching horse-riding and was searching for ideas to introduce more visualisation and feeling into my teaching methods.

The following is a very simplified summary of the basic functions of both hemispheres of the brain. The left hemisphere develops and processes information to do with logic - letters, numbers, parts of language, analysis, comparisons and structured planning. The right hemisphere deals with gestalt - holistic impressions, language comprehension, image, emotions, intuition, flow and movement.

When I started to learn to dance tango, I was taught in a very process-based way using the 'basic eight', a logical way of teaching dance as a sequence of eight steps which my left brain processed. In the same way I recall moments of mental hiatus as a designer in a management role, I became aware of a tension during the dance as I tried to recall sequences (as a process) at the same time as feeling the emotive content of the music and describing these feelings through movement. It was as if my brain struggled to switch from an activity predominantly controlled by one side of my brain to the other.

The more I teach adults to dance and modify my teaching technique through observation and feedback, the more I find reasons to teach with consideration for the needs of both left and right brain thinking and thinkers.

Carla Hannaford's book "Smart Moves" has given me a better understanding of the way the hemispheres of the brain develop and perform in our daily lives. For some time I have observed adults taking up Tango Argentino in the UK having difficulties with fluid movements involving contraposture, a cross lateral movement of a dancers torso so that hips and shoulders face different directions.

In our development from baby to adult, it is now understood that cross lateral movement in crawling activates both hemispheres of the brain in a balanced and effective way, and proficiency in crawling is linked to a well coordinated and balanced body in later life.

I now develop dance lesson plans which try to balance and combine left and right brain activities. I am developing exercises which activate left, right and both hemispheres and purposefully describe key points of learning from both aspects of logic and gestalt perspectives.

For the last two years, I have been teaching tango in an organic way, with little or no recourse to process. In this time, I have observed that tango dancers who are taught via an organic method learn faster and are more open to the feelings and emotions generated by the music and, perhaps, as the logic side of the brain is less engaged in the learning process, dancers find it easier to work with flow and rhythm, spacial awareness and connection with each other.

This article is declared open source and free from copyright by its author Steve Morrall, 2005. Please attribute extracts to to the author using this webpage as the source. If you have an experience of tango as a dance, social interaction, confrontation, reconciliation, or enlightenment that you would like to share, please email Steve at the address shown below. Thanks

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References

SMART MOVES, Dr Carla Hannaford, 1995,
Great River Books ISBN 0-915556-27-8

DRAWING ON THE RIGHT SIDE OF THE BRAIN, Betty Edwards, 1979,
Fontana Press, ISBN 0-00-636602-3