How does the Sparkplug Dance method develop social, emotional and cognitive intelligence?
A 2008 Dana Consortium Report “Learning, Arts, and the Brain,” compiled the work of cognitive neuroscientists from seven leading universities across the United States. In the study, released in March 2008, researchers asked a fundamental question: Are smart people drawn to the arts or does arts training make people smarter? For the first time, coordinated, multi-university scientific research brings us closer to answering that question. Learning, Arts, and the Brain advances our understanding of the effects of music, dance, and drama education on other types of learning, demonstrating that children motivated in the arts develop attention skills and strategies for memory retrieval that also apply to other subject areas. The research was led by Dr. Michael S. Gazzaniga of the University of California at Santa Barbara. “A life- affirming dimension is opening up in neuroscience,” said Dr. Gazzaniga, “to discover how the performance and appreciation of the arts enlarge cognitive capacities
