‘It’s like collective daydreaming’: the giant study showing how dancing affects our brains

Dancers and audiences are being fitted with electrode caps as part of a massive neurological study into how we respond to live performance - and the findings go far beyond what was first imagined

The gel felt cold on my scalp and I had to forget how silly I must have looked, because we were in the midst of some serious science. This was back in 2021, anyway, still in the land of anti-bac and face masks - I'd long got over looking a bit silly in public in the name of science. The dance hub Siobhan Davies Studios in south London had been turned into a science lab, and I was being fitted with what looked like an elaborate swimming cap. It had electrodes dotted all over it to measure my brain activity, and the gel being squeezed into the holes aided the connection between electrode and scalp.

I was playing a small part in a pioneering five-year research project, Neurolive. Run by cognitive neuroscientist Dr Guido Orgs and choreographer Matthias Sperling, it brings together neuroscience and dance to investigate what's happening in our brains when we watch live performance. The audience/guinea pigs, of which I was one, filed into the studio wired up to backpacks full of tech and watched a duet called Detective Work, where two performers danced out an abstract mystery dressed in suave green suits. I was very aware of being monitored. I'm a dance critic, and it felt as if I was being tested. Would my brain do the right thing?