Learning to Dance with Dyslexia

What's it like learning to dance with dyslexia?

Dancing is one of those things that can make you feel better wherever you are, whether you’re sitting at your desk or tearing up the ballroom. It’s a natural human behaviour, and it’s a great way to de-stress and connect with your friends. And even if the opportunities for dancing might have been a little slim in 2020, it’s still a great way to get active and boost your mental health. Even if it’s just dancing around to ABBA as you do the hoovering, it all counts! 

Dance can be helpful in other ways, too. Dancing can help people with dyslexia express themselves if they feel disconnected from traditional means like writing. Many people with dyslexia love to read and write, but some can feel that text media isn’t their thing.

It can offer them opportunity to be express themselves in a way that doesn’t require a lot of written communication; and plays to natural dyslexic strengths like creativity, and thinking outside the box.  

Dancing can also help people work out what works for them when it comes to education. Visual strategies for learning dance steps, for example, can lead young learners to realise that similar ways of learning can help them remember information for other subjects. This could be as simple as visualising a dance step as mimicking the action of climbing a tree or opening a door, and then using similar imaginative prompts to help them remember science facts or spellings. Some people learn kinetically—by doing—which can help make the learning experience feel more natural to them.  

Sometimes learning a structured dance step can be a little difficult, or daunting, for someone with dyslexia, but there are plenty of ways to make the experience much easier. 

Difficulties in quickly determining left and right, or weaker short-term memory, can even make organised dancing a little intimidating, but there are some simple ways to address these concerns. This could be as straightforward as using terms like ‘to the door’ and ‘to the window’ as opposed to left and right.  

Another way to simplify the experience is by avoiding ‘mirroring’. 

Mirroring is where a dance teacher performs the steps in what looks like a different direction, because they’re teaching facing the students. It’s sometimes much easier for someone with dyslexia to watch a step as they’d do it and see their teacher from behind. Some ballet and dance studios even have mirrored walls for this exact reason: it’s easier to see someone do it as you’d do it, without having to turn it around in your brain first. 

Also, it can be helpful to learn steps in groups of two or three and then work on stringing them together—just like learning difficult spellings, it’s easier when you break it down. Similar techniques are sometimes used when learning to dance with mobility or motor problems, too.

BBC Bitesize has an in-depth article about two choreographers from London who have been diagnosed with dyslexia that’s a great resource for learning more about dyslexia and self-expression. You can also find some helpful strategies for learning to dance and making the experience easier for dyslexic learners at Dyslexia Advantage. 

The Candoco Dance Company also have a number of online events based around inclusive dance workshops for people with all kinds of neurodiversities and physical disabilities, perfect for giving dance a try this Spring too.