How movement changes our brains | DW Documentary

Dance is part of every human culture - but why? Experiments show that dance played a role in human evolution, and that other creatures dance, too. This film is a love letter - written by science, addressed to dance. In the Camargue region of France, biologists study the courtship rituals of flamingos. At their annual “pink parade”, thousands of birds display the same movement progressions. Is it a form of dance? What about the reaction of chimpanzees to the loud drumming of raindrops at the end of the dry season? Is this dance? The question of which creatures have the ability to dance takes the film around the world. From Toronto - where scientists are trying to find out at what age humans develop the ability to move to a rhythm - to Australia, where a tiny songbird’s brain holds answers. The film also visits Oxford, where a social experiment proves that moving to music in a group can alter the chemical balance in our brains, and make us feel good. “Our Innate Rhythm - Why Animals Also Love to Groove” is a declaration of love, from science to dance. It’s also a visually stunning quest to discover the origins — and assess the impact — of one of the world’s oldest forms of expression.