Latest / The Dr Louise Newson Podcast / 17 - Why dance is a superpower, with Angela Rippon

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17 - Why dance is a superpower, with Angela Rippon · The Dr Louise Newson Podcast

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I really want you to help because we've found out that
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this podcast has been nominated for the Listeners Choice Award,
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which is with the British Podcast Awards.
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We need your vote. So if you go to the show notes
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and click on the link, and I really hope we can do this.
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So thank you. So I'm really excited that
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Angela Rippon came on my podcast today.
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As some of you know, she's the first female newsreader on the
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BBC. And more recently, she's become
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really well known for her stint on Strictly doing the splits.
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But we talk a lot about preventing diseases and what
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dance can do for all of us. So if you're not inspired to
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join the local dance class after this, you're never going to be.
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So I hope you enjoy it. Andrea Riffin I feel quite
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nervous because I have grown up watching you and been really
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inspired by a woman news reading which now in 2025 it, it doesn't
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sound very much does it? But it was so important.
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I have to say it's quite rewarding when I meet younger
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women in television now because I'm now 80, coming up to 81, and
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this was back in the 1970s. Nineteen 76, there were no women
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reading the national news. The interesting thing is there
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were lots of us in the regions doing it, but there wasn't.
1:20
And there hadn't been a woman since a lady called Nan Winton
1:23
who was there for about 6 weeks. But they didn't have long
1:26
bulletins. They just had sort of, you know,
1:28
the five minute bulletin. They didn't have long news
1:31
programs and she lasted about six weeks before she was taken
1:35
off air because it was felt that women didn't have the authority
1:38
and the gravitas to be able to be newsreaders.
1:40
And that was way back in the like early 50s.
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So when when I joined BBC television news as a, as a
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reporter and A and a correspondent, it was one of
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those sort of odd things by chance that they asked me to sit
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in and read the news, something that I'd done in the regions
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very happily for a long time. So it wasn't a difficult job to
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do. But of course, and I, I don't
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think, to be absolutely honest, I don't think at the time I was
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aware of quite exactly how groundbreaking it was.
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I knew it was different because of course all the men in all the
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television news readers at the BBC when I was a reporter were
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the men there. It was Richard Baker, it was
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Kenneth Kendall, it was Peter Woods, it was Michael Whitmore.
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I mean it, it was men. But because I read the news
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before, it didn't occur to me that it was that different.
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It was just an extension of what I'd already done and what I knew
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I could do. But the impact was huge.
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So much so that thank goodness a few weeks later ITV with the
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news at 10 brought in Anna Ford to read the news at 10.
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So she was there at 10:00 on on ITV and I was there at 9:00 on
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the BBC. But it's lovely now when I meet
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young women who say it just reminds me of of the age gap
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when they say, I used to do my homework and watching you read
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the 6:00 news and think I can do that.
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And they now do, or they're now journalists or they're working
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in some form of television. And and I, I, I do get a little
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sort of freesong of pleasure from the fact that young women
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who watched me doing the job felt, well, if she can do that,
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so can I. And now they are.
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Yes. And I think like, I never want
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to be a news reader, but just to see somebody so calm, so
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eloquent, doing the job, often better than the men, but just
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you were just there. You just have this presence,
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which was great because it's the calmness that you were in
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control, whereas women almost weren't allowed to be in control
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in the 70s. No, but what I think is
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wonderful now, I mean I've coming up to September the 5th
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this year, it'll be 59 years since I did my very first
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broadcast. So we're talking about 6
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decades. And in that time, what has been
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wonderful because I've continued to work in not just news and and
3:59
current affairs, but in other aspects of television as well.
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To see the number of women that have come when I mean, it was a
4:05
male dominated profession when I when I started in it all years
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ago. But now, you know, there are
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women producers, directors, editors, camera operators, sound
4:16
engineers, editors, production assistants, controllers.
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The controller of the BBC was, you know, Charlotte Moore, she's
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been replaced by Katie Phillips. You know, there are women
4:28
executives, there are women making television pro, great
4:32
women documentary directors. And it's wonderful now to walk
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into any television studio and see the number of women that
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there are, not overtaking men, but working alongside them.
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And what I, what I do find very gratifying are the number of
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male executives with whom I still work who have not grown up
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with the Old Boys network but have grown up alongside the
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women who are good at what they do.
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And men now in executive positions recognise the women in
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their teams that are good. It's now a profession in which
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women really can hold their heads up high and say this is a
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job I can do and you now recognise it.
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Which is so wonderful. And then I, I was, I don't know
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the year, but you will know the year that the desk was moved
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away and you showed everyone that you're a dancer. 1976.
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1976, yeah. How long did you plan that?
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Oh, I hadn't planned it. I was sitting in The Newsroom.
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I was reading the 9:00 and 6:00 and all the news bulletins for
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the BBC at that time. And the telephone rang and a
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voice on the end said, my name's Ernest Maxim.
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I'm the producer for Eric and Ern, and the boys would like you
5:44
to be in their Christmas show. And I sort of nearly fell off my
5:46
chair. I said, well, what would you
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like me to do? And he said, well, can you sing?
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I said, well, not unless you want me to clear the studio in
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30 seconds. But but I can dance a bit
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because I, I studied ballet and, and classical ballet and tap and
5:58
modern dance until I was 17. So I can dance a bit.
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Oh, that'll do, he said, because he himself was a choreographer,
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brilliant, as well as a television producer. 20
6:08
depending on which which rage are you look at, it was either
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23 or 26 million people who tuned in.
6:15
And it did make an impact, yes. And it's lovely because I still
6:20
get people coming up to me saying what was it like to dance
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with Eric and Earn because of course, both of them sadly are
6:26
no longer with us. I watched it again recently and
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it was just so happy. Yes, so lovely.
6:30
And it was that sort of firstly, she's got legs.
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We only see, you know, because there was that as well, wasn't
6:36
there? And it's, and it's so different
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now because we've got social media and we see almost too much
6:40
about everybody. Yes, but we didn't know much
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about you. And then to see you dance in
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such a relaxed way. I mean, it's like actors.
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Actors can be a villain in one thing, they can be a, you know,
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a DOS house dweller in another. They can be a champion in
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another. That's what you do as an actor
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because, you know, every human being has lots of sides to their
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nature. If you're a television news
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reader, you tend to see just that one side.
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I mean, I'd worked in television a long time before then doing
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all sorts of stuff. But they see you as a
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newsreader, as being someone who is very sort of straight laced
7:11
and very serious. And don't necessarily, it
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doesn't trigger in someone's mind when they're watching you
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that there's another side to your character, that you can
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have a sense of humour, you can do something for fun.
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And I think what is nice is that children in need every year.
7:27
Subsequently, it's developed over the years, but it's allowed
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news readers, just all the news readers, the men and the women
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to because the following year for of course, in in the Eric
7:38
and Herne Christmas show, they got all the men, they got all
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the news readers and the sports presenters and Michael Parkinson
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and, and all the men on telly to do something that was completely
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out of their comfort zone. And I think it sort of opened
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the door to saying, you know, we work on television and we work
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in news and current affairs, which is a serious business
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dealing with serious world, international and local events.
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But actually there's a side to us that that is a bit different.
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And once a year, it's nice to let your hair down and just see
8:08
that there there is a human being behind the television
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camera. And I, I think perhaps it opened
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the door. That was one thing that did
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smash through the glass ceiling and and help people to do, I
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think. Absolutely.
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And you know, your dance is so important and it continues to be
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the core of everything that you do almost.
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And you know, my work as a doctor is about trying to keep
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people healthy. I went into medicine because I
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wanted to help people and reduce suffering.
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But more importantly, as I've got older, it's not about
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treating diseases, It's about preventing diseases.
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The leading causes of death worldwide in women are heart
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disease, cardiovascular disease and dementia, but not far
8:51
behind. Obviously there's cancers,
8:53
there's, you know, diabetes, obesity is associated with so
8:59
many diseases. Even the landscape I qualified
9:02
in 94. So even over the last 30 years
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there's been a massive change in the patients and actually their
9:10
responsibility, in the NHS's responsibility.
9:13
And you know, the NHS was, it still is a fabulous place to
9:17
work, but it's very, very different.
9:19
We had a lot more time with our patients.
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Even when I did psychiatry, we would talk about exercise, there
9:26
would be swimming pools for physio, They would be all sorts
9:29
of things that there just isn't now.
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And, you know, I feel very responsible being a mother of
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three children, that they need to have responsibility for what
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they do, what they put in their mouth, whether they exercise or
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not, the choices that they make. But the work you're doing is so,
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so important. It's in my mind more important
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than prescribing a blood pressure treatment or a or a
9:53
statin to lower cholesterol because it's preventative and
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you know, people only need to look at you and see how
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important exercise has been and kept you.
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I'm sure as healthy as you are, you would be very different if
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you hadn't continued your dancing, I'm sure, don't you?
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Agree. Yes, I mean, oh, there's so, so
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much in what you just said to answer.
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I mean, I'm glad to hear you say that.
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It should be prevention. It should be prevention always
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rather than cure. Because if you can prevent
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things happening in the 1st place, you do not need expensive
10:22
pharmaceuticals. Expensive hospital treatment.
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When I was in my 20s, I interviewed a lady called Eileen
10:28
Fowler, who some of your listeners may remember if
10:33
they're my generation. Certainly she was the sort of
10:35
Jane Fonda of the 40s and 50s. She started a lot of the
10:38
exercise and dance movement in this country.
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And during the course of the interview, she, she was I, I was
10:44
in my 20s, she was in her 60s. She sort of bounced into the
10:46
studio touching her toes and, and she said she said something
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quite profound during the interview.
10:52
She said, what do you have to remember, Angela, is that the
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body is, is a machine. Like any machine, it's full of
10:59
millions of moving parts. And if you don't look after a
11:03
machine, if you don't feed it well, you don't oil it, you
11:06
don't use it, it will seize up and rust, whether it's a car, a
11:11
lawn mower, pair of scissors, whatever, and the body will do
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the same. You have to keep it moving.
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And I've remembered that all my life and, and followed that.
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And because I'm very fortunate that when when I was a little
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girl, when I was five, I was sent to a dance class because I
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had not me's in my generation, you know, we had a lot of
11:33
problems because children, perhaps, you know, had not been
11:35
fed properly. I was born in 1944.
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By the time I was 5 or 6, you know, we were still on
11:40
rationing. So food was not as plentiful as
11:44
or, or as healthy as it is now. And our family doctor said to my
11:48
mother, well, we can either give her built up shoes to part the
11:52
knees or I suggest you send her to a dance class to strengthen
11:55
my legs. And thank goodness my mother
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sent me to a dance class. So dance has been part of my
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life since I was about 5:00 and it's sort of moved in and out of
12:05
my life. It was there until I was 17 when
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I was studying classical ballet and tap and all the rest of the
12:10
modern dance things. Then I settled down to my
12:14
academic work. I got into newspapers.
12:16
I did my apprenticeship as a photojournalist, as a journalist
12:19
and a photographer. Then I got into television and
12:22
when they asked, I was 37 I think, when they asked me to do
12:26
Eric and Anne to, to do the Morecambe White Show.
12:29
And I went back to my ballet class and it was interesting
12:31
because I'd kept very fit up until then doing all sorts of
12:35
different things. But I went back to the ballet
12:37
class and it was interesting because my mind knew exactly
12:41
what I needed to. Do.
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Doing pliers, doing, doing arabesque, whatever.
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And my body was saying what the heck do you think you are doing?
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And so that got me back on the path again of going back to
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dance. And so because of that, as a
12:58
result of Erica Nairne, I've subsequently done 2 Royal
13:01
Variety performances where I've danced and most recently
13:04
Strictly Come Dancing. But what it's meant is, and I've
13:08
made documentaries about dance. I made a whole series of
13:11
documentaries, one of them about hoofers, when I was doing a
13:14
series called How to Stay Young. I included something about dance
13:19
that was being done at a university in Germany, where
13:21
they were actually pitting people from 60 to 90 in a group
13:26
of 20 dancers against 20 people of the same age group in a gym.
13:30
And they were being monitored. Their health responses were
13:34
being monitored by a wonderful Doctor Who was looking at what
13:38
was happening to their lungs, to their hearts, to them, to their
13:41
muscles, to every part of their body.
13:43
And at the end of six months, the dancers came out as the
13:47
fittest and the strongest. And dance was therefore seen in
13:51
a properly maintained experiment to be the best way of exercising
13:57
your mind and your body. Because you have to use your
14:00
brain at the same time, which effects all sorts of different
14:03
things. And so throughout my career as
14:06
a, as a television presenter, I've been able to indulge my
14:10
passion of dance with my profession in television.
14:15
And when they asked me to do Strictly Come Dancing, which was
14:18
now nearly two years ago, my, I was 79.
14:22
And my reaction at the time was, why didn't you ask me 10 years
14:25
ago? I mean, I'd presented Come
14:26
Dancing. I thought I'm too old.
14:29
I'm too old to do that, but I thought I would do it.
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And even if I got thrown out after the first week, I didn't
14:36
want to be thrown out the first week.
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I wanted to last at least one or two weeks.
14:39
At least I, I would could say I had done it.
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I had a wonderful partner in Kai Witherington, who, I mean is a
14:46
brilliant dancer, but a great teacher.
14:48
And he and I became, I mean, we laughed the minute we met and we
14:52
have not stopped laughing since he was 29.
14:55
So he's, he's 51 years younger than me, but we got on like a
15:00
house on fire. And he would say, can you do so
15:03
And so and so, and I'd say, I don't know, let's find out.
15:05
And we'd do it. And we discovered that I could
15:08
get my leg to hear that I could do double splits, that I could
15:13
dance. I'd never done ballroom or
15:15
Latin, but I could, you know, with, with the six hours a day
15:18
training that we did, I could do it.
15:20
And the reaction that I got from that, from the general public
15:23
was that they voted for us and we stayed in for 9 weeks and got
15:26
to Blackpool. But the, the reaction was that
15:32
surprisingly, it was the older generation, men and women who
15:36
said that I was an inspiration, that if I could do it at 7:00 to
15:39
9:00, they could. Young people as well.
15:42
I had, I had parents saying my grandson or my son or my
15:45
daughter that they're only 12, but they're voting for you
15:48
because they say granny can't do that.
15:50
So I'm going to vote for Ange, which was great.
15:52
And I thought at my stage of life now I'm, I mean, I'm still
15:57
fully employed making television programs.
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But I thought this is the moment when I think with that kind of
16:03
profile, with 10 million people a week tuning in, I want to use
16:08
my passion for dance, my knowledge of the the benefit
16:12
dance brings as the health and well-being to your mind as well
16:17
as your body. What can I do to persuade the
16:22
nation that dance is not just a wonderful thing to watch and
16:27
entertainment, it is the best form of exercise for your mind
16:32
and your body? How can I get that message
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across? And I got in touch with all
16:37
because I've been involved with dance for so long, with the
16:40
English National Ballet, where I was chairman and on the board
16:43
for what, nearly 14 years in total?
16:45
I think with Royal Ballet, with Royal Academy of Dance, with
16:48
lots of the other dance organizations, I thought they're
16:51
all as teachers doing wonderful work individually within their
16:56
classes all over the country, 50,000 teachers and more doing
17:00
fantastic work, but they're doing it individually in silos.
17:03
If I can bring them together and get dance to speak with one
17:08
voice and say and, and it needed that because I did have someone
17:12
say to me, well, you do realize there are politics involved in
17:15
this And if you get that lot to sit in the room with that lot,
17:19
you know hell will freeze over before that happens.
17:21
Well, hell froze over and they did all come together and we
17:25
launched Let's Dance. And it was wonderful because I
17:30
heard Chris Witty, the chief medical officer saying on on
17:34
radio in an interview, we all have to take more responsibility
17:37
for our own health. If we did, it would really ease
17:41
the burden on the National Health Service, not just
17:43
financially, but physically. The number of hours that you
17:46
need to get spend in hospital, the facilities that you need
17:49
from hospital, the time you spend with AGP.
17:51
So I rang him and I said, Chris, if I can bring the dance world
17:56
together and get people to dance, which we know because of
18:00
all the all the evidence based material which says dance can do
18:04
this, will you back me? And he said yes.
18:07
And he has from day one, as has Lord Darcy who did the report
18:11
for the government because I then spoke to him and he said
18:14
yes, this is exactly what we need to do.
18:17
So I brought them all together. We spent a year planning it and
18:20
on March the 2nd of this year we had some 20,000 dance teachers
18:25
and dance organisations all over the country open their doors and
18:30
say to people. We got the BBC Tobacco.
18:33
So I got The One Show to show films about the way in which
18:36
dance helped people with mental health problems, with
18:39
Parkinson's, with stroke, young children in education and
18:44
communities, how it brought ethnic groups together, all of
18:48
that. They did a series of films, so
18:50
we had a lot of people who knew what Let's Dance was doing.
18:53
And on the day we had some 20,000 dance teachers opening
18:58
their doors saying to people come take a workshop, see what
19:01
we do, have a class, do something.
19:04
And we have a professor of dance, Professor Angela Pickard,
19:08
who is at the moment assessing the results from that and they
19:11
are outstanding. I mean, to give you an example,
19:14
the Royal Ballet School, everybody might think, oh,
19:17
that's a bit posh. And the Royal Ballet School,
19:19
which is a school to teach, it teaches young people on on
19:24
grants to become professional dancers.
19:27
It is not open to the public for dance classes.
19:30
They opened their doors in their headquarters in London.
19:33
They have so many studios there. They had four studios running
19:36
simultaneously offering classes in mime, ballet, modern dance
19:42
and theatre dance from 9:00 in the morning till 6:00 in the
19:45
evening. More than 650 people went
19:48
through and they had just under 1000 on their waiting list to do
19:52
it. We had dance, we had people in
19:55
Northern Ireland, wonderful individual teachers, but we had
19:58
hubs. We had two big hubs in Northern
20:01
Ireland, one in Port Rush where a wonderful teacher there called
20:06
Victoria, she took over the car park on the sea front and where
20:10
the council had erected A marquee she got, I think it was
20:13
7. 17 dance teachers to come and they had a full day of dance and
20:18
hundreds of people went through and the local cinemas only
20:22
showed musical films. So it was dance.
20:24
The the Eden Project in Cornwall gave us one of their domes we
20:28
had and the King gave us permission to use Dumfries House
20:31
in Scotland and we had something like a nearly 200 pensioners who
20:36
came and danced all day. And the Winter Gardens in
20:40
Blackpool. Of course we had to have
20:41
something special in Blackpool, things happening all over the
20:44
country with people dancing and subsequently Let's Dance Now is
20:50
going to happen every year on. It's going to be March the 8th
20:53
next year. But at the same time I managed
20:56
to get meetings with the NHS and the NHS have agreed that dance,
21:03
they recognise the value of dance in so many medical
21:05
situations like stroke and Parkinson's and mental health
21:09
and and obesity and, and the rest of it.
21:13
And we can now use NHS logo to ratify everything that we do.
21:20
So all of our teachers who do an event that's a let's dance event
21:24
can say this has the support of the NHS because the value, its
21:28
health value is recognized. I'm working with so many of the
21:30
charities like Parkinson's UK, for instance, where Caroline
21:36
Russell, who Charlotte Russell rather, who is their CEO, who
21:39
says dance is a miracle, which it is for people with
21:41
Parkinson's because those who have uncontrolled movements,
21:46
there's a part of the brain called hippocanthus, which here
21:49
at the back, which is very powerful.
21:51
It's apparently the last part of the brain to go when you have
21:53
dementia, for instance, because it remembers words and music
21:56
well. It's a very important part of
21:58
your brain if you have Parkinson's because the
22:00
hippocanthus takes over and people with Parkinson's,
22:05
certainly in the very early stages, they are able to take
22:08
back control of their bodies and the music enables them to move
22:12
in time with the music and control those uncontrollable
22:16
actions. It improves their gait, it
22:19
improves their their mobility. So apparently there are 153,000
22:24
people in Britain who are registered as suffering from
22:27
Parkinson's, 50,000 of them get dance classes.
22:31
I want the other 103,000 to have dance classes for people in who
22:36
are 60 plus and all the medical evidence and the Medical
22:41
Research Council. Their own figures say that in an
22:44
in a single year, on average 1.6 million people over 60 will have
22:50
a fall and break an ankle, a hip, a wrist showed do damage to
22:56
themselves, which means time in hospital.
22:59
It may be only a week for if it's a minor injury, it could be
23:03
a month if it's longer than that.
23:05
As a result, many of them may lose not just their, their their
23:09
mobility, but their confidence and they don't want to go out
23:11
afterwards. I always say to people, to
23:13
younger people, think of dance as making an investment in your
23:17
well-being pension plan. You are building your core
23:20
strength, your mobility because you have got back your core
23:25
strength and you've got back your posture, you're able to
23:28
sort of pull back from it and perhaps prevent you having a
23:32
fall. Or if you do, you will fall in a
23:34
way that will not lead to major injury.
23:37
And if you're on the ground, you're going to be able to get
23:39
up because you've got all of that strength back in your body.
23:44
And if we can do that, we could save the National Health Service
23:47
anything up to 4 billion a year because that's what it costs.
23:51
And that's the Medical Research Council's own figures.
23:54
It's not mine. You know, there is there is so
23:56
many areas. And for people with mental
23:58
health, two of the mental health charities with whom we're
24:01
working, one of them their their CEO.
24:02
She says it's wonderful to see people who have been depressed
24:07
or stressed dancing because they dance out of their darkness.
24:11
Because the one, there are two things that dance do for you
24:14
that no other exercise will. They use literally every part of
24:20
your body simultaneously if you do.
24:22
It's what I get people to do when I do lectures.
24:24
I say get up and dance. Just do any old thing.
24:27
You'll find you're using your toes, your feet, your ankles,
24:30
your knees, your thighs, your hips, your back, your shoulders,
24:33
your arms, your head. Every bit of you is moving.
24:37
It has to. It's moving simultaneously, and
24:40
I defy anybody to dance without a smile on their face because it
24:44
brings joy. I've never seen anyone come off
24:46
a cross trainer after half an hour sweating in their lycra
24:49
saying that was fun. It it doesn't work.
24:52
Yeah, but dance gives you all of those.
24:54
Things and I remember because we were both had the privilege of
24:56
talking at the Oxford Longevity Group That's right recently with
25:00
Professor Simua Grey who's so inspirational and it and it, it
25:04
just caught me because we we always encourage exercise and I
25:07
feel very strongly as a doctor. It's not about which exercise,
25:11
it's one that you enjoy. And.
25:13
That you'll keep on doing. Keep doing because you could
25:15
tell me that I need to go running and I would say yes,
25:18
Angela, I might do it once, but I know I won't do it every day.
25:20
But my exercise is yoga. I do yoga every morning and I
25:23
really, really enjoy it. But it's about moving.
25:27
But the, the thing that you really said that that stuck with
25:30
me is, is about being happy, but also about using your brain and
25:34
using your memory. And it's not just actually for
25:37
remembering those dance moves. When you got us all to dance in
25:41
the conference, it was a great song.
25:43
It's raining men. I used to live in New Zealand as
25:46
a junior doctor, just for a year.
25:48
We went to this nightclub and it was very iconic.
25:51
And they had these drag Queens and I'd never seen drag Queens
25:54
before. This was it many years ago.
25:57
They were on the stage, this song would come out and we would
25:59
all dance. So you took me back to Auckland
26:03
just in those few seconds because I hadn't heard the song
26:06
for for a long time. And you were absolutely right.
26:09
People that weren't even really communicating in the conference,
26:12
they were laughing, they were happy, they were.
26:14
There's this sense of camaraderie as well.
26:17
And you know, so often in our jobs, in our workplaces,
26:21
schools, we're quite isolated. We're on our phones all the
26:24
time. We're not engaging with people.
26:26
Sometimes conversations can be hostile or awkward.
26:29
You don't have to talk, but you can smile and you can be.
26:31
And it's that sort of warmth and energy as well as doing
26:35
exercise, which we know any exercise will reduce risk of
26:39
cardiovascular disease, dementia, diabetes, so forth.
26:44
You know, we talk about preventing disease, absolutely.
26:47
But even those people that have diseases, you know, not just the
26:50
neurodegenerative diseases, the metabolic diseases, those can
26:54
all reverse and improve or stabilize, They're not going to
26:58
get worse by dancing. And even if you're just sitting
27:01
tapping your fingers because you can't, you're disabled.
27:04
You're listening to the music. It's got something there.
27:08
And you see, I, it's interesting you talk about that, that
27:10
communication. I always say you're never
27:13
isolated and lonely if you go to a dance class, which is why,
27:16
again, one of the charities with whom we're working are the, the
27:19
carers trust, because carers very often feel well that
27:23
they're isolated and lonely. And, and it's important that we
27:27
get children to dance for again, for that same reason where we've
27:30
got dance in schools. And, and sadly it's, it's, it's
27:34
on a downward curve rather than an upward one.
27:37
There are fewer and fewer schools who have, who have got
27:39
dance where they do have dance. They have less absenteeism, less
27:44
exclusions. They have children who
27:46
concentrate more. And I met a professor at A, at
27:49
another conference who is an economics professor and she is
27:54
doing, she's doing a proper research program at the moment
27:58
to demonstrate that if you dance, your mental acuity
28:01
improves to such a degree that you become much more effective
28:05
at your job. You become better at it because
28:09
you're happier, but your brain works and you become much more
28:13
productive. It works for older people, but
28:16
it works for children too. If you one of the schools that
28:20
we filmed at, they have three primary schools that are all in
28:25
interconnected. And if my memory says me
28:28
correct, the figures are that there are 97% of the children
28:30
come from ethnic backgrounds and they have 47 different languages
28:35
in the school. So in the primary school, they
28:38
use dance as a way of helping children to understand
28:42
mathematics, politics, the environment, to connect with
28:48
their own ethnicity and their own culture.
28:52
And the day that we filmed them, they were learning about
28:54
astronomy, about how the planets move around each other.
28:57
Dance, it can be used as part of education and it does fire up
29:02
your brain. It just keeps it.
29:04
And of course, for people with dementia, there's singing for
29:07
the brain because again, the hippocampus helps you.
29:10
You may not recognise the person sitting in front of you to whom
29:13
you've been married for 60 years, but you remember the
29:15
song. If you play a Beatles track you
29:18
can remember the song and it's the same with dance.
29:23
You play music for people with dementia and they want to dance,
29:26
they get up because there is something in it. 2 days ago with
29:30
with Kai Woodrington who who has is working with me on this
29:33
project. He was my dance partner on
29:35
Strictly. He particularly wants to get
29:38
dance back into schools because as a young boy who came up in
29:41
that way himself, he recognises the value of it.
29:44
We were invited to go to the Royal Chelsea Hospital in London
29:48
to see the Chelsea Pensioners and we spent the morning
29:50
teaching a group of about 30 or 20 or 30 of them.
29:53
They wanted us to go and dance with them.
29:55
So we did. And so we gave them a lesson and
29:58
we taught them how to do a basic waltz and we taught them how to
30:00
do a basic cha cha and we all danced together.
30:03
And you know what was lovely? One of the, one of the
30:05
pensioners there that I, I, that I was dancing with in the
30:08
lesson, he said, I'm so glad you've come today.
30:11
He said, what is wonderful, I used to dance with my wife like
30:14
this. It was just one of those moments
30:17
where you went and he said, my wife and I used to dance
30:20
together all the time, he said, and just doing this with you now
30:24
brings back so many happy memories.
30:25
It gives you goose flesh, doesn't it?
30:27
One of my wonderful teachers, she said to me, you've got to
30:30
think of dance as a superpower because that's what it does.
30:34
It touches you, not just physically, it touches you
30:38
emotionally. And you know, if you go to an
30:42
event, if you go to a family occasion, if people want to be
30:44
happy, they play music and everybody gets up and dances.
30:47
And I don't care if people say to guys, particularly say to me,
30:50
but I can't dance, I've got 2 left feet, a dad dance, I don't
30:54
care. I love dad dancing because dad
30:56
dancing means you dance like there's nobody watching you
30:59
dance because you want to. Doesn't matter if you're not
31:03
quite in time with the music. If you're doing something which
31:05
is outrageous and not the same as everybody else, you are doing
31:08
something which is expressing your own personal joy and you
31:12
are having the time of your life while you're doing it.
31:15
One of my very great friends is an Italian and he Italian
31:20
families, you know, they have big Italian occasions.
31:23
And there it was. One of his nieces was getting
31:25
married. His cousin said him I don't
31:28
think I'm going to invite mum because she's got dementia and
31:29
she won't understand it. And he said no and she says
31:32
she's still got to come. And he said so I persuaded him
31:36
to let his mum come. And when I saw him later I said
31:39
how did it go? He said, oh, it was fantastic.
31:41
He said she didn't have a clue who the pretty girl in the white
31:44
frock was. She didn't know who the young
31:46
man that was handsome was that she danced with, but she chatted
31:50
to people, she sang along to the music.
31:52
She danced. She had the time of her life.
31:55
She thoroughly, she didn't remember any of it two days
31:58
later, but she enjoyed the moment.
32:02
And when it comes to dementia, what you learn is that it
32:06
doesn't matter that people don't remember what happened
32:09
yesterday, but they enjoy the moment.
32:13
So never, never, never exclude somebody from dementia with a
32:17
family occasion or, you know, to watch your local football team
32:21
or go down the pub or go to the Women's Institute or go to a
32:24
theatre with your cinema or just go out for a drink.
32:28
They won't remember tomorrow. And they may be slightly, you
32:32
know out of it a bit when you're at the event and they may do
32:36
crazy things. I remember 1 little boy saying
32:38
to me, oh his grandfather, I love going out with my granddad
32:41
because he does the daftus things and we just have so much
32:44
fun. They will enjoy the moment.
32:46
A dance does that as well. It is a superpower.
32:50
It is a superpower. I could listen to you forever,
32:53
but I'm so grateful for you being here really.
32:56
And I'm just hoping listeners are going to look up their local
32:59
dance class, get out there. But I always end my podcast with
33:03
three take home tips and it's going to be very obvious what
33:06
I'm going to ask you. Just three quick tips.
33:09
Why should we take up dancing? Because it is the best exercise
33:15
for the health of the well-being of your mind and your body.
33:19
You can do it at any age and it doesn't matter what your
33:23
physical condition is. If you are someone who is in
33:26
firm and is in a wheelchair, you can move a bit of you.
33:29
And we do lots of exercises for people in chairs and in
33:32
wheelchairs. I was in Marks and Spencer's a
33:35
couple of months ago and one of the girls behind the desk, she
33:38
said to me in your ad and she said I'm not as flexible as you.
33:40
I can hardly even touch my toes. She's only about 50.
33:43
And I said, well, that's because you, you don't practice it.
33:45
So she's behind the desk serving me and I'm the other side giving
33:48
her exercises that she can do to bend.
33:51
I was in the shop about two weeks ago and I saw her and she
33:55
waved at me from across the store.
33:56
And she said, Ange, I can touch my toes.
34:00
So it doesn't matter what your age is, what your physical
34:03
condition is, dance is the superpower that will mean that
34:07
the engine that you've got will keep moving.
34:11
It's been my ambition to die young as late as possible, and
34:16
that's what dance will help you to do.
34:18
Oh, thank you so much. It's just been great listening
34:21
to you. Thank you.
34:22
Thank you.