Set dancing good for the mind and body

THE Italian and Irish flags were draped side by side in Feakle, Co Clare, as a capacity crowd squeezed into the community hall to witness a small miracle.

Consultant neurologist Timothy Lynch took the stage and presented his research, a forensic universe of charts and graphs, of trembling limbs and slurred speech, “benign essential tremors”, and “gait disorder”.

Lynch trawled through case studies with eloquent ease. Tommy, a farmer, works and lives independently but his head shakes uncontrollably due to a cocktail of powerful drugs that can provoke anything from insomnia to gambling.

“I switched him off,” said Dr Lynch, explaining how he reduced his drug plan too fast, leaving the patient subdued, almost catatonic. There is before and after footage. It is terrifying. Two women sitting in front of me appear upset and leave the hall. Two men follow their lead.

Dr Lynch delivers his research with an earthy humour that relieves the sense of gloom: “This is the only bank that works,” he concluded, referring to the Dublin Brain Bank in Beaumont Hospital, where studies are carried out on Parkinson’s disease, the topic at hand. A degenerative disorder of the central nervous system, Parkinson’s affects mobility, balance, and unsurprisingly, mood. We are about to witness a great leap forward in its treatment, a joyful celebration of the healing power of music and dance.

While Dr Lynch’s presentation appears harsh and graphic, everyone present grasps the nature of this paralysing and unpredictable condition. The impact and advance of the disease varies widely and, for a number of people at the conference, the images on the screen represent a worst-case scenario.

“That’s why those women had to leave the room,” explained Stephanie Lyons, Dr Daniele Volpe’s partner. The women are part of a visiting delegation of Italians, a test group of Parkinson’s patients and their tutors who began set-dancing as part of a medical trial. One of the immediate effects of the disease is an inability to multitask. Talking on the phone and keeping en eye on a child, for example, become impossible. Patients often carry a torch as their feet suddenly stop moving; when the torch is activated, the blinking light reminds them to put one foot in front of another. Small details, huge battles.

And then Dr Volpe takes the stage. He is relaxed, affable, and seems at one with his patients. He began with an image of Peppers, a local pub, and followed with PJ Hayes, fiddle maestro and father of Martin Hayes. Dr Volpe, a guitarist and trad music enthusiast, had been visiting Ireland seven or eight times a year, travelling to Feakle where he joined the sessions. A specialist in Parkinson’s, he watched a man come through the door of Peppers, his limbs trembling as he padded toward the counter. “One of mine,” he registered. A little while later, Dr Volpe watched the same man set-dancing with no apparent difficulty. “I thought it was a side effect of the Guinness,” he joked.

It was a Eureka moment which has since mobilised universities around the world and produced a pilot study demonstrating remarkable, if preliminary, results; “the ideal is less medication and more set-dancing”.

Dr Volpe then invited Martin Hayes on stage and, as soon as the fiddle came to life, we were entranced by the rhythm, stamping our feet, whooping with joy. A group of Italians (including the two women who left the room earlier) stepped forward and assumed their positions. Hayes was joined by his other half, guitarist Denis Cahill, and the set-dancing began.

The Parkinson’s patients glance at each other, clearly nervous, warming up, then moving with grace, poise, and balance, forward and back, swinging their partners, lost in the music and the movement. The room suddenly seemed full of hope and love. Stefania Sossella, one of the Italian dance tutors, had tears in her eyes when she sat down again; “Bravissimo,” she told the dancers, needing no translation.

The crowd was composed largely of health professionals but the performance is repeated the next day, marking the official opening of the music festival, one of the country’s best known trad fests.

After the launch, the crowd moved on to pubs, reflecting on what they have just seen. “It’s the commitment that gets me, it’s really amazing,” said Seamus O’Donaill who travelled from Bundoran, Co Donegal. “It changes people’s lives.”

Sosella, a tutor and chemistry teacher, happened upon set-dancing at a workshop in Italy 22 years ago. “I just knew this is for me,” she said. “Set-dancing is my passion.” The teaching technique is a little different from the norm as it begins without music, patients first building trust with a tutor and working out the steps one by one before piecing them together.

Set-dancing mimics the precise rehabilitation needs of Parkinson’s patients: It’s repetitive, involves touch, and demands precise foot placement, along with turning, circling movements, a shifting centre of gravity, multidirectional movement, starting and stopping and ‘adjusting the base of support’ — the distance between your two feet. The intensity can vary and as anyone who has taken a flying leap during a whirling turn knows, you must expect the unexpected — and adapt if someone bumps into you. The lessons of set-dancing were quickly transferred to the kitchen, to walking around the house or negotiating the car, the essential getting in, getting out, and getting on with life that we generally take for granted.

But the hidden benefit of the dancing is written on the faces of the participants, in the tears of joy and pride at the achievement of a public performance. The céilís and the classes are therapeutic in themselves and make for a welcome break from the monotony and solitude of a trip to the gym. When asked what she liked about her trip to Feakle, Ana Maria Campanini, an insurance employee, had no hesitation: “Tutto” — everything. “The hospitality, kindness, and especially I am able to have fun and not to think about my illness,” she said.

For another visitor, it was a rainbow spotted outside the University of Limerick. Patrizia Rodaro, a post office worker from Mestre, and dance tutor, was also content. “They show they have something to teach everyone,” she said. “They meet every week, even in snow, it can be difficult to get to the practice but they always make the effort.”

As the set-dancing experiment is expanded, Ireland has a unique advantage. It is a form of therapy freely available in every corner of the country and can be practised several nights a week. The Italians are keen to spread the set-dancing to other parts of their country but first need to find more tutors. As fiddles, whistles, and guitars signalled the start of the festival, the visitors tucked themselves in to the nooks and crannies of Bohan’s pub. As I left the group, one of the set-dancers called me back, keen to remind me of the lifelong struggle ahead, repeating one word: “Cruento, cruento,” she said, as Patrizia translated: “Tough, tough.”