Patients and physicians all tell stories through movement. From the way we all sit, walk, listen, and carry the burden or joy of our physical and mental realities, we dance more often than we realize. We also spend our lifetimes trying to make sense–makes diagnoses or make decisions–based on the way we dance these stories.

Understanding these stories requires a medium that can immerse the observer—the medical student or physician—in the same milieu of physicality, mentality, and spirituality as the patients and find a suitable vehicle for all to connect in this journey. This medium for such submersion is dance.

The History and Physical Dance Series is a compilation of patient and physician narratives on illnesses, treatment, and the journey of making one’s way through a new reality. We focus on specific topics and explore the range of experiences patients and physicians undergo through short dance medicine narratives. 

Through this project, we hope to reveal how the diagnosis goes far beyond the exam room. We hope to show the common thread of the human experience when faced with illness and the resilience and courage to fight one’s way back to health. 

Our Choreographies