The Power of Dance: ‘What Good is Freedom If We Don’t Feel It?’

Amber Yang – Dance is one of the oldest human technologies for freedom and raising consciousness—pulling us into direct experience and awakening our capacity to feel, heal, connect, come alive.

Somatics teacher and political organizer Prentis Hemphill put it best:

“What good is freedom if we don’t feel it?”

Freedom isn’t just political or symbolic, it’s something we embody that inspires and brings out the best in us. It’s an inner reality, a way of being, a state of consciousness that fuels creative and authentic living. Watching inspirational speaker Peter Sharp dance his heart out during his TEDx Talk “Dare to be vulnerable” is a powerful reminder that our bodies are vehicles for truth, courage, and connection. When we move from this place, freedom stops being an idea and becomes a lived experience.

“Recovering the capacity to feel [has] been a kind of thawing. I was taught that I couldn’t feel, it wasn’t time to feel, it was inappropriate or dangerous to feel, or honestly impossible to feel everything that I might feel if I opened myself up to it. It’s been a journey of getting curious about myself … I feel my freest when I can be present.” — Prentis Hemphill

A society that can self-regulate, self-heal, and access deeper layers of perception is harder to manipulate through division and fear.

• The dancefloor helped fuel the civil rights movement, offering a rare integrated space where people of all skin colors could mingle, speak, and sing freely. As DJ Honey Dijon once said, “Dancefloors do what governments can’t – bringing people together from all walks of life.”

• Research shows that dance is a top driver of neuroplasticity: the brain’s ability to rewire, heal, and grow through experience. A 2024 British Medical Journal meta-analysis found that dance reduces depression more than walking, yoga, and even antidepressants.

• Dance classes are now part of a growing healthcare revolution adopted in 30+ countries: social prescribing. Instead of being asked “What’s wrong with you?” doctors ask: “What matters to you?” and prescribe dance classes, nature walks, singing classes, art workshops, skill-building classes, grief groups, travel groups, cooking classes, vouchers to the farmer’s market, volunteer and community service groups, and more. Studies show that social and green prescriptions reduce doctor visits, the need for medication, chronic pain, addiction, and loneliness, and improve mental health, memory, and life satisfaction.

Connecting Dance to the State of Our World

I’ve been feeling quite groundless with my work, my purpose, the “next step,” the future of humanity. As Tibetan Buddhist Pema Chödrön reminds us, most of the “ground” we grasp for is mental: stories shaped by fear and scarcity and built to protect us from change, uncertainty, and vulnerability. Yet the heart of reality itself is uncertain, impermanent, paradoxical, fluid.

Our political and cultural divisions safeguard our need for certainty, hijacking our emotions and preventing us from understanding nuance, complexity, and the common ground running deeper than our divisions.

“For us to transform as a society … we have to allow for the incompleteness of any of our truths and a real forgiveness for the complexity of human beings.” — Rev. Angel Kyodo Williams

When I dance, my body reminds me of the only real ground there is: the physical, somatic world. Mama Earth hasn’t gone anywhere.

Dance is this rhythmic, playful conversation between my feet and her ground.

Paradoxically, I only find flow when I relax my mind. The less I push, force, or try to control, the more my body can float, glide, and intuitively know the next step.

Our breath, our movement, our connection to Earth guide us into relaxation, the foundation of clear thinking. From that place, our embodied presence can help others think in new ways, imagine new possibilities, and regulate the hijacked nervous system of the collective.

I hope this post inspires you to get up and move that body of yours!

With faith in a transforming world, Amber Yang

SF Source Want to Know Jan 2026