About

Rachel Rugh is a dancer, teacher, mover, and shaker based in Blacksburg, Virginia. She is an instructor of dance at the Virginia Tech School of Performing Arts, where she has over a decade of experience teaching creative dance to all ages and stages of movers. Rugh holds a BA in dance from the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and an MFA in Dance from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Her work as a performer includes collaborations with the DC-based Dance Exchange and Seattle choreographers such as Pat Graney, Amy O’Neil, and Jurg Koch. Her choreographic work has been featured at the Seattle International Dance Festival, Movement Research in NYC, and the Washington, D.C. Capital Fringe Festival. In 2016, her graduate choreography was selected to represent the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee at the American College Dance Association's North-Central Conference.

Research topics

• Psychology
• Visual arts
• Psychotherapist
• Social psychology
• Cognitive psychology
• Art
• Psychiatry
• Virology
• Communication
• Medicine
• Psychoanalysis
• Neuroscience
• Cognitive science

Selected publications

• Acutely enhancing affective state and social connection following an online dance intervention during the COVID-19 social isolation crisis

  BMC Psychology · 2023 · 23 citations

  • Psychology
  • Social psychology
  • Psychotherapist

  The COVID-19 pandemic has forced many throughout the world to isolate themselves from their respective communities to stop the spread of disease. Although this form of distancing can prevent the contraction of a virus, it results in social isolation and physical inactivity. Consequently, our communities have become heavily reliant on digital solutions to foster social connection and increase physical activity when forced to isolate. Dance is a multidimensional form of physical activity that includes sensory, motor, cognitive, rhythmic, creative, and social elements. Long-term, interventional studies in dance have shown positive effects on both mental and social health; however, little has been done to examine the acute effects and no studies to date have explored the relationship between the affective state and social outcomes of dance. We examined the hypothesis that online dance is associated with improvements in affective state and social connection during a time of social isolation, namely, the COVID-19 crisis. Healthy adults (age ≥ 18; n = 47) engaged in a single session of 60 min of self-selected online dance, completing a series of validated self-reported questionnaires before and after class. We found that online dance was associated with improvements in affective state as measured by increased positive affect and self-esteem and decreased negative affect and depressive symptoms. Additionally, online dance was associated with improvements in social and community connectedness. Further, we found that those who experienced the largest increases in self-esteem and decreases in negative affect demonstrated the largest gains in social connectivity. Although in-person dance classes may be optimal for formalized dance training, online dance instruction offers an accessible platform that can provide mental and social health benefits during the COVID-19 social isolation crisis. We conclude that through online dance, individuals can experience a connection between the body, mind, and community.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Healing minds, moving bodies: measuring the mental health effects of online dance during the COVID-19 pandemic

  Research in Dance Education · 2022 · 26 citations

  1st authorCorresponding
  • Psychology
  • Social psychology
  • Visual arts

  Use of breath, close physical proximity, and tactile cues are some of the unique facets of dance training. In March of 2020, as COVID-19 lockdowns occurred, these aspects were removed from the lexicon of dance educators as virtual learning took the place of in-person training. This data-driven project explores the benefits and challenges of virtual dance, examining whether online dance can acutely improve mental health and enhance social connectivity. We explore our findings from an education perspective, focusing on learning style, class experience, and dance history. Our findings suggest that online dance can improve mood and increase community connectedness in healthy adults. Importantly, we found that an individual's trait learning style can influence the effectiveness of online learning, with tactile learners benefitting the most in terms of mood state and visual learners benefitting the most in terms of social connectivity. Additionally, we found that greater levels of experienced enjoyment provided the greatest benefits to mood state, whereas greater levels of perceived difficulty may have detrimental effects. We suggest best practices for online dance learning, provide future areas of research, and highlight the importance of using online learning to increase dance accessibility to diverse populations.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Enhancing Mental Health and Social Connection Through an Acute Online Dance Intervention

  Research Square · 2022-01-24 · 5 citations

  preprintOpen access

  Abstract Dance is a multidimensional form of physical activity that includes sensory, motor, cognitive, rhythmic, creative, and social elements. Long-term, interventional studies in dance have shown positive effects on both mental and social health; however, little has been done to examine the acute effects and no studies to date have explored the relationship between the mental health and social outcomes of dance. We examined the hypothesis that online dance can acutely improve mental health and social connection during a time of social isolation, namely, the COVID-19 crisis. Healthy adults (age ≥18; n=47) completed a single session of 60 minutes of self-selected online dance, completing a series of validated self-reported questionnaires before and after class. We found that online dance acutely improves mental health as measured by increased positive affect and self-esteem and decreased negative affect and depression. Additionally, online dance acutely enhanced social and community connectedness. Further, we found that those who experienced the largest increases in self-esteem and decreases in negative affect demonstrated the largest gains in social connectivity. Although in-person dance classes may be optimal for dance technique training, online dance instruction has important clinical benefits. We conclude that through online dance, individuals can experience a body-mind-community connection.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Dance on the Brain: Enhancing Intra- and Inter-Brain Synchrony

  Frontiers in Human Neuroscience · 2021 · 126 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding
  • Psychology
  • Cognitive psychology
  • Cognitive science

  Dance has traditionally been viewed from a Eurocentric perspective as a mode of self-expression that involves the human body moving through space, performed for the purposes of art, and viewed by an audience. In this Hypothesis and Theory article, we synthesize findings from anthropology, sociology, psychology, dance pedagogy, and neuroscience to propose The Synchronicity Hypothesis of Dance, which states that humans dance to enhance both intra- and inter-brain synchrony. We outline a neurocentric definition of dance, which suggests that dance involves neurobehavioral processes in seven distinct areas including sensory, motor, cognitive, social, emotional, rhythmic, and creative. We explore The Synchronicity Hypothesis of Dance through several avenues. First, we examine evolutionary theories of dance, which suggest that dance drives interpersonal coordination. Second, we examine fundamental movement patterns, which emerge throughout development and are omnipresent across cultures of the world. Third, we examine how each of the seven neurobehaviors increases intra- and inter-brain synchrony. Fourth, we examine the neuroimaging literature on dance to identify the brain regions most involved in and affected by dance. The findings presented here support our hypothesis that we engage in dance for the purpose of intrinsic reward, which as a result of dance-induced increases in neural synchrony, leads to enhanced interpersonal coordination. This hypothesis suggests that dance may be helpful to repattern oscillatory activity, leading to clinical improvements in autism spectrum disorder and other disorders with oscillatory activity impairments. Finally, we offer suggestions for future directions and discuss the idea that our consciousness can be redefined not just as an individual process but as a shared experience that we can positively influence by dancing together.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Necessity Fuels Creativity: Adapting Long-Distance Collaborative Methods for the Classroom

  Journal of Dance Education · 2016-07-02 · 2 citations

  article
  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Julia C. Basso

  6 shared

• Ashlee Humphries

  Virginia Tech

  3 shared

• Noor Tasnim

  Virginia Tech

  2 shared

• Morgan Patrick

  Northwestern University

  2 shared

• Medha K. Satyal

  Virginia Tech

  1 shared

• Barbara Tait

  Newcastle upon Tyne Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust

  1 shared

• Eliza Larson

  1 shared

• Katie Sopoci Drake

  University of Maryland, College Park

  1 shared

Labs

• School of Performing ArtsPI

Education

• Masters of Fine Arts, Department of Dance

  University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee

  2017

Awards & honors

• Teaching Artist Roster, Virginia Commission for the Arts (20…
• Dr. Robert L.A. Keely Healing Arts Residency (2017-2018)
• University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee Chancellor’s Award (2016)