“Dancing Queen”

Alcohol Ink on Board

17"x11" Prints available

The original was donated to the Branch Out Foundation in support of brain research as part of the "Your Brain on Art" Fundraiser. Portion of the proceeds from prints will go to Mental Health charities.

“Dancing Queen” was created to represent the research of Taylor Chomiak and his project “Ambulosono.” This program helps people with Parkinson’s improve their walking gait by using music as a reward based cue. I was inspired by the story of one of the participants who used the song “Dancing Queen” by Abba to see positive results in her ability to walk. The research suggests that the music needs to be connected with a memory or emotion to see the best outcome. Furthermore, the song needs to include the melody and not simply the beat or rhythm. In my artwork, I have represented this song using sound waves in circular form. The left sides of the circle are sound waves from a karaoke version of “Dancing Queen” without the melody. The right side sound waves are from the original song. I have used colours in the background to represent the brain scans of a Parkinson’s brain (left) and a brain responding to music (right). On top of the piece are two linear graphs, which represent the change in velocity and acceleration of someone walking to the different kinds of music. You can see how the walking stride becomes longer and more regular when listening to the emotionally connected music (right). This piece represents how music, emotion and health are intertwined.