Dance is an art form that is closely related to nursing praxis in movement, rhythm and touch. This study is an aesthetic inquiry of dance as an artistic avenue for understanding nursing art and the spiritual human Transcendent Connection. A six-week course in dance basics was conducted with fifteen senior nursing students. The dance course met once weekly and was presented with three sections of concentration in self, partners and groups. All sections focused on body and spirit centering, balance, conscious awareness of self in relation to others and environment. Participants were asked to journal weekly their interactions with patients and any influence the dance course had on patient care. Journal writings were shared in focus group discussion prior to each dance class. Study results revealed participants reported an increased awareness of patient transcending from physical personal space into a sharing of the moment. This experience was termed Transcendent Connection. Transcendent Connection is an internal shared experience that brings about healing through stimulus of human primal experiences that begin in the womb. The primal experiences are early life experiences of warmth, touch, swaddle and rhythmic experiences of rocking, being held and sounds of voice and heartbeats.
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