If you're a student of mine, you'll know that I love to dance. I started with salsa and bachata in Spain just before lockdown. When I moved to South Africa, I discovered swing dance, and life hasn't been the same since.
So, you probably also knew that it was only a matter of time before I dedicated an entire lesson to my obsession. This week, we've been looking at why dance is so powerful and necessary. While learning some advanced vocabulary and idioms, we've also been discussing questions like: What makes busting a move so irresistible? Why have humans always danced? Can dance make the world a better place?
Dancing for Survival
According to psychologist and neuroscientist Dr H.T. Van Schie, dancing played an important role in human evolution. After a long day of hunting, gathering, and other prehistoric activities, singing and dancing around the fire would bring the group together and strengthen social bonds. Strong social bonds were crucial to survival, according to Dr Van Schie. Millions of years later, dance still draws us together.
Of course, the survival of our species also depends on reproduction, and dancing has always been a courtship ritual. Really, I doubt our behaviour in nightclubs is much different from back in the day when our ancestors were dancing around fires trying to attract a mate. Of course, this doesn't mean that we only dance for this reason, but before other social skills came into play, the physical strength, agility and coordination that dance demonstrated were presumably sought-after qualities for hunter-gatherers.
In his book "The Singing Neanderthals: The Origins of Music, Language, Mind, and Body" (Harvard University Press, 2006), Steven J. Mithen contends that because of their communication powers, dance and music became important for social interaction as soon as humans could walk and talk. He even suggests that "the specific nature of human anatomy suggests that it evolved for endurance running as much as walking. As such, it could have also been used for dancing, as bipedalism requires high degrees of muscle control, balance and flexibility."
Collective Effervenscence
In 1912, French sociologist Émile Durkheim came up with this wonderful term to describe "moments in which people come together in some form of unifying, excitement-inducing activity" (Aeon Video 2019, Youtube). It is the glue that holds groups together. Durkheim's theory focused on the collective effervescence of religion, but the idea can be applied to any activity that creates collective elation, such as sports, concerts, religious ceremonies and, of course, dancing.
Let's take a moment to clarify what the term means: effervescence is the bubbles in your champagne, the fizz in your soda. So if we are all sparkling together, then the result is a very fizzy bottle of champagne: Delicious and intoxicating.
As humans, we are born into social groups. Our language, code of conduct, rules and laws hold us together as a society. Yet the very things that hold us together can also tear us apart as we experience jealousy, conflict and disagreement. Durkheim wanted to explore what glues societies together despite our differences. His answer lies in the euphoria that overtakes groups of people pursuing a shared purpose. The effect is the sensation that your individual self is melding with the group as a whole, and the intense force it creates lifts people together on an almost divine level.
Look at any society around the world, and you will see that dance is integral to social rituals.
I experience this collective effervescence every time I dance with my Swing dance friends. Cutting a rug on a floor that's pulsating with joy is the ultimate euphoria, especially when dancing to a live band.
Humans need to synchronise
Bronwyn Tarr, who is a trained dancer and evolutionary biologist at the University of Oxford, explored Durkheim's theory from a neurological stance. She discovered that humans have a natural impulse to synchronise their movements with other humans. Have you ever noticed yourself nodding your head, touching your face or folding your arms along with the person you're talking to? "It's as if we're all searching for a common rhythm to share" (Aeon Video). According to Tarr, when you observe another person moving, an area of the brain is activated which helps us to make these movements yourself. The mutual mimicking of another person's movements causes similar neural networks in both - or all - parties to open up a rush of neurohormones, which make us feel good.
I can confirm that it feels amazing when I'm dancing with a partner, and we can catch on to and synchronise with each other's improvised moves. We both smile and feel elated when we're dancing to the same beat. During a group routine, we all share this fuzzy feeling; the collective joy is heightened by our shared love for the music.
Let's not overlook the role that music plays in all of this. Even without dance, music floods us with all the feel-good chemicals: endorphins, serotonin, dopamine and oxytocin. Music is so powerful that it can even decrease pain: a study showed that preferred music increased pain tolerance and lowered self-reported pain intensity during an ice-water hand immersion test compared to the same task without music (Hekmat & Hertel, 1993). The euphoria that listening to your favourite tunes creates can be so intense that it activates opioid receptors in the brain.
So you're pumped because your favourite song comes on, and you have to hit the dance floor with a load of other similarly pumped people. You're all high on the cocktail of happy hormones that the music is releasing. You're keeping to the same beat, mimicking each other's moves, and feeling delightful euphoria. You're being the social creature you were intended to be, connected to your fellow humans.
As Abba put it: "Without a song and a dance, what are we? So I say thank you for the music, for giving it to me."
Glossary
Fuzzy feelings | Pleasant, warm feelings |
To get one's groove on | To dance. Groovy is an adjective to describe music that you can dance to. But it is also a synonym of "cool" (popular in the 1970s, not so much now!) |
To bust a move | To dance with energy and enthusiasm |
To draw people together | To bring people together |
Sought-after | Wanted by many people; in demand |
Likely | Probably |
To come up with | To think of; to produce something (like a plan or solution) |
Code of conduct | A defined set of rules, principles or values |
Melding with the group | To meld means to combine or blend. So when you meld with a group, you become one entity |
To cut a rug | To dance with energy and enthusiasm |
Catch on | To understand what is meant or how to do something |
Heightened | Increased; intensified; enhanced |
To overlook | To miss; to fail to notice or appreciate something/someone |
To be pumped | To be filled with excitement and enthusiasm (we can also say "pumped up") |
To hit the dance floor | To go and dance |
To keep to the same beat | To move to the same rhythm |
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