Dance is an incredibly complicated artform, and now it is brushing its shoulders with psychology. This is rather unsurprising given the enormous literature on dance and sexual expression. The overall topic of dance and religion, dance and sexuality as a source of power, manifestations of sexuality in Western theatre art and social dance, plus ritual and non-Western social dance, is for enthusiasts and experts alike. Meanwhile, in the real world…

Music appears to be present in some form in all human cultures. Sensitivity to various elements of music appears quite early on in infancy, with some understanding and appreciation of music emerging later through interaction between developing perceptual capabilities and cultural influence. Whereas there is already some information regarding how newborn infants process sounds, little is known about how they actually process rhythm. Thinking about John Seargeant and Ann Widdecombe, you have to be honest. There are more questions than answers.

The actual ‘purpose’ of dance remains an enigma. Prof Nick Humphrey of the LSE, and formerly at Cambridge, writes:

Group rituals and entertainments bring people together in the here and now: dancing together; singing together; and worshiping together. As bodies move in synchrony, minds may indeed get as close as they ever can to being united.

However, scientists are looking to other species for why humans dance, and it is possible that this research might provide some powerful insights. For example, male fiddler crabs wave an outsized claw to show off, and male hummingbirds display their flying prowess with a flamboyant mating dive. These moves probably show off their strength and motor skills.

Evolutionary psychologist Nick Neave of Northumbria University in Newcastle Upon Tyne wondered whether there was something about male human dancing that impressed females as well. Writing in the Royal Society Journal, Biology Letters, the researchers believe that movements associated with good dancing are also indicative of good health and reproductive potential. Dr Nick Neave asked young men, who were not professional dancers, to dance in a laboratory to a very basic drum rhythm and filmed their movements with 12 cameras. The dancing was then converted into computer-generated cartoons – which women rated on a scale of 1 to 7.

These movements were then converted into a computer-generated cartoon – an avatar – which women rated on a scale of one to seven. It turned out that women paid more attention to the core body region: the torso, the neck, the head. Apparently, it was not just the speed of the movements, it was also the variability of the movement. So someone who is twisting, bending, moving, nodding.

Movements that went down terribly were twitchy and repetitive – “bad dancing”, or even, possibly, so called “Daddy dancing”.

Neave argues that, in animals,  the male has to be in good physical quality to carry out these movement, and that a similar phenomenonis happening in humans and certainly the guys that can put these movements together are going to be young and fit and healthy

Judith Hanna, an anthropologist at the University of Maryland, College Park, who studies dance, calls the use of avatars “brilliant.” She says it would be interesting to replicate the study with different populations; in different cultures, different dance moves may be seen as attractive.

References

JH Hanna. Dance and sexuality: many moves. J Sex Res. 2010 Mar;47(2):212-48.

István Winkler, Gábor P. Háden, Olivia Ladinig, István Sziller, and Henkjan Honing Newborn infants detect the beat in music Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2009 February 17; 106(7): 2468–2471. Published online 2009 January 26. doi: 10.1073/pnas.0809035106. PMCID: PMC2631079

Nick Humphrey. The Society of Selves. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B (2007) 362, 745–754

(c) Dr Shibley Rahman 2010