Today's weird question is this: Why do we dance? In its higher, more sophisticated, derived forms, it can serve as an art form and a teller of stories. The dance I am speaking about is the natural, innate dance, which does not require taking classes or going to a special school. You know what I mean. When you're at the club and that song comes on that makes you say, "I love this song! Someone come dance with me! Please!"
I suppose when you really like something you want to imitate it as much as possible, therefore moving your body with the beat might feel to one as if they are part of the song. I don't dance (Especially in a club setting). But it also depends on what your definition of dancing is. When I'm performing music I move around to the beat (my hips, head, arms, etc), but I don't know if you'd call it dancing. It probably looks awkward and jerky, but I just can't help it if I'm really into the music. I was too nervous to do those things on all the live videos I have of my band performing, but at our later shows, (which weren't recorded) I actually look like I'm having fun or so I was told.
Aye, with this I must agree, but... Music is an artifact of man. An invention. Dance seems innate to all peoples; hence, something hardwired, not invented. What did we dance to before music, and why?
Sorry, but I must disagree. Rhythm and song exist in nature: the beat of the heart, the rhythm of walking/running, the melodies of birds and brooks. Add to that the innate nature of the human mind to organize and recognize patterns, and you have the foundations of measures, stanzas, and bass lines.
Guh, this really makes me miss swing dancing. I dance because sometimes my mood calls for it. I'll dance if there's no music. I'll dance to music that I make up in my head. Nothing, though, beats dancing with someone with whom you're well-matched. A great dance is like great sex, and can be just as intimate.
Originally there were probably soundless dances in ancient cultures to appease the gods, and eventually people discovered the tapping sounds that could make a beat from hitting stuff, thus music was born.
It would seem more natural to me if the beat came first, then the dancing. Not the other way around. Still...I suppose it's an idea.
I was just thinking the same thing I wonder what they danced to before beats and all that. The thundering of mammoth hooves? Maybe they did dance around the fire, it does it own cool little dance after all. (The fire does, it also crackles and makes other sounds o.o)
I don't dance. Three generations of women in my family don't dance. We think it's silly to be bobbing your head up and down for seemingly no reason, and we don't know how it's supposed to be fun.
I dance because sometimes I just get so full of happy that it has to come out somehow or I'll explode...dancing is the form of release it most often manifests itself in.
Well, if you're performing music, it helps you keep the beat. Or at least, it helps me. I also have the urge to do it and often don't notice that I'm doing it while singing.
And then they found out that dancing combined with the power of music had a much greater power to appease the gods than dancing alone. The ancients began to think that they now had control over the gods and began demanding that they. As a practical joke, and to show them just who was boss, the gods made it rain grain for a whole month. Thus was born the three pillars of civilization; agriculture, religion, and entertainment. And it was good.
Martial arts are also a form of dance. Combat has a drumbeat all its own, and dance is a prelude to contact fighting.
For me, I can't not dance. I have no choice over it. When the songs drops I just move. Granted I don't dance well, mainly just white-guy groove and flailing, but it's fun all the same. Dancing is like singing along to your favorite song, participatory. I think someone already went into that though.
At school dances, I don't dance unless surrounded by a group of friends. We're the kind of people that's center floor, dancing either really good or really bad and ignoring the haters. Although we don't get many of those--a big group of dancers like us, we tend to draw the more shy people in to the group, until the ice is broken and the whole floor is dancing.
I was always one of those boys who stood stiffly with the other boys and pretended not to care about dancing or girls, when really we all wanted to get asked to dance quite badly. I did that pretty much until my senior year. Then I went out and danced without being invited and it was really, really fun. I didn't care what anyone thought, I just did it.
