When music starts, why is there an impulse to shake our bodies? Do you recall hopping with friends on birthday parties’ with Bruno Mars’ songs in the background? What do you feel when seeing videos of ancient tribesmen dancing obliviously to a sparking campfire and murmuring prayers? 

Dance has penetrated into every corner of human lives, embellishing our humdrum routines in a way that nothing else can. Tracing back to the earliest time of the human species, ancient wall paintings have proven that humans used their body language to conduct rituals and celebrations. Even now, people enjoy gathering on special dates to express themselves via body language, or bathing in the art of modern dance as an audience. 

How does moving a body to music beats create happiness? In fact, it is a result of physiological reactions in the brain. In recent years, scientists have been investigating the complex coordination that our brains perform during dancing. A neurologist from Columbia University addressed that synchronizing music with body movements leads to a “pleasure double play”. Music triggers the brain’s reward system, sending out goal-reaching signals to our limbs to catch up with the tempo. Meanwhile, our body makes dance movements, thus meeting the expectation that our brain sets up. By repeating this loop, two main happiness hormones (dopamine and serotonin) are largely released, which explains the excitement and satisfaction during dancing. 

According to the New England Journal of Medicine, studies have shown that dance can significantly improve brain health. Researchers found statistical evidence that dance reduces the risk of dementia. The mental effort and social interaction involved in dancing are considered effective in lowering stress and developing new neural connections, which are beneficial to our executive function, long-term memory and spatial recognition. 

Dance is a medium for expressing creativity and emotions of the dancer. After the dancer’s interpretation and expression, those invisible emotions are transformed to vivid actions. Sometimes, it even transcends the traditional dancer-audience format. In Deborah Hay’s hypnotic dance solos “Horse”, they performed in an audience-free environment, maximizing the sensation of witnessing individual worlds. The emotional resonance and character immersion separates dance from other forms of physical activities, which is also the reason why dance is associated with religion, spirituality, and even promoting peace. 

Right at this second, the human world is facing various problems such as Climate change, war, inequality, racism and violence. As a universal language of mankind, dance could address these problems and raise public awareness cross-culturally. For example, anti-bullying dance choreographies can be posted online and understood by millions of audiences from different countries. It can draw more attention from teachers and parents to prevent these nightmares that could happen to any teenager in the world. 

Dance paved pathways that stretched from the ancient times to the modern days. The essence of dance is to bridge our physical and spiritual world, which has been sustained and developed throughout the improvements of civilizations. Dancing, can be a way to the future.

Works Cited

Meszaros, Liz. “Researchers identify exercise for optimal health of body and mind”. MDLinx, 26 March 2020. 
Edwards, Scott. “Dancing And The Brain”. Harvard Medical School. 

Kourlas, Gia. “Review: Dancing for Themselves in an Underworld of Shadows”. The New York Times, 2 February 2023. 

Loudenback, Tanza and Jackson, Abby. “The 10 most critical problems in the world, according to millennials”. Business Insider, 26 February 2018. 

Narvaes, Anna. “Empathy, Connection, and Confidence: 3 Ways Dance Aids Emotional Development”. Mountain Kids, 13 September 2019

Desimone, Danielle. “The Art of Telling a Story Through Choreography”. Dance Plug, 10 May 2021. 

Meagan A. Woodard. “Dance: The Universal Language of Storytellers”.  Ouachita Baptist University, Spring 2020.