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Why do people dance?
I’ve been told that people dance to express themselves.
I could be wrong, but in all my many observations of people dancing in all kinds of settings, what they are expressing seems to always be one of two messages.
The first, and by far most common message people use dance to express is: I’m thinking what it would be like to have sexual intercourse with you.
Every time I'm in a crowded nightclub where there is dancing going on, I look around. Every person I see dancing is expressing this: I’m thinking what it would be like to have sexual intercourse with you. And you. And you. And you.
I’ve been to weddings, and I’ve watched the veteran married couples dancing. They are expressing this: I know what it’s like to have sexual intercourse with you. And still, I’m here, dancing with you. And when the bride and groom dance they are usually expressing this: Ha! All of them say you never have sexual intercourse after marriage, but I, we, are going to prove them wrong. Right? Honey?
I’ve watched people dancing ballet. They are expressing this: I’m thinking of what it would be like to have sexual intercourse with you, but feel the urge to run away. But when I run away, I feel the urge to stop, and turn, and come close to you again, and think about what it would be like to have sexual intercourse with you. But then I run away...
I’ve watched old movies of popular dancers from other eras. When Fred Astaire dances with a woman it is only a more chaste and stylized expression of the same thing: I’m thinking what it would be like if we got married, and then had sexual intercourse. Off-screen.
I’ve watched modern popular dancers. They dance to express this: I’m thinking about having sexual intercourse... with me. And so are you.
Rappers, at least the West Coast school of rappers that I’m more familiar with, don’t dance as much as posture. Yet their posturing expresses the same message in a supremely direct style: Fuck you. Fuck them. Fuck me.
Why are we alive?
I don’t know why. I could be wrong, but I’m inclined to believe that anyone who claims they know why we are alive should be jailed, put under a 24-hour suicide watch, and not allowed access to any technology of mass communication.
Had this been done after Adolf Hitler published Mein Kampf (in which he announced that he knew exactly why everyone was alive and that when he got out of jail he was going to do a lot about it) students would not have to watch old newsreel footage on the History Channel of Adolf dancing his victory jig, in which he clearly expressed this: I have fucked you all!
History is filled (as our daily newspapers, websites and television programs now are) with many people who have claimed to know the meaning of life, to know why we are all here. That meaning, that reason why we are all here, is always one of three things: to give them our money, to be their slaves, or to be their cannon fodder.
I say, to hell with all of them. I would express that in dance, but I don’t know how.
In fact, in all my many observations of people dancing in all kinds of settings I’ve yet to witness someone using dance to express anger.
So, why are we alive?
I could be wrong, but I believe a good answer to this simple question can be found in the second of the two messages that I’ve observed people in all kinds of settings using dance to express: joy.
If you stop and think about it, the emotion of joy is ridiculous.
Being alive is a lucky accident that has happened to each of us. It may be the only thing we all have in common.
Being free to move our bodies in any way that strikes our fancy is also a lucky accident we’ve done nothing to deserve.
Our lives, or our mobility, can end at any moment.
Knowing that we are alive and free to move are the roots of dancing. And of sexual intercourse. These two acts are urgent, immediate, and complicated. Only the professionals in both fields bother to read the manuals and work out the choreography. The rest of us make it up as we go along. Every time.
Because we can.
So, when Gene Kelly straps garbage can covers onto his feet and dances, it’s ridiculous.
And when two people meet on a dance floor and each is so obviously thinking what it would be like to have sexual intercourse with the other, it’s ridiculous.
And it's sublime.
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