Todd Stadler's blog

dance as metaphor? no way!

It seems to me that dancing through the years naturally reflects the changing societal mores. Not that this is in any way surprising, but it's interesting to me.

Back in the days of ballroom dancing, there were not only rules for how to do a particular dance, but how to pick a partner, how to dress, and how to behave one's self at a dancing event. Great importance was given to order in society, to make sure that everything went smoothly. It was all very orchestrated.

Gradually, the societal rules started loosening, while the dance rules remained. The focus moved from the entire room, or society, to the couple level. This can be seen in the emergence of swing.

Then, as we move into more recent years, the rules dissolved even further. No longer did we see couple dances with many complex maneuvers, but dances in which all the moves necessary were very simple and done by one person, such as the twist or mashed potato.

Eventually this gave way to an even less defined dance structure, in which people were expected to do their own thing to the beat.

Perhaps an extreme example of this is the mosh pit, in which any regard for the tempo of the music is largely ignored in favor of the power or intensity of it all. Indeed, it may be said that dancing, as such, is looked down upon.

This is a very simplistic view of soceity and dancing, of course, and it ignores parallel trends in music that encouraged such dancing, but I find it all rather interesting nonetheless.