Dance: The Ultimate Frivolity
By: Moe Aloha
Tags: Dance, Festivals, Clubbing, Embodiment, Healing

Dance: The Ultimate Frivolity

I often wonder, what has compelled man to dance since the morn of time itself? Before the big rigs, mammoth projections, and acoustically treated spaces we have engaged in collective contortions, synchronized swirls, and all righteous stomps.

We dance when we feel good, we dance when we feel bad, we dance in ecstasis, we dance for catharsis, we dance to release and we dance to connect. Dancing allows us to access something far greater than ourselves, and it’s not just another weird thing that humans do, a casual observation of the natural world offers the same findings. Spanning from the dawn of our time through ancient rituals to the modern-day, from birds of paradise to sea horses; this common behavior serves to connect us to our environment as well as support our evolution.

Bird of Paradise busting a move / Tim Laman

It’s not until something is taken away from us that we are reminded of the immeasurable value it brings our lives. For the majority of my life, I’ve been drawn to the magnetic pull of bands, DJ’s and solo artists all over the world, and the peak experiences they’ve always led me to have been a huge part of my journey of self-discovery. Experiences that are momentarily all-encompassing and tend to dissolve in my hands the moment I try to grab on to them yet leave me with a palpable sense of soul nourishment.

I’ve always looked at music and dance through the lens of social connection; that feeling of being arm in arm with a complete stranger connected only by the lyrics you are both singing and stomping along to. But one thing I’ve realised through my journey of embodiment and deepening my understanding of the innate intelligence of my flesh suit, is that movement also doubles up as a powerful way to shift energy throughout the body and process life itself. Whether it’s shifting stagnant energy and denser vibrations or connecting to more powerful ones of transcendence and unity, our body has always (sometimes of its own accord) sprouted into the air like an emergent seedling and reached for the skies connecting the form to the formless.

A brief history of Dance

Evidence places the first archaeological proof of dance from 9,000 years ago, found in the caves of Northern India. It is by no stretch of the imagination that we have been dancing since we have been walking, and it has been well documented throughout the times, with the ancient Egyptians well known for using dance for ceremonial purposes. Dance has and still does form a pivotal part of rituals in indigenous communities around the world. The famous jumping dance where the Maasai men jump as high as possible is officially known as the adamu. The dance is part of the Eunoto ceremony, where boys transition to men and the jumping also doubles up as a way for men to attract brides. The higher the man can jump, the more of an eligible bachelor he is.

The world-famous Maasai warrior dance

African slaves shipped to Brazil were banned from dancing by Portuguese colonists attempting to separate them from their traditional customs in the hopes of whitewashing them into the dominant culture. The Portugal colonialists placed a blanket ban on all dancing and martial arts, and it is said the art of Capoeira emerged as a way to bypass these two imposing laws by fusing the two together.

Even as recently as 2017 there were bans on dancing with the infamous Cabaret Laws of New York finally being repealed. These laws were originally put in place to curb the rise of Jazz music and the consequent mingling of black people and white people. Sharp DJs at one time were known to play “Eleanor Rigby” by the Beatles to signal to the crowd that the vibes were officially killed as the police had just entered the premises on one of their routine raids. (Sidenote: Isn’t funny wherever there is fun to be had, the fun police are never too far off to make sure we’re not having too much fun?)

From the bebop to the waltz, from the haka to the floss, we have been dancing to bond, tell stories and heal since the dawn of our age. As a DJ who has racked up countless hours observing and conducting the flow of energy in these spaces — and even more as a punter, I always gathered there was a lot more at play here than throwing down obscure shapes in dimly lit rooms. It was almost as if we were summoning the rituals of our ancestors from the depths of our psyche, albeit in an updated modern-day context.

Sunday Service kick ons or Saturday night at the Market Stage?

“In many shamanic societies, if you came to a shaman or medicine person complaining of being disheartened, dispirited, or depressed, they would ask one of four questions: When did you stop dancing? When did you stop singing? When did you stop being enchanted by stories? When did you stop finding comfort in the sweet territory of silence?”- Gabrielle Roth

Dance Therapy

One of the most accessible ways to remove emotional blocks is through dance. Having been stuck in one of the longest lockdowns on the planet there have been times I’ve needed to reboot my system and one of the quickest ways I’ve been able to get myself out of a funk has been to press play on a sick mix and dance.

As we slowly evolve from the traditional schools of Freudian Psychological thought that saw the subconscious mind as a purely primitive reactionary beast that needed to be tamed, the emergent research points to the subconscious mind actually existing in the body, in particular the emotive mind. Doctors like Gabor Mate are leading the way in observing all internal systems operating in symbiosis; with the brain, gut, cardiovascular, immune, hormonal, muscular, and skeletal systems all in constant communication with each other. When one suffers, so does another.

95% of serotonin (one of the primary hormones that creates feelings of happiness and wellbeing) is created in the gut. We tense up when we are stressed. Even blind people have been seen finishing races with their arms in the air. This really dissolves the conventional thought of the brain being the primary driver of feelings and thoughts into the sea of outdated science relics alongside female orgasms being a sign of hysteria and LSD being an effective mind-control device. As we flip the script on the previously held psychological paradigms of the western world through the emergence of somatic therapy, the embodiment movement, and more niche modalities such as tapping, we start to see the body as much more of a sacred vessel in which we can transmute pain into pleasure.

This of course is nothing new to Eastern & Indigenous medicine and philosophical traditions who have long understood the body holds the key to mental, spiritual, and physical health. Even in my own personal yogic practice I’ve processed, released, and integrated an incomparable amount to anything I would've been able to achieve by traditional talk therapy or otherwise medical means. Through dance and movement, we can entangle ourselves into shapes our bodies may not be often predisposed to in our day-to-day that helps us really get into the nooks and crannies of the fascia which stores unprocessed emotions, and in turn, release them. So it’s no wonder dancing often brings with it feelings of euphoria.

Giddy (up)

The Tran-Sendance

The primary motivator for me in writing this article was stumbling on the concept of “Collective Effervescence” coined by Emile Durkheim, which can be translated literally as sending yourself into a Kundalini awakening. In other words, collective effervescence is a sense of enthusiasm that spreads between individuals and infects the whole group as they share experiences of excitement. Mirror neurons fire up and we find a common rhythm and through these neural networks syncing up, we meld into one and another. Practiced for prolonged periods this can induce feelings of transcendence — lifting people up like a UFO abducting people onto a spiritual plane of existence. I personally feel that our soul craves these experiences, in particular the ones that connect us to something much greater than ourselves.

We see people congregating en masse to football games, religious conferences, business expos, festivals. These common rituals are simply avatars for the real thing — we get dressed up in socially appropriate garments, often consuming a manner of substances that act as a social lubricant which in turn helps us lower our guard. We save up our hard-earned cash sometimes for months at a time, to let rip for one all-encompassing experience all for the sole purpose to connect and simply feel each other and our own humanity. Why do we go to such great lengths to experience something we can feel at any given moment in time by simply opening our hearts?

At the heart of all this is getting together for a common unity. By starting to not simply see ourselves as individual components separate from the larger tapestry of life, we can start to increase our awareness outside of the remit of our existence. Couple that with increased individual vitality and enhanced social glue, dancing is one of the most powerful tools we have to traverse the somewhat treacherous times we find ourselves in.

That time I unlocked the keys to the universe through the Fibonacci dab

In my own experience of connecting deeper to my body through movement and mindfulness practices, I’ve found the better I have treated my body the better it has reflected the world to me. Almost as though the seeds and stories of my life are waiting to be awakened through the careful cultivating of a healthy vessel. Yoga, in particular, has really given me an insight into the mechanics of the body and how the inspiration etched into myself at the cellular level just needs a stretch and twist to be released. Numerous times I have turned up to the mat with an intention to release certain emotions or to gain inspiration/ clarity/ motivation and without fail the idea that holds the key to my quandary is liberated and a fountain of understanding showers me. And all I needed to do was to give myself permission.

As dancefloors return all over the world after extended periods of gathering dust, let us remember why we are returning and what part of ourselves we are letting shine. Take a moment before you step onto the dancefloor and check in with yourself. Why am I here? What is my intention for the night? How can I honor myself and others? These are all questions I like to ask myself every time I step into a space to anchor in my energetic tone for the night.