In defense of dance

“I just think it’s disgusting, the way people dance in there. I mean, everybody’s all up on each other. It’s so... vulgar.”

The above is just a minor excerpt of the conversation I overheard Friday morning as I silently rode the C-1, looking for anything to distract me from my extreme weariness. That opportunity came in the form of a discussion between two (presumably) freshman girls over their first trip to Shooters II the night before. Needless to say, their discussion consisted mostly of criticism of the establishment and the forms of dance that take place there.

It’s an experience shared across our generation, to be looked down upon for the pastime that we so aptly call “grinding.” Parents and chaperones alike always have at least a few words to offer on the subject, as if the disapproving glares were not in and of themselves enough. Most Duke students will remember the six inches rule from middle school, and anyone who walked my high school halls with me can recall the community-wide forum held on the subject after our first dance one year.

One would ask why, but the answer is obvious. Anyone will concede that contemporary dance is infinitely more provocative and sexual in its form than the dances of our parents. As one of my high school teachers put it, we’re “just trying to get as close to having sex as we can without actually doing it.”

But is that really so different from the way dance has ever been in the past? The appearance of it now is, of course, much more overt. In its function, however, has popular dance ever really been anything more than a method by which to relieve sexual tension, and maybe to find a mate?

Think about it. Before our generation, there was Footloose (1984). The film, fairly successful at the box office and since then a cult classic, was centered around the idea of dance as a means of escape in an oppressively Christian city. When neither dance nor sex is permitted, the film takes on a frantic feel and is full of desperation. However, at the height of the movie, just when things are at their most tense, all is suddenly released in a climactic ecstasy of dance that leaves both the characters and the viewer with an immense feeling of relief. It’s difficult to draw any conclusion here other than one of dance as a means of sexual expression.

Take it back another generation to the wildly popular Saturday Night Fever (1977), a film that encapsulated an era in which not only expression but partners could be won or lost on the dance floor. Sex runs more rampant here, and the lines between being someone’s dance partner and someone’s sexual partner are blurred more than once. That sentence alone could fit into any Sunday morning conversation concerning Shooters. It’s also worth mentioning that this film attempted to reflect the nightlife that many of our parents may have frequented, indicating that their dances and ours may not be so different in their aims after all.

There’s further proof of the universality of dance as an outlet for pent-up sexual frustration in what one would think a much more unlikely source. Jane Austen’s “Pride and Prejudice” (taking place in 19th century England) is wrought with references to dances. A considerable amount of anxiety precedes each ball that is thrown in the book, the sense of which is only heightened during the scenes in which those balls take place. In fact, it’s only after the dances that one feels a release of tension and relief from strain, much like in the previously mentioned Kevin Bacon film. In fact, much of the courting that leads to marriage between the girls and their suitors is done on the dance floor. From this perspective, Austen’s dance culture begins to look a lot like our hook-up culture.