No wonder we all love a good dance

It’s not surprising that

Strictly Come Dancing is so popular – or that it has now spawned a series of imitators, from The Greatest Dancer on BBC One to Flirty

Dancing, a new Channel 4 dating show that makes singletons perform a routine together on their first date.

At the heart of all three is the fascination of observing two strangers learn to “read” each other through movement. Dance is as old as humanity. Sebastian Kirschner and Michael Tomasello at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig suggest dance evolved as a tool for social bonding. When four-year olds in their laboratory were paired up and asked to sing and dance together, they subsequently showed more cooperative and helpful behaviours.

Other research shows we’re predisposed to love rhythm, even to prefer it to the spoken word. Marcel Zentner at the University of York and Tuomas Eerola at the Finnish University of Jyväskylä played recordings of classical music, rhythmic drum beats and speech to babies aged five to 24 months. The children showed a preference for rhythmic sounds over speech, and when they heard the music or drum beats, even the youngest participants soon began to move enthusiastically.

Furthermore, the better able they were to synchronise their movements with the rhythm, the more they smiled and showed how happy they were.

This isn’t surprising. A number of academics – for example, Steven Mithen at the University of Reading and Peter Lovett at the University of Hertfordshire – believe dance evolved as the earliest means of communication, predating language. Dancing, Mithen suggests, allowed individuals to show off fitness and co-ordination – characteristics that aid survival – thereby communicating their attractiveness as mates.

However, the advantages of being a good dancer don’t stop there. Mary Kate Connolly and colleagues at Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music in London measured self-esteem levels of 55 adolescents before and after a course in contemporary dance. Not only did physical fitness and aerobic capacity increase, their levels of self-esteem rose significantly.

Finally, according to Hanna Poikonen at the University of Helsinki, dancing with a partner allows a couple to become attuned, not merely outwardly. When we dance with someone else, our low-frequency (theta) brain waves – those associated with positive affect and “flow” – become synchronised.

It’s not hard, therefore, to understand why human beings everywhere dance, and have always done so. Dance was one of the earliest – if not the earliest – means of interpersonal communication, and good dancers had an evolutionary advantage. Dancing also raises self-esteem, enhances creative problem solving ability, lifts mood, and allows us to connect emotionally.

No wonder we love it.