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1. Dance Songs Dissolve Differences That Divide Us. A new Harvard study pinpoints what types of music creates a universal language
2. What Is Line Dancing?
3 Why Is Dancing So Good for Your Brain? Dancers maximize cognitive function and muscle memory thro
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Dance Songs Dissolve Differences That Divide Us. A new Harvard study pinpoints what types of musi
posted Jan 26, 2018
People from just about every culture use lullabies to soothe babies, write love songs to express romantic feelings, and dance together in synchrony. Human song is used to facilitate specific psychological and social functions in ways that can make music a universal language, according to a new study from Harvard University. The paper, “Form and Function in Human Song," was published on January 25, 2018, in the journal Current Biology.
For this study, the researchers had participants in 60 countries listen to snippets of unfamiliar songs and categorize them based on form-function associations. Participants answered questions to identify how they thought each song was used based on six different social contexts — (1) for dancing, (2) to soothe a baby, (3) to heal illness, (4) to express love for another person, (5) to mourn the dead, and (6) to tell a story.
After hearing a quick, 14-second sampling of numerous songs, the two categories that really stood out as being universally identifiable by form and function were music to soothe a baby (lullabies) and dance songs. Although these findings may seem somewhat obvious on the surface, the researchers emphasize that their study reaffirms the existence of universal links between form and function in vocal music.
In a statement, co-first author Samuel Mehr said, "Despite the staggering diversity of music influenced by countless cultures and readily available to the modern listener, our shared human nature may underlie basic musical structures that transcend cultural differences." Mehr is a cognitive scientist and Director of The Music Lab at Harvard’s Department of Psychology.
Manvir Singh, who is also a co-first author of the study, added, "We show that our shared psychology produces fundamental patterns in song that transcend our profound cultural differences. This suggests that our emotional and behavioral responses to aesthetic stimuli are remarkably similar across widely diverging populations.”
The New York Times reported on this study in an article, “Can You Tell a Lullaby from a Love Song? Listen and Find Out,” by Alex Marshall. The online version of this article offers a fun, interactive game that asks the question "Can you tell what a song’s used for even when you have no experience of the culture that made it?” and invites readers to take a quiz based on the new study.
In his article, Marshall scrutinizes some aspects of the Mehr et al. study. He writes, “The work has been welcomed by cognitive scientists. But one group of academics has not given it such a warm response — ethnomusicologists, the very people who collected many of the recordings and descriptions the Harvard project is using.”
Marshall explains that some ethnomusicologists believe that removing a specific song from it’s multifaceted cultural, political, and social contexts negates accurate form-function interpretations. Mehr responded to these criticisms in the Times piece: “People all over the world interpret the music of their own culture in their own way. That’s a fascinating topic for research, but we’re asking a different question — whether people interpret the music of other cultures in similar ways.”
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Dance Songs May Have Evolved to Fortify Cooperative Relationships Between Different Groups
The ongoing controversy among ethnomusicologists about the possible universality of music isn’t likely to die down soon. That said, there is other scholarly research that focuses specifically on “Music and Dance As a Coalition Signaling System.” This study, by Edward Hagen and Gregory Bryant, explores the evolutionary role that dance songs may have played in bringing people from different cultural backgrounds together. As Hagen and Bryant explain in their abstract:
"The sexual selection hypothesis cannot easily account for the widespread performance of music and dance in groups (especially synchronized performances), and the social bonding hypothesis has severe theoretical difficulties. Humans are unique among the primates in their ability to form cooperative alliances between groups in the absence of consanguineal ties. We propose that this unique form of social organization is predicated on music and dance. Music and dance may have evolved as a coalition signaling system that could, among other things, credibly communicate coalition quality, thus permitting meaningful cooperative relationships between groups."
Anecdotally, I can corroborate that being on a dance floor with strangers from different parts of the globe facilitates unspoken cooperative alliances. For example, as an adolescent, I was fortunate enough to spend a summer in Spain as an exchange student. Almost every night, my Spanish friends and I would go to the discotheque.
Our favorite dance club was Joy Eslava, which was Madrid's "Studio 54." It was 1982, and Joy Eslava was an international disco-dancing hub. I can still remember my favorite dance anthems of "Verano ochenta y dos" — Mecano, "Just an Illusion" by Imagination, "Best Part of Breakin' Up, Is When We're Makin' Up" by Roni Griffith, and the extended dance mix of "Don't You Want Me" by Human League top the list. When I returned home, I kept going out dancing on a regular basis. It's a ritual that continues to this day.
On a rainy Sunday night in 1983, I was lucky enough to see Madonna perform in a small gay nightclub in Boston, before she became famous. Witnessing her boldness changed my life. She had so much chutzpah and joie de vivre (and dropped the F-bomb about a dozen times). Most important, as a member of the LGBTQ community, Madonna was the first performer I'd ever seen in concert who didn’t seem to care about people’s sexual orientation. She just wanted to make everyone in the audience happy and inspire us to dance. Through the lens of dance music’s universality, the song "Holiday" is spot on: “Come together, in every nation!”
In May 1990, Madonna's "Vogue" became one of the most massive international dance hits of all time, selling millions of copies and topping music charts around the globe. And the lyrics sum up the universal power of music and dancing:
Look around, everywhere you turn is heartache. It's everywhere that you go. You try everything you can to escape. The pain of life that you know. When all else fails and you long to be, something better than you are today — I know a place where you can get away. It's called a dance floor. And, that's what it's for.
It makes no difference if you're black or white. If you're a boy or a girl. If the music's pumping, it will give you life. You're a superstar. Yes, that's what you are. You know it.
Madonna et al. performing "Vogue" flawlessly at the 1990 MTV Music Awards:
A 2016 study, "Silent Disco: Dancing in Synchrony Leads to Elevated Pain Thresholds and Social Closeness,” found that moving in synchrony leads to cooperative behavior and feelings of social closeness between strangers.
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All of this research on the universal power of dance music begs the question: In a time of xenophobia and anti-immigration rhetoric, maybe increasing the prevalence of music and dancing in our daily lives is an underutilized way to bring people from different backgrounds together and help us empathize with one another?
I did a random Google search for the most popular dance songs of all time. Of course, I am biased in curating the following Top 10 list based on when (1966) and where (New York City) I was born. Even though the songs are dated, I think the clips form a timeless exhibit of how “Dance Songs Dissolve Differences That Divide Us,” and illuminate why each of us should make more of an effort to Boogie, Oogie, Oogie on a regular basis:
1. "Y.M.C.A." by The Village People
2. "Night Fever" by Bee Gees
3. "Dancing Queen" by ABBA
4. "Groove Is in the Heart" by Deee-Lite
5. "We Are Family" by Sister Sledge
6. "The Hustle" by Van McCoy
7. "I Will Survive" by Gloria Gaynor
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ARt9HV9T0w8
8. "Thank You (Falettin Me Be Mice Elf Agin)" by Sly & The Family Stone
9. "Into The Groove" by Madonna
10. "Brick House" by Commodores
References
Samuel A. Mehr, Manvir Singh, Hunter York, Luke Glowacki, Max M. Krasnow. “Form and Function in Human Song.” Current Biology (Published: January 25, 2018) DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2017.12.042
Edward H. Hagen and Gregory A. Bryant. "Music and Dance As a Coalition Signaling System." Human Nature (2003) DOI: 10.1007/s12110-003-1015-z
Bronwyn Tarr, Jacques Launay, and Robin IM Dunbar. "Silent Disco: Dancing in Synchrony Leads to Elevated Pain Thresholds and Social Closeness." Evolution and Human Behavior (2016) DOI: 10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2016.02.004
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What Is Line Dancing?
https://www.thoughtco.com/line-dancing-basics-1007387
What Is Line Dancing?
Updated February 24, 2019
Line dancing is exactly what its name implies: people dancing in lines to music. Line dances are choreographed dances with a repeating series of steps that are performed in unison by a group of people in lines or rows, most often without the dancers making contact with one another.
All the dancers performing a line dance face the same direction and perform the steps at exactly the same time. Although there are usually several lines, small groups may only form one line, but it's still considered a line dance even if only two people are participating.
From the American immigrants' adaptation of polka and the waltz in the 1800s that developed into square dancing to folk dances in schools of the 1900s, the origins of this dance format are widespread. Discover more about this centuries-old dance format and how to line dance below.
Line Dancing History
Although many popular line dances are set to country music, the first line dances did not originate from country-western dancing. Line dancing is believed to have originated from folk dancing, which has many similarities.
Contra dancing, a form of American folk dance in which the dancers form two parallel lines and perform a sequence of dance movements with different partners down the length of the line, probably had a huge influence on the line dancing steps we are familiar with today.
During the 1980s and 1990s, line dances started being created for popular country songs. One example is a dance made for Billy Ray Cyrus' 1992 smash hit "Achy Breaky Heart." Even pop music began to see an upswing in line dances in the 1990s, with "the Macarena" serving as a sort of hybrid folk-pop dance number that swept the world by storm.
Line Dance Format
Basic line dances focus on movements of the legs and feet, with more advanced dances including the arms and hands. The movements of a line dance are marked as "counts," where one count generally equals one musical beat. A particular movement or step takes place at each beat.
A line dance will have a certain number of counts, meaning the number of beats in one complete sequence of the dance. For example, a 64-count dance would contain 64 beats. The number of beats does not necessarily equal the number of steps, however, as steps can be performed between two beats or over more than one beat.
Line dances are made up of a certain number of steps, with each step identified by a catchy name. The Texas Two-Step, the Tush Push, the West Coast Shuffle, the Redneck Girl, and the Boot Scootin' Boogie are all well-known line dances still performed in country-western bars today.
Line Dancing Today
Because its steps are simple and don't involve dancing with a partner, line dancing is ideal for singles and people who don't normally dance. Line dancing is taught and practiced in country-western dance bars, social clubs, and dance halls around the world.
One of the most popular line dances performed today is the "Cha-Cha Slide," whose easy-to-follow steps are dictated right in the lyrics to the song. The "Cupid Shuffle" also became largely popular at high school dances in the early 2000s and is still played in clubs.
Wherever the line dance originated, one thing's for certain: this easy-to-learn group dance format isn't going anywhere anytime soon!Customers have questions, you have answers. Display the most frequently asked questions, so everybody benefits.
Why Is Dancing So Good for Your Brain? Dancers maximize cognitive function and muscle memory thro
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