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[Music] for someone who has spent their whole life dancing the question what is dance should be simple to answer i know dancing when i see it and i certainly feel it when i’m doing it but defining what is and what is not dance is a much more difficult question to answer than you might think where does movement stop and dancing begin one of the definitions of dance given by the oxford english dictionary is to leap skip hop or glide with measured steps and rhythmical movements of the body usually to the accompaniment of music either by oneself or with a partner in a set but if someone is not performing any of those actions listed in the oed definition can we say they are definitely not dancing i don’t think so i often dance without a leap skip hop or glide sometimes i dance without a measured step and sometimes when i dance i’m not in the least bit rhythmic therefore i don’t think we can rely on this definition as it doesn’t allow for the full breadth of what dancing is and how to distinguish it from not dance i much prefer this description by jacques dambros the famous american dancer and choreographer dance is your pulse your heartbeat your breathing it’s the rhythm of your life it’s the expression in time and movement in happiness joy sadness and envy i love that dance is the expression of emotion in movement which also makes it a crucially social thing one of the most socially powerful and communicative activities there is i feel a strong urge to dance what i’ve always loved about disco music from the 1970s and 80s is the hypnotic beat of the 4-4 rhythm listening to donna summer singing i feel love for eight minutes straight sends me into a trance framed within a four beat rhythm there is layer upon layer of changing color that empties your brain of all thoughts just like the endorphin high of a long distance runner carried along by the repetitive monotony of their steps i get the same sensation from a steady beat i feel as though the music is a puppeteer and all my movements are involuntary if you don’t know what i’m talking about try it and take some time to practice it produces a feeling of awe and wonder search for the original 12-inch record from 1977. you don’t have to do anything clever just close your eyes and focus on the music headphones might help if you feel an urge to move keep that movement small if you need a starter just tap your foot or finger or nod your head keep it anchored on the strong regular beat one two three four and keep going until you’re not thinking about what you’re doing don’t let self-consciousness destroy your groove lose yourself now let your mind go deeper into the rhythm you and the music by keeping the movements discreet you can do this form of dancing sitting at a desk on the bus even walking down the street another disco tune that you could practice to is cuba by the gibson brothers listen out for the syncopated hand clapping which is clapping on an offbeat and it was very popular in the 70s it’s about halfway through it builds during the final 90 seconds so stay with it and then of course there’s always michael jackson who cuts up a standard 4-4 beautifully in wannabe starting something the drive to seek out rhythmic patterns in our environments and respond to them physically is natural for humans and it begins very early on a team of scientists from holland and hungary discovered in a neonatal neuroscience experiment that two-day-old babies can recognize and remember auditory rhythms the babies were fitted with caps with lots of electrodes on the inside to measure the electrical activity going on in their brain as drum and bass music was played to them even when they were asleep the human brain is active all the time and it’s constantly responding to what’s happening both in our body and around us some people believe that we only use about 10 percent of our brain at any time but that isn’t true the neurons in our brain fire constantly it’s like a a new year’s eve firework display going on in our heads 24 hours a day 365 days of the year it is this that the scientists were able to measure in the babies every flash bang the scientists then played the same music again but this time they took out some of the beats the question was would the babies notice that some of the beats were missing well the baby’s brains reacted differently when they heard the section of music which contained the missing beat and this convinced the scientists that babies as young as two day old could recognize and remember rhythmic patterns this suggests that the capability to detect a beat in rhythmic sound is something we are born with we are literally born to dance perception of rhythm is just the first part of unlocking the magic of donna summers i feel love the desire urge or need to move in response to the music comes from a brain process called sensory motor coupling whereby a sound triggers the parts of the brain responsible for movement either giving us an urge to move or actually making us move the movements of different parts of our body are controlled by different parts of the brain the same process occurs with the startle reflex where we hear a sudden unexpected noise which makes us jump one of my favorite university studies into the urge to dance was carried out in california scientists wanted to find out which piece of music was most likely to activate the sensory motor area of the brain before we go on any further can you guess which genre of music either folk rock jazz or r b in seoul is most likely to make people want to move and which particular song to find out scientists played 148x from these genres and asked people to say how much each piece gave them an urge to move what they found was that r b stroke soul music was rated as groovier than folk rock and jazz and that in general fast music was rated as groovier than slow music the grooviest piece of music was superstition a track released by stevie wonder in 1972 a funky soul classic another piece of music that produces a strong urge to move for me is a 1962 tune from quincy jones called soul bossa nova have a listen and try to keep still you …