A question to dancers.

I will happily leave a warm fireside at a time when respectable people are thinking about cocoa and pyjamas. Then dressed in flimsy dance wear I will go out in into the night, scrape frost off the car to drive to a dance hall and dance until the small hours of the morning.

Obsessive? Maybe but its worth it and I bet I am not the only FM who thinks so. My question to other dancers (any style) is why do you do it? Or more specifically can you capture and describe the feeling that motivates you to get up from a comfy sofa and go out dancing?

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I dont think I can describe clearly what it is about dancing which makes me go in all weathers to dance.
I know it makes me fitter and healthier but it isnt that which drives me.
I love it thats all I can say, I hate missing my dancing, it is my life.

Someone on ITT this week said (and it wasn't their original idea) that you express yourself emotionally through speaking and then, when speaking is inadequate, through song. Finally when song is insufficient to express your joy/misery etc you turn to dance.

So it's the most elemental of expressive forms.

I heard that quote it was one of the guys from G4 or who ever they were on the Friday panel. They attributed the quote to Bernstein but I have hunted and not found the quote. But yes it resonated with me too.

It was II Divo who said it last friday I think.

No I can't - it's just the only thing I like (or liked) to do. By the way, I never found a dance hall in Britain or the USA which stayed open until the "small hours of the morning". Eleven o'clock and that was that!

I think the lateness of the hour depends on the dance John. I don't know much about ballroom but percieve they tend to have the earliest finish. The Milongas I go to tend to start at 8 and finish at midnight - 1am at a pinch. But with salsa there is little point arriving before 10.30 because there is nobody there. Most salsa gigs I go to finish at 2.30, 3.00 or even 4.00 in the morning at weekends (1pm week nights). Then there are weekenders and all nighters where one leaves as the sun arrives.

Dance hall was misnomer really these are clubs/pubs, hired venues in social clubs etc. Once in a while I get to dance in a proper dance hall but its fairly rare.

Dance - or Ballroom Dancing - has been described as "a vertical expression of a horizontal desire."

Good description!

JJ

That suggests that one cannot dance alone without an audience.

Every time I listen to one of the dance music youtubes posted here I dance sitting down at the computer whilst listening. It just seems natural to me.

Some nutters speak to themselves; others sing in the shower; whenever I hear a great salsa, cumbia, merengue or perhaps AT track at home I dance whether I am with company or alone.

I am not looking to express myself; just to dance and feel the music through my bones.

My wife does not really like dancing. At weddings I dance with pretty much every other woman. So at home if there are no salsero guests to dance with, I dance alone.

I have not been to a dance hall for almost 20 years - except for a few tango lessons three years ago when I was diagnosed with cancer.

OK so maybe dance is indeed a way to break out.

No, I don't think it suggests at all that you need an audience.

I talk to myself, I sing to myself and I (very rarely) dance a little happy-dance.

Dance isn't much use to tell someone how to fix a boiler or do something functional but words may fail us when it comes to the emotions.

At the risk of sounding like Lisa, I dance because it's fun *adopts a Lisa facial expression and jazz hands*

"I dance because everyone loves it when I dance. I'm just so popular."

For me I can only describe the feeling as being similar to what it must be like to be able to fly. When everything clicks into place - your partner, the music, your connection with your body and your partner and to the music - it's the biggest high you can possibly have. There are some particular dances that I remember years and years later because the impact it had on me was so intense.

It also has a lot of very positive side effects - it's a wonderful de-stresser - any worries you may have are forgotten for the time you're on the dance floor. It also gives you an excuse to make yourself look glamourous 4 or 5 times a week and it gives you a ready made fantastic social life. Not to mention the fact that, even in middle age, it gives you a very slim and fit body with absolutely no effort required. But all those are just handy side effects and not the main motivation. The motivation is chasing that high, which is quite addictive and has kept me dancing four or five nights a week for the last twenty years or so.

I don't think the self expression automatically assumes there wil be an audience. I dance to myself far more expressively. There is nothing like an audience for clipping my wings. I love to dance but I don't have the performance gene.

It has taken over my life too.

I guess if I analyse it there are lots of reasons:

I was brought up in a family that loved dancing. My parents met at dance school. Fred Astaire was my father's idol. Watching those black and white films, I wanted to be Ginger Rogers, Cyd Charisse etc. So it's my way of escaping into an elegant, romantic world.

Then having started ballroom, I ventured into Latin and Argentine Tango. Those dances express aspects of my personality that are more below the surface.

It is also a challenge. It keeps me fit, both mentally and physically. It has made me take up other pursuits such as Pilates. I'm in better shape now than when I was younger.

Because I have been dancing since I was five and it's as natural as breathing to me.

My father picked me up in his arms and danced me around the room to Strauss. That was the beginning.

I started ballet at 5 and I haven't stopped dancing since, except to add flamenco, salsa - Cali and Cuban - and argentine tango to my repertoire. And Arthur Murray training as an AM teacher. I performed and I taught, but these days I am a media person. But I still dance.

Tonight I will go out in the freezing cold to dance Argentine Tango until 2am because I want to and I love to.

Lisa cartainly is very popular.

I just love it

A really brilliant summary that says it all. And for my part the ability to dance an excellent Slow Foxtrot whilst at the same time dancing to the great melodic 'standards' of yesteryear. Incidentally, I've watched S.C.D. spasmodically over the years but I have yet to see a contestant who has mastered the art of the Slow Foxtrot with all the smooth basics and heels and toes in the right place. It's not called the hardest ballroom dance for nothing!

Yes, this I understand. I dance because it's fun, because I always have done (like sofakat I started ballet at 3 and haven't gone more than 6 months without a dance lesson since, though for me it's always been just a hobby) and because there's a freedom to it that I love. There's no room for overthinking with dance; you work hard, you pay attention, you listen to the music and then you just go. If it doesn't work, you try again until something clicks. I feel at home doing it. I dance because I can't imagine not doing so. I certainly can't imagine not wanting to do so. My mum danced all her life and I fully expect to do the same.

I started ballet at six and didn't do it for long. Then throughout my teenage years was forced to do other types of dance which I resented.

I stopped as soon as I was old enough to refuse to do it anymore. But then in my 20s, I became stressed and not confident about the way I looked.

Taking up dance again (without parents forcing me to do it) was enjoyable. I wasn't terrible at it as I had a ''dance background'' and it gave me my confidence back. I think it has helped me move better and look better.

I've tried lots of different types of exercise but enjoy dance the most.

Flying is a bird's privilege made possible to humans by building an airframe perfected through mental ingenuity to emulate bird flight. On the dance floor flight is underpinned by understanding and precision.

In foxtrot when two partners move around a common axis of rotation, each dancer feels he weighs less than he does. This reminds me of an observatory telescope so sweetly balanced by counterweight that it feels weightless -- a finger can move a 5-ton telescope around its axis.

Two partners in exquisite harmony can not only fly but also sail beautifully, more like a catamaran than a single keel. With the body thus thrilled, music drifts into the window of the soul.......

So what type of dancing do you do exactly?

I like everything except jive where perpetual motion is too much for me. AT is rather outside of my experience, as it is like a jazz jam session with no end.

This is all theory, as I do not have a dance partner at the mo, settling for private lessons with a woman teacher. Will probably have to relocate to find the ideal partner.

I am always looking for analogies and parallels, wanting to see links between dance, painting, poetry, physics, engineering. I am therefore prone to be a thoroughly disruptive questioner and should not be allowed into any dance class intent on learning steps . When the time comes to pass a medal exam then of course I shall do what is required.