The Universal Dance: Why We Move Together

The Universal Dance: Why We Move Together

Across the globe and throughout recorded history, human beings have engaged in rhythmic movements. This action seems to be a fundamental impulse, revealing the intuitive truth that dance serves as a universal human constant. We celebrate, mourn, and participate in rituals by dancing at weddings and other events. But does dance truly function as a universal language? Is it deeply encoded in our biology, as some have poetically suggested, stemming from the ever-present beat of our own hearts?

This journey into the universality of dance will explore the profound connection between our bodies, our cultures, and our innate need for rhythmic expression. We will see that while the impulse to dance appears to be a fundamental aspect of the human condition, its forms are as diverse as the cultures that create them. The story of dance is not one of a simple biological reflex but of a sophisticated, biocultural tool for solving the timeless human quests for meaning, community, and connection.

“Everything in the universe has a rhythm, everything dances.” -Maya Angelou

Table of contents

A Global Tapestry: Is Dance a Universal Language?

The idea that dance is a universal feature of human society is backed by a vast amount of evidence. Archaeological findings, from 10,000 BCE cave paintings in India to ancient Egyptian tombs, depict dancing figures, placing rhythmic movement among our oldest forms of expression, predating written language by millennia. Anthropologists have long recognized dance as a “near-universal human activity” that serves foundational roles in the spiritual, social, and narrative life of nearly every known culture.

However, many people mistakenly view dance as a “universal language,” which oversimplifies its beauty. Dancers learn the meaning of their movements, which become deeply embedded in a specific cultural context. As the pioneering dancer and choreographer Martha Graham once stated, “Dance is the hidden language of the soul.” (1) Like any spoken tongue, that language features its own vocabulary, grammar, and dialects.

To truly grasp a dance, one must delve into the culture from which it originates. The fluid hip movements of Egyptian Raqs Sharqi (Belly Dance) convey a different narrative than the rigid torso and intricate footwork of Irish dancing. A Hawaiian Hula performance becomes incomprehensible without an understanding of the chants that narrate the stories of the land and its gods. It is a mistake to assume that one dance form, such as Western ballet, serves as a neutral standard against which all others are measured. In reality, every dance stands as an “ethnic dance,” reflecting the unique history and values of its people.

The Exception That Proves the Rule

A fascinating challenge to the idea that dance is a biological inevitability comes from the Northern Aché people of Paraguay. Extensive ethnographic research has documented this group as having no tradition of communal dance or even lullabies. This finding is crucial. If dance were a hard-wired instinct, like smiling, it should appear in every human group. The Aché case suggests that dance is more like a complex cultural technology—akin to making fire—than an innate reflex. It is a skill that must be invented, learned, and passed down, and under severe pressure, it can be lost.

“To dance is to be out of yourself. Larger, more beautiful, more powerful. This is power, it is glory on earth and it is yours for the taking.”1 – Agnes de Mille

The Expressive Core: The Many Functions of Dance

If dance is not formally universal, it is functionally so. Around the world, it is used as a powerful tool to accomplish critical social and spiritual goals. Let’s explore some of the diverse roles dance plays in devotion, social cohesion, and the construction of identity.

Dance as Devotion: The Whirling Dervishes

The Sema ceremony of the Mevlevi Order, or the Whirling Dervishes, serves as a profound example of dance as a spiritual technology. For the Dervishes, the iconic whirling becomes a form of physically active meditation, a discipline they use to achieve a state of ecstatic union with the divine. Inspired by the 13th-century mystic Rumi, they imbue every element with symbolism. The tall hat signifies the ego’s tombstone, while the white skirt represents its shroud. As they spin, they turn one hand to the heavens to receive God’s grace and the other towards the earth to bestow it upon creation. Their goal is to transcend the self and achieve a state of fana, or annihilation in God.

“Dance, when you’re broken open. If you’ve torn the bandage off. In the middle of the fighting. When in your blood. Dance when you’re perfectly free.” -Rumi

Dance as Community: The Hora

The Hora is a circle dance found throughout the Balkans and in Jewish communities, and it serves as a powerful physical enactment of community. Dancers link arms, forming a circle that represents unity, equality, and continuity. At Jewish weddings and other celebrations, the Hora is radically inclusive, welcoming everyone into the circle to express shared joy. The lifting of the bride and groom on chairs is a symbolic elevation, celebrating their joy and connection. In other contexts, like in traditional Romanian villages, the circle could be a gatekeeping mechanism, opening to admit new members and closing to exclude those who violated social norms. This demonstrates how a simple form can be adapted as a dynamic social technology.

Elaborate contemporary ballet

Dance as Identity: The Evolution of Belly Dance

The history of Belly Dance (Raqs Sharqi) provides a compelling case study of how people contest and reclaim a dance’s meaning over time. Rooted in ancient practices possibly related to fertility rites and childbirth, women performed these dances for one another. However, 19th-century European Orientalism dramatically altered its perception. Western fantasies sexualized the form, reducing it to the titillating French name danse du ventre (“dance of the stomach”) and creating stereotypes far removed from its celebratory, communal origins. In the 20th century, many women, particularly during the feminist movement, reclaimed belly dance as a symbol of female empowerment, bodily autonomy, and community. The dancing body becomes a canvas where people debate, rewrite, and powerfully express cultural identity.

“Dance is the only art of which we ourselves are the stuff of which it is made.” – Judith Jamison

A line dancer in a tent at Wadi Rum

The Rhythm Within: Debunking the Heartbeat Hypothesis

This brings us back to the poetic idea that our urge to dance comes from the rhythm of our own heartbeat. While it’s a beautiful metaphor, the science points to a more complex and even more fascinating reality.

The Neuroscience of Dance and Rhythm

Humans are fundamentally rhythmic beings, immersed in rhythm even before birth in the womb with the mother’s heartbeat and movement. Research shows that newborn infants can perceive rhythmic patterns and are surprised when a beat is missed, showing they have already internalized the pulse. This is why Plato believed that “Music and rhythm find their way into the secret places of the soul.”

Sema ceremony of the Mevlevi Order, or the Whirling Dervishes

Our ability to dance relies on a sophisticated neural process called beat perception and motor entrainment. When we hear music, the auditory and motor systems in our brain link up. Your brain doesn’t just hear the beat; it actively predicts when the next one will occur, allowing you to clap, tap, or move precisely on the beat, not just after it. The sensation of “groove”—that irresistible urge to move—is the result of your brain’s predictive audio-motor network being engaged by rhythms of moderate complexity.

So, what about the heartbeat? While there is a link between the cardiac cycle and the brain’s motor cortex, the heartbeat itself is not the pacemaker for dance. The heart’s rhythm is variable, whereas the music that makes us want to dance is often based on a steady, stable beat. The true “rhythm-making machine” is not our heart, but the predictive power of our brain. The heartbeat is a powerful symbol for our innate biological rhythmicity, but it is not the literal driver of dance.

The Hora is a circle dance in Jewish communities

“And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music.” – Friedrich Nietzsche

The Evolution of Dance: Why We Move Together

If not the heartbeat, then why did this capacity for dance evolve at all? The leading scientific theories point to two key adaptive advantages: social bonding and courtship.

  1. The Social Bonding Hypothesis: Moving in synchrony with others is a powerful way to build trust, empathy, and group solidarity. Synchronized group activity, like dance, can trigger the release of endorphins, fostering feelings of pleasure and connection. For our ancestors, where cooperation was essential for survival, dance was a technology for rapidly bonding the group together. As researcher Brené Brown reminds us, “Connection is why we’re here; it is what gives purpose and meaning to our lives.” (2) Dance is a physical manifestation of that connection.
  2. The Courtship Display Hypothesis: Dance also evolved as a way to advertise one’s quality as a mate. Good dancing is an “honest signal” of health, strength, coordination, and vitality—traits that are hard to fake. It’s a dynamic, full-body resume of an individual’s fitness, making it a potent tool in the process of mate selection.

These two functions are not mutually exclusive. They often happen at the same time, explaining why dance is so central to rituals, celebrations, and social gatherings. It’s a space where we can both showcase ourselves as individuals and unify ourselves as a collective.

Adumu, also known as the Maasai jumping dance

The Synthesis of Biology and Culture

In the end, the universality of dance is not about a simple instinct. It is a profound synthesis of biology and culture. We are, at our core, rhythmic primates, born with brains predisposed to find and entrain to rhythm. Culture then takes this raw biological capacity and shapes it into an infinite variety of meaningful forms—from the sacred whirl of a Sufi mystic to the joyful circle of a wedding Hora.

Dence is at the intersection of biology and culture

Dance is where our biology and our culture meet. It is a testament to our evolved need for connection and our creative capacity for expression. It is a language we speak with our entire beings. And as the great Irish poet W.B. Yeats mused, in that moment of pure expression, we become inseparable from the act itself:

“O body swayed to music, O brightening glance, / How can we know the dancer from the dance?”3 William Butler Yeats

Dance is Universal

The next time you feel the urge to move to a beat, know that you are tapping into something ancient and deeply human—a rhythmic impulse that has connected us, celebrated us, and defined us for millennia.

Alex Westerman in the New York City Ballet's production of The Nutcracker

Alex Westerman (that’s me)in the New York City Ballet’s production of The Nutcracker

Read my paper: The Rhythmic Primate: An Interdisciplinary Inquiry into the
Universality of Dance and its Biological Origins

Further Reading List

  1. “The Rhythmic Primate: An Interdisciplinary Inquiry into the Universality of Dance and its Biological Origins” by Alexander Westerman – The core document this article is based on, providing an in-depth academic exploration of the topic.
  2. An Anthropologist Looks at Ballet as a Form of Ethnic Dance” by Joann Kealiinohomoku – A foundational essay in dance anthropology that challenges ethnocentric views of dance.
  3. “The Dancing Wu Li Masters: An Overview of the New Physics” by Gary Zukav – While about physics, this book wonderfully explores the interconnectedness of all things, a theme that resonates with the universal nature of rhythm and dance.
  4. “The World in Six Songs: How the Musical Brain Created Human Nature” by Daniel J. Levitin – An exploration of the role of music and song (and by extension, dance) in human evolution, covering themes of knowledge, friendship, religion, and love.
  5. Akram Khan Company – Explore the work of a contemporary choreographer who masterfully blends classical Indian Kathak with modern dance to tell universal stories. https://www.akramkhancompany.net/
  6. The Association of Dance Movement Psychotherapy UK – Learn more about the therapeutic applications of dance and movement. https://admp.org.uk/

Performing Arts Posts

Footnotes

  1. Agnes de Mille, “The Book of the Dance” (1963). ↩︎
  2. Brené Brown, “The Gifts of Imperfection” (2010). ↩︎
  3. William Butler Yeats, “Among School Children” (1928). ↩︎

Discover more from Alex Westerman

Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.

Subscribe
Notify of

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

3 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments