“Relationships and communities are created between people who move together.”
Messages of community … participants do the Electric Slide during the Dance For George protest for justice in New York in June 2020. Photograph: Shoun Hill/Alamy
"It’s been observed that during times of significant world change, the popularity of house music peaks as people look for a way to release all their pent-up stress and energy on the dance floor. Think of the German youth dancing during the fall of the Berlin Wall, inspired by the tunes that came out of 1980s Detroit and Chicago, or LGBTQ people finding a family in the face of marginalisation in society.
"House music and dance have accompanied recent protests such as the Freedom to Dance rally in London in the summer of 2021, to encourage the lifting of Covid restrictions in the music and hospitality sectors. At the global Black Lives Matter demonstrations against police brutality and racism in 2020, people sometimes danced to the Electric Slide, a 22-step sequence incorporating the grapevine move. Such dances bring forth messages of community to those who are thought of as outsiders.
“'The way we communicate on the dance floor is non-verbal, and this is part of why it’s so important to society as it provides other ways of being together than our day-to-day lives allow,' says Ruth Pethybridge, a senior lecturer in dance at the University of Falmouth. 'Relationships and communities are created between people who move together.' Pethybridge believes that house dance, a form of social freestyle dance, enables people to create their own signature styles through its high levels of improvisation and wide variety of stylistic influences. These include African dance (the rhythmic sounds of the drums, footwork and movement of the torso in harmony with the music); Caribbean and Afro-Latino dance; and Brazilian martial arts capoeira with its graceful acrobatic movements. Other influences include jazz, tap and voguing combined with fast and intricate footwork, jacking, lofting and floorwork similar to breakdancing. This mixture “'s part of what makes it a community that can welcome difference and is often associated with ideas of freedom,' says Pethybridge." -
Article: ‘People Who Move Together’: the Social Power of House Dance