We rarely get to do this in life. Most of our communication is verbal, written and spoken, and is full of deception, manipulation. We erect powerful mental barriers that screen all but a trickle of information. Body language is so inefficient (in terms of the physical energy required to do so, the speed of communication, the lack of complexity of the message) that we feel anyone communicating to us in such a way must desperately want our attention, and the message will probably be of high quality and trustworthiness. An email is cheap, but if someone skywrites 'I love you', you tend to believe it.
When communication goes in both directions and the messages are aimed toward working with each other to create something beautiful one can't help but feel a rush like that of love.
Admittedly, this may sound like some kind of academic pursuit, but it is a huge source of the enjoyment of dance. Music isn't just some obscure body of knowledge. It usually is designed to convey an emotion. Allowing oneself to get lost in that emotion (in a safe way) can be very pleasing.
Dance music can have a large emotional range. One can feel sexy, cool, powerful, silly, violent. We cannot normally allow ourselves to be these things because our peers need and expect a narrow emotional medium to deal with us. Dancing allows us to let loose.
An average dance can be made incredible by adding a little bit of this, and it's probably why men normally dance with women. Dance can provide a safe environment where you can flirt a little without social stigma.
Learning ever more demands ever more time and energy, and we want that investment to eventually pay off more fun than the work it cost. So it is important to us that our students get real mileage out of what they learn, and not simply accumulate useless trivia in the form of a myriad of soon-to-be-forgotten patterns.
Last modified: Sun Mar 12 02:21:07 Pacific Standard Time 2006