So Dance – I grew up in the 90s and as far as I can remember children like myself were always encouraged to dance…. whether we were any good at it or not.
It is weird to think back and realise how often you are encouraged to perform an action that brings so much joy and pleasure, but also so much anxiety. The act of standing up in front of others and moving in a way that could be mocked for, even if you were good at it, especially if you were a boy.
See back in the 90s it was a lot different in the realm of sports. We would like to think we weren’t brought up in a world where sexism was a thing, but ask yourself about your school life, both Primary and Secondary: Boys played Cricket, girls played rounders. Boys played Basketball, girls played Netball. Boys played Rugby, girls played Gymnastics. The Physical Education curriculum didn’t understand the word “inclusion”.
Now some of you are reading and thinking “oh, no I did all those sports” and that is amazing, but for the most part a lot of state schools didn’t. Back in the 90s a lot of Primary schools did not have trained Physical Education teachers. They had the class teacher teach off a sheet, which is still a thing in some schools in the UK. You also had to do it in a vest and pants if you were doing an indoor lesson and you had forgotten your PE kit. Now I am triggering some old memories!
So what does this have to do with Dance? See the thing is, Dance has always been a strange topic for sports. Unlike a lot of other sports, it has this mental and social barrier. Were you a girl who could dance? well that was to be expected to a child. Were you a boy who could dance? well, that came with its own issues. See the 90s was a weird and wonderful time, but it came with its own issues. Its now 2020 and as a child you are not only encouraged to Dance, but it seems you are expected to be able to due to how easy it is to learn. Media is a strange and powerful tool.
Lets fast forward to the year 2020. Two things have changed the world of Dance for the better; Fortnite and TicTok. Lets start with TicTok: We now have a free social media app that encourages people to create their own 15 second music videos. You see, 15 seconds isn’t a long time, and thats the secret behind the success TikTok has had. When you think about dancing, its to a song you like. The average song length is 2 minues and 48 seconds. Doesn’t sound like a long time, but to dance for 3 minutes isn’t as easy as it seems. You need to pick a move, followed up by another move, maybe go back to the first, are you moving your legs? what facial expessions are you making? are you only moving your arms? what do you do next? does it look fluid? what will your friends think? does this dance match the song? the list of questions continues. Now with Tiktok you only need 1, maybe up to 3 dance moves, and because you can send it to your friends, you can make silly dance moves to laugh with friends. Silly dances start to turn into serious dance moves and now you have a 15 second competition between friends to improve which one is the better dancer.
Now for Fortnite. Ugh *holds head* – See I could never enjoy the game. It always felt like something was missing and didn’t give me the joy other games did. The crazy thing about Fortnite was it accidently stepped on a button it didn’t mean to. Whilst it intended to be a shooting game with elements from other games, it included taunts/dances that were fairly funny to watch, especially for young people. Some of these dances moves were not only silly or funny, but actually very easy to perform. This lead to children learning how to perform the dances to show their friends, and not to be outdone, these friends would also learn the moves and then learn other moves from the game. Rinse and repeat.
So where is this all going – well, the older generation has a habit of wanting to pervent new phenomemons from happening. Some parents, teachers, careers and coaches will want to stop the children they are with from coping dances seen from Fortnite and TikTok due to the adult disliking where the child has learned it from. This doesn’t help anyone and it can hurt the perception the child has of you. Instead let them dance, let them learn and encourage them to learn more dance moves. Show them old dance moves and how dance has developed over the generations. Give them the time and room to learn and perform. Why? because Dance is a great workout for the body. It can involve coordination between arms and legs, twists and turns, different heights and spatial awareness. Hopefully this has been an interesting trip down memory lane and I hope next time you see a child of yours or working with dancing, you encourage them to dance more! – Happy Dancing
Raeda Broda 