Get Shakey

Dancing is basically moving the body to communicate some kind of message, wether it is accompanied by music or not (tap dancing), and is something humans share with animals such as bees that dance for mating purposes. Everyone can get enjoyment out of dancing, it is a natural thing for us to want to move to a beat or rythm. They could have first been used for rituals or for religous purposes, as shown in the picture below, the egyptians would have dancers on special occasions such as funerals, which also ties in to the ceremonial aspect again.

Of course dancing isn't just about religion, for example, the ancient greeks used to dance to celebrate the wine they had made, it was a way of having fun aswell as thanking thier God of wine.

 It is common to see dancing alongside most pop music today, which i think is used to help create a buzz or excitement around the artist/artists that are singing and lets face it, it's definately needed with the likes of Jedward on the scene. The following video shows how dancing has evolved over the past 70 years or so, which is actually quite interesting in itself as you can see how the style of dancing changes to match the change of music over time.

Dancing doesn't just appear when there is music present, most music of the past century has been made to go with dancing, in that it is made for purpose, a night club is the most obviously place as to where this goes on. Depending on what sort of event you go to, you can expect to go there just to dance, whatever the style of music, they are places where a lot of society go on the weekend for something to do. Dance music itself tends to be mostly electronic nowadays, which could lead to problems for the live music scene, with less places for bands or artists to perform, or perhaps less need for them to perform. Ska music would perhaps be a good example to use in favour of music made for dance. Here is 'Guns Of Navarone' by The Skatalites.

 Ska music is very upbeat, and lively, due to the accent of the drums being on the two and four with instruments like saxophones and guitars usually playing on the 2nd, 3rd and 4th. As well as this it is common for drums, bass, keyboards, trumpets and trombone to feature as well as vocals.

   There is no doubt music and dancing will continue to work together in the future, however, the advancements in technology could drive out the need for musicians and bands which is bad for the live music industry and anyone who plays an instrument. We do have to remember that better technology can also help musicians get known who would other wise go un noticed, a good example of this can be seen in the next post.