DOPAMINERGIC ENTRAINMENT

This piece (and last week's and the week before's) are abridged chapters from my forthcoming book.

Last week I got inveigled into my first Christmas party of the season. There was a DJ and a dance floor, but nowadays I excuse myself from dancing, unless perhaps I’m drunk. Not like when I was younger. Then, I danced a lot. Though come to think of it, I was drunk a lot too.

Anyway, anthropologists say that’s OK – because it’s probably how it started. Before cave drawing, before speech, probably before Neanderthals, a caveman was tapping a stone. Another one liked what he heard and started jigging around. Someone handed round the rotting apples and soon they were all off their heads, stamping and clapping. Then their genes chipped in and said, “This is good for us. It brings us together. It makes us one tribe.” And dance became a thing.

Usually, dance is the body’s rebellion against whatever system happens to be holding it in check. Modern dance as we know it started as a rebellion by young women against Victorian corsets. Strapped into them, they had to learn to bow and curtsey and repress their hips. But when the Can-can arrived from Paris, an explosion of forbidden knees and petticoats gave them a foretaste of liberation. Women were still supposed to be ornamental, but at least the ornaments had started kicking.

There was also ballroom dancing – sedate and formalised. Here, it was the man who set the tone of the dance and the woman meekly followed his lead. But at bars and speakeasies, it was the women who set the tone, especially when the Charleston arrived in the 1920s. Long Victorian bloomers were replaced with skimpy French knickers, and the flash of a glistening thigh was a weapon no man could match.

Anyway - when it comes to dancing, it’s always been the men who are more reticent. Especially once they hit thirty and adulthood has them fully in its grip. Every man knows the discomfort of being cajoled onto the dance floor before the moment seizes him. Weddings, Christmas parties, corporate dinners – it’s that awful feeling when someone puts on Uptown Funk and insists everyone join in. There’s the quick, frozen smile, the futile sip of wine, and then — too late, the beat makes the decision for you. You’re jerking around as if you’re trying to stamp on your own trousers.

Neuroscientists call this dopaminergic entrainment — the body’s treacherous delight in sound. The beat enters through the ears, tickles the basal ganglia, and before the prefrontal cortex can object, restraint is thrown to the wind. It’s the body’s revenge on the mind – letting your limbs off the leash.

There’s also another type of dance that sociologists call la danse obligatoire - movement as civic duty. In Switzerland it’s called the Duck Dance, in Cuba the Conga, in Brazil the Bottle Circle. In Britain it’s the Hokey Cokey.

The Hokey Cokey isn’t just a song, it’s social adhesion through shared idiocy. No rhythm, no groove, but compulsory to join in. Anyone who’s ever been cajoled into doing it will know how ghastly it is. “You put your left leg in and your right leg out”. It’s not a reaction to rhythm; it’s a tribal tradition. And although the dopamine can take a while to arrive – surprisingly, it usually turns up in the end.

For most of us, dancing offers a high probability of looking foolish. With dignity about to be compromised, we usually revert to alcohol. It silences the amygdala — an almond sized structure in the temporal lobe that normally warns the brain when the body is about to make a fool of itself. But when we over-rule it with a few drinks the result can be catastrophic – our legs go rogue but our brain tells us we look like Michael Jackson

Almost anywhere in the world, the dance floor is a zoo of delusion. It’s not really our fault. In most things, mankind has advanced both scientifically and socially. But when it comes to dance, we’re still running Stone Age software. Whether we want to join in or not, we’re pressured to do so because evolution decided it was good for the tribe. Worst of all, the endorphins that make us dance don’t understand shame. We resist – we give in – we dance. And of course, we enjoy it. Hugely.

Until the next morning, when we find out someone has posted a video.

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