Whilst in Suffolk this weekend, a lovely lady by the name of Anne gave me a short chapter to read from a book she had with her, “The Nature of Happiness” By Desmond Morris. The chapter was entitled “Rhythmic Happiness: The Dancer”, and here it is - a quasi-intellectual justification for why we all like dancing so much…

There is a special kind of happiness associated with intensely rhythmic activities. We see this in music, dancing, singing, aerobics, gymnastics, athletics and even in such odd activities as revivalist religious celebrations, synchronized swimming, dervish whirling, voodoo possession rituals, and military marching. Wherever a human activity invovles a ‘beat’, there is the potential for finding oneself carried off into a strangely vertiginous sense of euphoria. All intellectual control is abandoned and given over to the tyranny of the beat. There is a sudden surge of pleasure as the rhythm takes hold and all else is momentarily forgotten.

Sharing this with others helps to intensify the experience. The fans at the pop concert, with their arms in the air, swaying together from side to side; the football fans chanting and clapping in synchrony in support of their team; the goose-stepping soldiers on ceremonial duty; the bible-belt faithful swinging back and forth as they pray together; the health fanatics prancing together aerobically in the gymnasium in search of the ‘burn’: all experience a unique kind of rhythmic happiness that has a special quality they find hard to define. Essentially it has to do with giving oneself up to a primitive physical sensation in which the brain switches off the higher centres for a while (and with that switching off, temporarily removes all the usual cares and worries of the day) and allows the muscles of the body to enjoy a long series of evenly repeated actions.

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