At first glance, it looks like one of those witless initiatives launched by a government clearly on its way out. John Major had his traffic cones hotline; Gordon Brown wants to get us all dancing. This week, Arlene Phillips, the choreographer most famous for sitting on the judging panel of Strictly Come Dancing until she was notoriously sacked last month, became known as the government's new "dance tsar". Her task, along with several other "dance champions", is to encourage people to take up dancing to improve fitness levels. The news has been met with predictable complaints about wasting taxpayers' money, but others think it will work.
"Dance definitely has a role to play," says Caroline Miller, director of national lobby group Dance UK. "We know that dance is the most popular physical activity for girls at school, and as most women stop doing any physical exercise after the age of 18 dance is our best shot for inspiring them to get active. Having dance champions is a great step forward, [but] they must be combined with embedding dance workers in primary care trusts around the country and offering affordable classes in appropriate spaces."
As a country, we used to be quite good at dancing – we have a rich history of folk dances after all – but now, it seems, our national dance is a self-conscious drunken shuffle at a wedding. Launching the campaign, Phillips said how she would like us to learn from people in China, who get together every morning in local parks. My most cherished memory of a trip to Beijing is the same – I walked around a park one morning and watched a huge group of people, many of whom must have been older than 80, dancing with each other as a small stereo on the ground was cranked up as loudly as it would go. It was joyous and life-affirming to watch, and I remember thinking how brilliant it would be if people did that here. But would it work?
"I think it would," says Sarah Cobley, partnership director at Dance South West, which promotes community dance . I ask her whether people in this country are too inhibited. "I think some people can be, but it soon passes. Actually, we've noticed that the older people get, the less inhibited they are." The way Cobley describes it, dance can be the cure of many social ills. "We know it makes a difference. Physically, it has a huge effect – it improves your heart and lungs, you become more agile and flexible, it improves your bones, you lose weight. We even think it can prevent older people from having falls, because it makes you more aware of your body and improves stability." Dance South West was involved in one scheme offering classes to people over 60. "We were getting 200 people a week attending. Some of those people didn't see anybody else from one class to the next, so it provided hugely important social contact."
When you think about it, you realise Britain is still in love with dance. Strictly Come Dancing draws big ratings, and Diversity, a dance troupe, won this year's Britain's Got Talent. One of the hits of the Edinburgh festival so far is Trilogy, a work by Nic Greene, which involves female volunteers dancing naked on stage. One of those taking part, Sophie Younger, 50, describes it as "joyous. It has been an inspirational experience. There have been two main elements that I have enjoyed most – the pure joy of dancing, because I think dancing is the ultimate expression of myself, and the other element is of the community with all the other women."
Videos of groups of ordinary people doing dance routines are now a staple of YouTube, something advertisers have not been slow to exploit. An advert for T-Mobile involved professional dancers planted in the crowd at Liverpool Street station in London and what was most surprising about it was how quickly passersby joined in.
Why do we love watching dancing so much? There are several reasons, says Professor Lawrence Parsons, who has done a lot of research on the neuroscience and psychology of dance. "It is always accompanied by music, and we have an interest in co-ordinated movements. Also, we become attuned to the emotional state of the person dancing and we get a vicarious energy or empathy with that emotion." We get a warm feeling from watching a three-year-old wriggling around to a song because we can share that pure joy, but when we watch someone we recognise as being a good mover "our element of fascination has to do with skill acquisition." We are picking up tips, in other words.
When we dance, says Parsons, "we get a thrill from executing our own dance skills, we even just get pleasure from moving our bodies." Then there are the numerous benefits of dancing together – the social bonding, trust being built up, being in a group where people are sharing the same emotional experience. In her book, Dancing in the Streets, American academic Barbara Ehrenreich describes dancing together as a "collective joy" that is an essential part of the human experience. Are we hardwired to dance? "Most of us think that's true," says Parsons. "Dance is universal among humans." In the presence of a beat, he says, almost everybody unconsciously starts tapping their feet or nodding their head. So why are we, in this country at least, often so inhibited? "If you live in a culture where it's an accepted part of the culture to dance all the time, and you are expected to join in, then I don't think you see inhibition," he says. "What happens for modern western people is that you are allowed to be passive, to be an audience member and that leads to selection. It also depends on where people dance in a culture – if you are used to dancing drunk in a dark club, that is where you will feel comfortable doing it."
I don't think drunk dancing is what Phillips and the government is keen to promote, but if they are successful we may become a culture where dance becomes a bigger part of our lives. Even to the point where people meet to dance together in the middle of parks. Would we be happier if we danced more? "Yes," says Parsons without hesitation. "It isn't just the physical benefits. We don't get enough healthy social interaction so we shouldn't just dance by ourselves at home … We should get out and dance with our friends."
