What I wish everyone knew about social dancing

I used to participate in a martial art. Many people have opinions about this practice, but the more they know about it, the more they respect it. And if such fans don’t actually practise it, they respect those who do. They respect our knowledge. Indeed, the people who know the sport best are those who know it from the inside.

A stubborn opponent of dance claimed on Dr. Kwasniewski’s social media that he knew something of dance. He revealed that he and his wife engage in “dynamic and passionate” Bollywood dances “in private.” This, naturally, violated the unspoken agreement that gentlemen do not discuss what they do with their wives “behind closed doors.” However, it did cast light on the anti-dancer’s presuppositions: dancing is necessarily erotic, and as such totally inappropriate for the unmarried.

This is, however, a gross caricature of dancing, if slightly more sophisticated than the stupid notion that social dancing is just an excuse for men and women to paw each other. Nobody who had taken the trouble to learn how to dance—and it can be an arduous journey—and had danced with those who simply love to dance would ever make that mistake. Their hard-won skills should help prevent them from making other mistakes, too, like watching gymnast McKayla Maroney’s perfect vault but seeing only her leotard.

Incidentally, one of the positive aspects of contemporary Western civilisation is appreciation for women’s athletic prowess—and dancing, gymnastics and figure skating are among the only physical endeavours in which we can rival—and even surpass!—men. Watching women dancers or athletes and seeing only our costumes—which no fan, expert or professional judge would ever do—reduces us to sex objects. Instead of hissing at leotards, why not discover why they are worn?

But I am running away from today’s headline. Here is what I wish everyone knew about traditional social dancing:

1. It is a learned skill. Babies enjoy rocking back and forth and, once they manage to get to their feet, bouncing up and down. However, even small children have to be taught how to follow a pattern of steps. When they make mistakes, they need patient correction. And learning how to partner-dance can be very difficult indeed. Here you don’t learn just the steps but how to hold your partner with the correct amount of pressure, care and respect, and how either to lead them or to follow them. It takes teachers, sympathetic partners, repetition and time. It takes practice. Fred Astaire spent hours a day for weeks before filming a dance scene in rehearsals to make his and his co-star’s dancing look that easy.
2. It is a shared activity, not a performance. Many people write about dancing from the point of view of people who watch dancing, not of people who dance. And ordinary traditional social dancing is not that exciting to watch. What IS exciting to watch are dance competitions and “jams.” (A Lindy jam, for example, is when swing-dancers display their skills to other swing-dancers to loud applause.) At an ordinary social event, dancers don’t perform for an audience. They don’t wear eye-catching costumes, and they don’t plaster professional grins to their faces. They aren’t thinking of how they look but of moving in time to the music and their partners. If they’re me, they’re counting.
3. Context is key. Once again, traditional social dancing is not an erotic activity, like twerking and grinding. Two drunk strangers (or a married couple) pressed up against each other in a club, rocking from side to side, are not engaging in traditional social dancing. Traditional social dances are those sons can dance with mothers—or grandsons with grandmothers— I have just seen a TikTok video of a teenager dancing a modest tango with his gran–without shocking the rest of the assembly. In fact, in my culture, people are delighted to see parents dancing traditional social dances with their children.
4. Concentration banishes sin. If you want to see ferocious concentration in two people in a close hold, please watch a serious wrestling competition. Wrestling is not really like social dancing, for it is a contest in which there is a winner and a loser, and the competitors do, in fact, grapple each other. For three minutes straight, they think of nothing but forcing their opponent’s shoulder blades to the mat while keeping their own off it. Now, viewers who know nothing about wrestling think this looks all very homosexual. The braver, more intelligent ones ask the knowledgeable if wrestlers ever get aroused as they fight. The answer is no. If a wrestler’s concentration were interrupted by such a thought, he (or she) would lose at once. In traditional social dancing, dancers are likewise concentrating on the business at hand: leading or following an intricate pattern of moves without losing the beat, stepping on their partner, or crashing into other couples. If sexual thoughts do intrude, as they might in any other social setting (on a bus, during a lecture), they are easily chased away.
5. Dancing is for (almost) everybody. Every culture on earth has dances, and every dance has a meaning for that culture. They are passed down through the generations, and they often embody the values of the parent culture. English ballroom dancing, for example, was codified according to Edwardian notions of propriety. Swing-dancing was rooted in the African-American experience, which unfortunately was one reason why Irish bishops condemned it. The Chicken Dance (i.e. The Birdie Song, originally The Duck Dance) probably tells us something about post-war Switzerland. Of course, just as there are people who should not spend all their time with young men (e.g. in the seminary), there are people whose own sexual struggles indicate that they should not go to dances. What is prudent enjoyment for most people could indeed be a cause of sin and suffering for a few, and so, no, those people should not dance–for their own sake and also for the sake of his or her potential partners.
6. Dancing is complex Just as nobody would dare to opine on the history of Western Art after a quick scan of the internet, nobody should pass himself off as an expert just by making a few rough notes from web pages. When I studied theology, we were strictly warned against “prooftexing”, a method of reading the Bible and other literature to prove one’s pet theories. My counsel, to anyone who is interested in the truth about dancing, is to consult experts in dance. Ask dance teachers. Ask dance historians. When curious about a ban on Catholic charity balls in the USA, I wrote to an expert in Irish parish hall dances of that period. If you don’t understand something–or are a complete novice in a discipline (like moral theology)–consult a proven expert.

There is a lot more I could say, but it is more esoteric. For example, a lot of nonsense is written about the waltz, even in books meant to be serious. Men and women did not dance strictly apart, or only touching hands, from 9000 BC until the Congress of Vienna. Men supporting women in lifts, jumps or spins has been traced to folk dancing as far back as the Council of Trent. But this is very much taking me away from the basics I wish people knew about dancing, so I’ll leave it there.

UPDATE: Thank to you to Tito Edwards of the National Catholic Register, should he see this, of beginning his 2025 list of “The Best of Catholic Blogging” with Dr. Kwasniewski’s, Julian Kwasniewski’s, and my “Why Catholics Should Learn to Dance.” I’m very grateful for the honour.

UPDATE 2: And I missed that he mentioned this post, too. So double thanks to Mr Edwards!