Why We Should Consider Social Dancing Again

(I used ChatGPT to help me organize and cite sources and research for this article)

Somewhere between the invention of the smartphone and the slow unraveling of our communal lives, many of us stopped dancing. Not the polished choreography on TikTok — I mean the kind of dancing our grandparents knew: church basements, wedding receptions, community centers, school gyms, backyards. Places where bodies moved in the same space and time, not for performance but for joy, belonging, and the strange relief that comes with shared rhythm.

And while the reasons are complex — cultural shifts, fear of awkwardness, shrinking community spaces — the loss is not small. A growing body of research suggests that our quiet retreat from social dancing has coincided with something else: rising rates of loneliness, anxiety, and depression.

This isn’t to say dancing is a miracle cure. But it is to say something we’ve forgotten matters: being fully present in our bodies, with other people, is good for us.

Dancing is One of the Oldest Medicines We Have

Across cultures and across history, human beings have danced to grieve, to celebrate, to pray, to mark time, and to knit a community together. And modern research is catching up to what history instinctively knew.

Multiple randomized controlled trials and meta-analyses — the most rigorous forms of evidence — show that dance-based interventions significantly reduce depression and anxiety.¹² A 2019 umbrella review on dance movement therapy found improvements in mood, emotional regulation, and overall quality of life across ages.³ A more recent collection of 2024 meta-analyses confirms that even simple, weekly dance sessions consistently improve mental health outcomes in older adults.⁴⁵

What’s striking isn’t just that dance works. It’s why it works.

Dancing blends physical activity with three things modern life has slowly stripped away:

(1) shared presence

(2) synchrony

(3) embodied joy

When people move in rhythm together, their heart rates begin to align. Their bodies release endorphins. Pain thresholds rise. Feelings of trust and bonding increase. Anthropologists and neuroscientists call this phenomenon collective effervescence — the sense that for a moment, you belong to something larger than yourself.

Most of us feel this in worship, concerts, sports crowds, or even praying out loud together. Social dancing taps into the same circuitry. It is physical communion, even without words.

We Stopped Dancing — and We Haven’t Replaced What It Gave Us

Over the last few decades, opportunities for casual, non-performative dance have quietly disappeared. Fewer community dance halls. Fewer school dances. Fewer multigenerational spaces where it’s normal to sway, shuffle, or step in time with strangers and friends.

During COVID, many of the remaining dance programs, studios, and social gatherings vanished. Some never came back. National arts participation surveys show a marked decline in communal dance spaces, and Dance/USA’s 2020–2023 sector reports document a significant drop in attendance, funding, and accessible social dance events.⁶⁷

At the same time, loneliness reached record highs. Depression and anxiety climbed. Teen girls reported levels of psychological distress unprecedented in modern survey history. Adults — especially young adults — became more isolated, less physically connected, and more digitally mediated.

Again, there’s no single cause. But one of the losses we rarely name is the loss of shared, embodied practices.

We don’t have many places left where we laugh, move, touch hands, or learn something new with strangers. Social dancing was once a low-cost, low-barrier, low-stakes ritual that gave that to us.

And our bodies have been trying to tell us that something is missing.

Social Dancing is Countercultural — and That’s What Makes It Holy

For Christians, the body is not an afterthought. It’s not just the housing of the soul or a temporary shell. It is part of the imago Dei — part of the way God reveals Himself through creation. Throughout Scripture, worship involves bodies: kneeling, lifting hands, bowing, singing, swaying before the Lord.

We live in a cultural moment that treats the body either as a project to optimize or an inconvenience to ignore. Social dancing resists both. It invites us to be unself-conscious, playful, and present — not as performers but as participants.

In an age of curated images and isolated living, that’s radical. It is also deeply theological.

A liturgical angle

The Church has a long and complicated relationship with dance — sometimes suspicious, sometimes celebratory. But there is biblical imagery that speaks to movement as an expression of praise and communion:

• David danced with all his might before the Lord (2 Sam. 6:14)

• Let them praise His name with dancing (Ps. 149:3)

• You have turned my mourning into dancing (Ps. 30:11)

While not all dancing is worship, all dancing is an acknowledgment of embodiment. It is a practiced awareness that you inhabit a body God made — and that your neighbor does too. Social dancing, especially, calls us into humility, rhythm, and reciprocation — all virtues deeply embedded in Christian community.

To dance with one another is to practice presence. And in a world marked by fragmentation, presence is sacred.

We Need Places Where People Can Be People Again

Imagine a world where neighborhoods hosted monthly barn dances.

Where churches offered intergenerational dance nights.

Where senior centers, youth groups, and city parks had regular, no-pressure spaces to move together.

Where dancing wasn’t reserved for the talented, the thin, the young, or the brave — but returned to being what it once was: a communal language.

The data tells us dance reduces depression, alleviates anxiety, improves cognition, and strengthens social connection.¹³⁴ The theology tells us the body is meant for joy, participation, and community. And our own lived experience tells us we feel better when we get out of our heads and back into the world with others.

Maybe the solution to some of what aches in our culture isn’t more thinking or more talking — maybe it’s more dancing.

A Gentle Invitation

You don’t have to sign up for a ballroom class. You don’t need rhythm. You don’t need confidence.

Start smaller.

Turn on music in your kitchen and sway with your kids.

Go to a local folk dance night.

Show up at a church event that feels a little awkward.

Invite a friend to a salsa class and laugh your way through the mistakes.

Or simply take a step — literally — toward living in your body again.

We lose nothing by dancing. But we might recover something that was quietly holding us together all along.

Appendix: Key Research Summaries (For Readers Who Want the Data)

1. Dance reduces depression & anxiety

Koch et al. (2019) — A comprehensive review of 41 studies found that dance movement therapy significantly reduces depression, anxiety, and stress. Improvements were especially strong in emotional regulation and interpersonal functioning.

2. Older adults see major mental-health benefits

Prudente et al. (2024) — Meta-analysis showed that weekly dance programs produced measurable reductions in depressive symptoms and improved quality of life compared to standard care.

3. Dance supports social bonding & group cohesion

Neuroscience research shows that synchronized movement increases endorphins, raises pain thresholds, and fosters social trust — mechanisms connected to improved mood and reduced loneliness. (Studies by Tarr, Dunbar, et al.)

4. Arts participation (including dance) predicts better mental health

Group-based arts interventions outperform solitary exercise for reducing loneliness, improving mood, and increasing social connectedness.

5. Decline in social dancing is documented

Dance/USA’s sector reports and National Arts Participation surveys indicate significant drops in studio attendance, funding, and community dance programs from 2010–2023.

References

1. Koch, S. C., Riege, R. F. F., Tisborn, K., Biondo, J., Martin, L., & Beelmann, A. (2019). Effects of Dance Movement Therapy and Dance on Health-Related Psychological Outcomes: A Meta-Analysis. Frontiers in Psychology.

2. Quiroga Murcia, C., Bongard, S., & Kreutz, G. (2010). Emotional and Psychophysiological Responses to Dancing and Listening to Music. Arts in Psychotherapy.

3. Prudente, T. P., et al. (2024). Effect of Dancing Interventions on Depression and Anxiety Symptoms in Older Adults: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. Behavioral Sciences.

4. Fong Yan, A., et al. (2024). The Effectiveness of Dance Interventions on Psychological Outcomes in Older Adults: A Systematic Review. Sports Medicine.

5. Tarr, B., Launay, J., & Dunbar, R. (2015). Silent disco synchrony increases pain threshold and social closeness. Biology Letters.

6. Dance/USA. (2021–2023). COVID-19 Impact Survey Series.

7. National Endowment for the Arts (NEA). (2022). Arts Participation Report