Dance and Courtship
Dance has long been recognised as a way for prospective partners to select each other. Isadora Duncan said of dance that it needed 'the highest intelligence in the freest body'. Recent studies show how much can be conveyed by dance:
An article in Nature 'Dance reveals symmetry especially in young men' shows that dance in Jamaica seems to show evidence of sexual selection and to reveal important information about the dancer. Professor Lee Cronk at Rutgers says: "More symmetrical men put on a better show, and women notice." Symmetry is a strong indicator of fitness as it shows developmental stability.
A Swedish study shows that people who score high on intelligence tests are also good at keeping time.
Read more about this topic: Dance And Health
Famous quotes containing the words dance and, dance and/or courtship:
“Along the highway, all but lost among blatant neon lights flashing ‘Whiskey’ and ‘Dance and Dine,’ are crudely daubed warnings erected by itinerant evangelists, announcing that ‘Jesus is soon coming,’ or exhorting the traveler to ‘prepare to meet thy God.’”
—For the State of Florida, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)
“All the old supports going, gone, this man reaches out a hand to steady himself on a ledge of rough brick that is warm in the sun: his hand feeds him messages of solidity, but his mind messages of destruction, for this breathing substance, made of earth, will be a dance of atoms, he knows it, his intelligence tells him so: there will soon be war, he is in the middle of war, where he stands will be a waste, mounds of rubble, and this solid earthy substance will be a film of dust on ruins.”
—Doris Lessing (b. 1919)
“Reverence to a woman in courtship is less to be dispensed with, as, generally, there is but little of it shown afterwards.”
—Samuel Richardson (1689–1761)