For decades, the so-called "dad dance", the bizarre jerking and shaking that every middle-aged person starts doing whenever a modern pop song comes on, has been the height of embarrassment.

But it turns out muscle memoryWhen a movement is repeated over time, it can sometimes eventually be performed without significant conscious effort. is a powerful thing. And if you give a Gen X-er a chance to show off their moves to the songs of their own youth, they may yet surprise you.

That is what thousands of TikTok users have discovered as a new trend sweeps the platform. In the videos, children put on '80s songs and ask their parents how they would have danced to them back in the day, only to be bowled over by a phenomenal disco display.

So why do these little moments of dance bring us so much joy? And could it be the secret to human salvation?

Dance is probably the oldest human art form. Cave paintings in India dating back 30,000 years depict people dancing.¹ Dance would come to be associated with the HinduA follower of Hinduism, the third-largest religion in the world. Roughly 95% of Hindus live in India. god Shiva, whose dancing destroys the universe and causes it to be reborn.²

Indeed, dance has always been important for faith. In ancient EgyptOne of the most powerful civilisations in the world's history, lasting for more than 3000 years between 3150BC and 30BC. , dance was an important part of religious ceremonies. Dancers on Earth would mimic the movement of planets and stars in the heavens.³

The ancient Greeks had their own god of dance, Dionysus, who was an emblem of wild human passion and creativity, against the order and rationality of his counterpart Apollo.

In Europe, dance became a central part of social life from the 18th Century. Young men and women would attend balls and dance with prospective partners. These were seen as an essential rite of passage to adulthood, the surest way of finding a husband or wife, and also great fun.

In the 20th Century it was the fun aspect of dancing that really took over. The rise of new forms of music, like jazz, demanded faster and more frenetic dances like the CharlestonA city in South Carolina, USA, as well as a dance named after the city in the 1920s. . Rock and disco in the later century gave rise to their own new dances.

Why does dancing have such a universal appeal? Philosophers think it is because it perfectly expresses what it means to be free.

When you dance you cannot just move however you want, or you will dance badly and get in the way of others. You have to follow a set of rules. However, you can bend these rules and innovate within them.

Human freedom is the same. It only works if we follow a set of rules, rather than our own whims, otherwise we just trample on everyone else. But we can invent and create new ideas within the rules, following our own creative impulse.

And at a time when more and more people are unhappy with their sense of self and in their own bodies, the act of turning our own bodies into a work of art can be liberating.

But dancing has not always been a positive thing. Throughout the Middle Ages, chroniclers reported outbreaks of a strange and disturbing illness known as dancing mania. Completely out of the blue, groups of people would start dancing and not stop until they collapsed from exhaustion, often dying as a result.⁴

So even while we enjoy a good dance, we have to be careful not to lose ourselves in it.

Could dancing save the world?

Yes: Dance is one of the few things that bring all human beings together. And it can show us how to live in a world where we can only be free together, not at each other's expense. To dance is to be human.

No: Dancing does not bring us together. In fact, many people throughout history have mocked, hated or feared each other for the different ways in which they dance.

Or... Dancing is fun and can even be powerful, but it will not change the world. We have to create a better world together, and only then can we dance in it.