Dancing benefits

• Dance in a group, with a partner, or on your own.
• Enjoy dancing at dance schools, social venues, community halls and in your own home.
• It can be a great recreational and sporting choice.
• The gear you need for dancing will depend on the style of dancing you choose.

• Ballet – this dance style focuses on strength, technique and flexibility.
• Ballroom dancing – this involves a number of partner-dancing styles such as the waltz, swing, foxtrot, rumba and tango.
• Belly dancing – originating in the Middle East.
• Hip-hop – this urban dance style can involve breaking, popping, locking and freestyling.
• Jazz – a high-energy dance style involving kicks, leaps and turns to the beat of the music.
• Pole dancing – It involves sensual dancing with a vertical pole, and requires muscle endurance, coordination, and upper- and lower-body strength.
• Salsa – involving a mixture of Caribbean, Latin American and African influences, salsa is usually a partner dance and emphasises rhythms and sensuality.
• Square-dancing – a type of folk dancing where four couples dance in a square pattern, moving around each other and changing partners.
• Tap dancing – focuses on timing and beats.

They have a common set of genes, according to a recent study published in Genetics Journal, and the evolution of these genes dates back 1.5 million years.

Our ancestors were good orators and dancers, having specific skills for social bonding, where celebration, healing and rituals (like the Rain Dance in some cultures) were accompanied by dance.

The Guadeloupe island inhabitants in West Africa used dance as the main means of communication, with the art form of ‘Big Drum’ called Gwoka, which had different beat rhythms for different emotions.