OK Zoomers, it’s time to quit the cringe. Let’s dance

My kids cringe when I dance. They impersonate my style with finger points and an occasional clap that makes me wince. But they also envy me for how easily I’ll bust a move and how much I’ve danced over the decades. Because many Gen Zs don’t dance. My daughter lamented she was the only one making any effort to move to Charli XCX at Laneway this year. Billy Idol may have celebrated dancing with himself, but it was something he, and I, rarely had to do. My daughter did. Good on her.

You should be dancing. Yeah? Revellers at the 2024 Laneway Festival. Credit: Daniel Boud

My son pogoes on stage with his punk band but explains many in his age group worry about looking “cringe”. He also says they’re trying to perfect nonchalance. Dance and nonchalance go together like Billy Idol and Billie Eilish.

My daughter blames the panopticon effect. The panopticon is a circular prison design with a central guard tower. Inmates don’t know if they are being watched but feel under constant surveillance. Today’s festivals and dance floors are a prison of constant smartphones.

Triple J’s Hack program recently covered the downfall of the dance floor. DJs told of punters hovering around the decks taking pictures and videos rather than cutting loose. Young party people blamed the dreaded devices filming the dance floor itself. Back when I danced until my feet were black and bleeding, I thought I looked fabulous. I’m sure I didn’t. But there’s no evidence and hence, no perpetual cringe. One DJ blamed ketamine – a drug that’s a horse tranquiliser does not induce ecstatic dancing like ecstasy once did.

I’m deeply upset that many of this generation may miss out on the ecstasy of dancing.

Most of us have trauma from having to duet in primary school. It took me years to recover from having to do the Pride of Erin in a halterneck with a sweaty-palmed boy at the Year 6 dance. But by the time I was wearing a taffeta drop-waisted purple dress with capped sleeves in Year 12 I had learnt that nobody was watching; they were all too busy dancing themselves. We were self-conscious in many ways, but not to the extent of today’s wallflowers.

Illustration by Dionne GainCredit:

Picking up a gang from a high school informal a few years ago I got high on the whiff of their dance floor sweat. They had danced themselves slick, shoes were off, and their feet were wonderfully raw. They had mobile phones but didn’t document every moment. Is the social acceptance of constant filming, even of dancing, another hangover from COVID – another loss of decorum?

At an outdoor dance party in Thailand in February I was thrilled to see hundreds of people freely dancing around a fire. But something felt strange, and it took me some time to work out what it was. It wasn’t the outfits, nor the outlandish interpretive dance moves – I’d seen them all before and I don’t judge joy. It was the lack of filming. The party was even patrolled by organisers who tapped anyone who pulled out a phone and asked them to put it away. I laughed as it looked rather sanctimonious, but now I understand. They were free to dance with abandon; to be in the moment and the beat, to leap with the flames, to rise with the radiating heat of swinging bodies. To be liberated from “cringe”.

We all need to dance, at all stages and ages of life. But particularly in our 20s.

A Sydney University Study published last year found having a groove is not just physically good for you but also reduces anxiety, distress and depression while improving motivation. It’s also spiritual. I am not a person of faith but the times I’ve felt transcendence have been on the dance floor at Mardi Gras, Sleaze Ball, warehouse parties or Big Day Outs. I still have a chat group “meet you under the mirror ball” with friends forever connected through nights of musical worship where we danced until dawn. A certain strobe light at Vivid can take me back to that communal bliss. The Faithless song God Is a DJ is a cultural anthem that celebrates a dance floor’s connection to a transformative power. As Maxi Jazz rapped, “This is my church. This is where I heal my hurt”.

Far from being faithless, this Buddhist from Brixton understood that the dance floor was a place where “young lives take shape”, where they can be “content in the hum”. He told me he relished the power that dance had to raise consciousness. And when he stood on stage, spread his arms out wide and sang to the heavenly heaving mass, he was a high priest of house.

Dance grounds you; it pulls you into your body, but it also allows your brain to let go and lose your body to the beat. Dance is healing. It’s a mutual high and a communal hug. It’s a blessing with a dose of devilishly sexy delight. It’s where drums match heartbeats and bodies move together, apart. And in that universal devotion to dance there’s a synchronicity of hearts and minds. A dance floor can be a place of love, compassion, kindness, respect. And it’s a rite-of-passage for a young generation to feel that connection.

While Generation Z avoid the dance floor, people of my age are returning. Ministry of Sound is a nightclub and record label based in London reviving its original anthems in day parties. Last year it hosted DJs and laser lights over three nights at Sydney’s coolest heritage venue – the remodelled White Bay Power Station. Thousands danced on the tar-blackened concrete floors where we had danced at illegal raves in the ’90s. Back in their church of beats, bellied and balding Generation X-ers regained their communal connection in comfortable shoes.

Due to a (dance floor) injury, I have not danced for years. But my physio has just cleared me for action. In fact, he has prescribed it. I’m feeling the nerves of the young – contained, constricted and cringed. Perhaps I’ll begin with “No L” – a dance floor in darkness, liberated from the judgment of others.

I’d like to suggest these as a gateway dance drug for the generation who don’t dance enough.

So come on kids, you can’t afford housing, your future is uncertain and old, rich, angry men are ruining your world. Take to the dance floor and let it all lift for a few hours. I wish you communal joy and the therapy of the throng.

Warm up on TikTok where everybody dances. There’s talk there about “cringe mountain”. The idea that everyone who is cool started as cringe. Every good dancer started as bad. Nudge nonchalance away, climb cringe mountain, throw the phone away and dance like nobody’s watching.

Sarah Macdonald is a writer and broadcaster.

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