Yeah. I made up my own word for this article, or maybe it is already a word, Im just too god damn lazy to check to be honest. Even the thought of starting up a new tab and searching 'Danceaphobia' seems like more work than to write out this full sentence explaining my laziness. Whether or not its a word, one thing is for certain and that is that it exists theoretically. First I should explain what I mean by this word...
In this day and age it is not hard to realise the world has become more judgmental on the way we look, think, eat and move. The result is that we have all been cornered into the 'safe zone' as I like to call it. A place where in return for following the same trends as everyone else and staying boring we are rewarded with false dignity which makes us feel safe when exposed to vulnerable situations. In this case the vulnerable situation refers to dancing. Individuality is hard to come by nowadays, even the people who think they have bought into a product which makes them stand out from the crowd have now become the crowd (referring to the likes of hipsters) and anyone who expresses themselves freely in public is quickly snapped up and posted on YouTube for all to point and laugh at how ridiculous they look. Twenty years ago you could bust a running man without a smirk in sight and now dancing has become some sort of awkward bridge between drinking and pulling that must be crossed with forced laughter and if your lucky some unnecessary dry humping. And now we have more side steppers than a drunk hobo at a busy bus stop and safer moves than a Russian chess player. This is the Illness I like to call 'Danceaphobia'.
Now not everyone is infected with this mild yet contagious disease because some people have seen the light, I'l admit Im guessing a lot of that light has a lot to do with drugs but there is some people out there who just let go on the floor and enjoy themselves the way it was intended. Others choose not to dance. This I find is the saddest thing that has happened to dance music. We have all been in that situation where we have taken a friend (or maybe you are that friend) to a nightclub and even after six shots and 7 pints they remain glued to the wall like they're waiting for a train or if they're crafty they will have found themselves in one of those comfy seating hubs with some stranger debating on the in and outs of stamp collecting. Why do they do this? You may choose to believe that they are naturally shy or that jump they made over that small puddle last week has left them with a weak ankle and a variable excuse to avoid any unwanted movement for the next week or so. But it is in fact, YOU! Yes, you reading this article. To be more precise everyone is to blame (ok maybe that is not more precise).The point is that we are all designed to dance and somewhere along the line we fucked up. I kind of want to blame technology for allowing the globe to scrutinize dancing together so easily although I think music has had a huge effect on our dance floor personalities.
But what effect does this have on music? Well in my opinion I believe this has changed the face of music completely and the effects will not wear out until at least the next Die Hard film. But seriously think how much music revolves around how we dance... and how much has this changed over the past decade, with less people busting a move, DJ's have turned to new techniques like visuals experiences that sip the awkward stillness out of a room like an extremely fat person drinking pepsi through a straw. I've realised more and more that dance genres have blended into this petty competitive streak where the quality of studio listen has defeated its dance floor purpose and the result is we are left listening to 'banging' tunes that have no life in them. Every time I hear a good song now and I test mix it at home I'm left with a spot of cold dance floor syndrome because I can just see it dying in a club. Its a sign that our 'Danceaphobia' has made the DJ dessert his/her decks and climb into a studio instead.
So maybe the world just doesn't feel like dancing right now or maybe I'm just looking too far into it. Whatever the answer is I have one piece of advice. Enjoy the little we time we are given and don't let others decide how you enjoy yourself, oh and don't do the running man... you'll only embarrass yourself.
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