A week ago, Shawn, Kiddo and I took part in a Dance Walk downtown. It was silly but fun. On Friday night, we went to Lucky Bar for a Daft Punk tribute show (well, Kiddo didn’t, owing to the fact that it was a bar) and danced in a more typical environment.
I used to spend hours and hours in dance clubs and while some things have changed (guys were as likely to be out there on the floor dancing alone or with their buddies as girls were), a lot is just the same (having to adapt to the space available, propping up the inevitable drunk folks, dodging the super-excited dancer who doesn’t adapt their style, and wearing the odd drink that someone thought was OK to carry through a crowd). At one point though, I freaked out and felt completely self-conscious and “old” even though we were far from the only 40-somethings in the room.
Dance Walking is a little closer to theatre than the bump and grind of a club floor. It forces you to not take yourself so damned seriously. The music wasn’t nearly loud enough to have the right effect but the concept is very much like being in a movie.
Joseph Gordon Levitt shows you how its done in 500 Days of Summer on his way to work while in that first-blush-of-love phase of the relationship…
And Amy Adams embarrasses Patrick Dempsy’s character in Enchanted with this over-the-top song and dance in Central Park…
Of course, no one does Dance Walking like the old Hollywood Musicals… even if it was in a studio lot. Here’s Gene Kelly performing the title track from Singin’ in the Rain..
And if you are looking for a good reason to dance (aside from exercise) — it turns out it is one of the best ways to reduce the risk of dementia. In a study funded by the National Institute on Aging, and published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 20031, the results showed that while doing crossword puzzles or other brain teasers could reduce the risk of dementia by 47%, regular dancing reduced it by 76%!
So I think I need to dance more 🙂
1Leisure Activities and the Risk of Dementia in the Elderly
Joe Verghese, M.D., Richard B. Lipton, M.D., Mindy J. Katz, M.P.H., Charles B. Hall, Ph.D., Carol A. Derby, Ph.D., Gail Kuslansky, Ph.D., Anne F. Ambrose, M.D., Martin Sliwinski, Ph.D., and Herman Buschke, M.D.
N Engl J Med 2003; 348:2508-2516June 19, 2003DOI: 10.1056/NEJMoa022252