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A talented dancer can captivate any audience. Louis XIV practiced ballet to increase his status and influence, using his dance as a political statement. More recently, performers like Sammy Davis Jr. and Beyoncé reached legendary status, partly because their dance moves enhanced the impact of their music. While dancing may seem like an innate talent, science provides some key insights into what can make anyone—yes, even you—an exceptional dancer.
Step One: Activate Your Core
Our ability to crawl, stand, and walk forms naturally in childhood, becoming automatic as our brains solidify these actions into muscle memory. By the age of 2, toddlers often try bobbing to a song or attempting basic dance steps. The process of mastering these movements begins once we’ve achieved a stable standing position with a neutral pelvis, where the head, shoulders, and hips align from the side with a slight curve in the lower back.
“A neutral pelvis may not only support general body movement but also enhance specific actions at the hip and lower spine,” explain Clara Fischer Gam and Elsa Urmstom in an article on the International Society of Dance Medicine and Science’s website. This alignment helps stabilize the core, leading to more fluid and dynamic movements.
To find your neutral pelvis, Dance magazine suggests lying on your back with your knees bent, letting the natural curve of your spine create a small gap between your lower back and the floor. In this position, your hips should neither tilt upward toward the ceiling nor sink into the floor; they should remain neutral, forming a plane level enough to balance a glass of water.
Step Two: Warm Up
Once you’ve established a neutral pelvis, stay in place and perform some gentle stretching exercises.
One effective way to increase your range of motion is by generating heat through low-impact movements, according to Marijeanne Liederbach, director of NYU Langone's Harkness Center for Dance Injuries. This also serves as a preventive measure against injuries.
"To ensure muscles have a safe range of motion, they need to warm up a bit first,” explains Liederbach in an interview with Mytour. Once warmed, muscles gain more flexibility, allowing for easier twisting and bending. Stretching prepares your body for more intense activities and helps reduce the risk of injury.
Step Three: Shift Your Weight
A 2013 study in the UK assessed the dancing moves of 30 male dancers, with 48 participants rating their performances. They favored bold, varied core movements, such as bending and twisting side to side or back and forth, while incorporating vigorous arm gestures. In 2017, the same team published another study of 39 female dancers—British university students—suggesting that larger hip swings and asymmetrical thigh and arm movements were more appealing.
"Dance [is] a universal human activity,” says Nick Neave, a co-author and professor at Northumbria University, in an interview with Mytour. “We believed these movements convey honest signals—they can’t be faked—offering clues about one’s health, age, fertility, and reproductive stages.” (Some critics argue that the results are questionable due to the small sample sizes in the studies.)
To practice, stand up and shift your weight from one leg to the other. Try bending your knees deeply or rising onto the balls of your feet. Then, give your arms and legs a good shake. It might help to imagine one of those inflatable tube people swaying in the wind.
The more you practice your moves, the more effortless they will feel. “If people keep returning to these basic elements of movement, they can intelligently progress to whatever advanced moves they desire,” says Liederbach.
When it comes to syncing with music, for most of us, following the beat is a natural, intrinsic skill. Being “beat-deaf” is rare, but a 2014 study on two individuals who struggle with this suggests that some people have more trouble aligning their movements with external cues like music.
Step Four: Connect with Fellow Dancers
Sweating it out releases endorphins, boosting pleasure and making dancing more enjoyable. But there’s also evidence that dancing fosters human connection. In an article in Scientific American, neurologist John Krakauer suggests that some of this connection may be due to mirror neurons—cells that activate both when you move and when you watch others dance.
“Unconsciously, you are planning and predicting how a dancer would move based on what you would do,” writes Krakauer. So even if you can’t execute a pirouette yourself, watching ballet can still be an enriching experience.
Mirroring movement is also incredibly powerful. “There’s something about doing the same thing at the same time with others that truly bonds us and expands our sense of self,” says Scott Wiltermuth, an organizational behavior professor at the University of Southern California, in an interview with Mytour. From an evolutionary standpoint, it makes sense that we’d find pleasure in coordinating with others: in early hunter-gatherer societies, working together meant survival, he explains.
Ilya Vidrin, a Ph.D. candidate at the Centre For Dance Research in the UK and a Harvard Fellow, believes that qualities which enhance personal relationships—such as being attuned to changes in tone and subtle shifts in body language—also strengthen dance partnerships. “It’s clear that simply making eye contact or touching doesn’t mean you’re truly connected,” he tells Mytour.
Step Five: Be True to Yourself
Judith Lynne Hanna, an anthropologist at the University of Maryland, reminds us that our aesthetic views on dance vary greatly by individual preference, style, culture, and nationality. For instance, flamenco dancers express a deep connection to the earth with their rooted footwork, while ballet dancers focus on maintaining a lifted posture and elevating the body.
In the Ubakala, an Igbo group from Nigeria, movement patterns reflect personal identity. Women of childbearing age often dance in circular formations, incorporating fluid, graceful movements, while men perform vibrant, warrior-like dances. Interestingly, elders often break away from traditional norms, dancing freely as they wish, Hanna observes. This ability to connect through movement ensures the continued vitality of these dance forms.
No matter where you find your inspiration, always stay authentic. “If people fear looking foolish or failing, they’re likely to be too afraid to dance,” says Vidrin. There’s no need to fear the unknown when you're on the dance floor.
