Ever wonder why people party and dance only at night? You haven’t? Alrighty then, it’s just me.
Turns out there isn’t a reason why dancing and partying is done at night and not during the day, no reason that I could come across.
My guess is many of you are thinking the obvious reason is because people work during the day. Sounds logical but not really. First off, there are many people who don’t work during the day but at night: nurses, hotel staff — nightshift people, generally.
Secondly, it’s not entirely true that during the day, people work. Yes, one does see many people off to their places of employment on many a morning, especially in a city like Nairobi. But other than chatting with colleagues, checking social media and surfing the net, how much work actually gets done in offices? There’s an interesting quote on this, can’t recall who said it: ‘Work is something you do, not somewhere you go.’
I mean, think about it. If, indeed, so much ‘work’ is taking place, how come hardly anything works properly in this country?
But I digress. I was talking about dancing and why only at night. And even though I didn’t find the reason we do it under the cover of darkness, I did come across the why we do dance and party in the first place.
Dancing is a human need. That’s right, folks. Dancing is a primal instinct that goes all the way back to our prehistoric ancestors. There are even cave drawings at Mesa Verde National Park in Colorado, USA, of primeval humans dancing.
Evolutionary psychologists believe that gathering in groups and moving rhythmically together was a way for early humans to bond, communicate and survive. The survival part is related to procreation and the continuation of the species.
Our ancestors did not dance to have fun, a 2006 study suggests. ‘Early humans might have danced to attract a mate,’ says Steven J Mithen, an archaeologist at the University of Reading, UK.
And so it has been hypothesised that what modern humans refer to as partying is instinctively a technique to create chemistry between the sexes.
Women dance to encourage men to dance so they learn more about the men and see if there is a mutual connection. Dance is a key feature of the mating ritual, as dance movements may subconsciously send honest signals, communicating to the woman a man’s reproductive quality in terms of health and vigour. In other words, males who are more coordinated and rhythmic leave the club with the girl.
It has also been argued that attending nightclubs is a form of ‘Lekking behaviour’. A Lek is a physical space where males of a species congregate to impress females. From an evolutionary perspective, nightclubs are the best place to find a partner, even if it’s just a temporary one.
In the words of Emma Cohen, an anthropologist at Oxford, ‘Partying isn’t just a time to make bad decisions but a chance to make great stories and maybe even meet the new love of your life.’
As for the bonding aspect of dancing and partying, think oxytocin (love hormone); it’s what’s produced when one takes part in collective activities, such as dancing with friends.
So the next time you hear someone talk about the evils of dancing, partying and clubbing, just say to them they are biological imperatives and, therefore, unavoidable.