10 Fun Facts about Dancing

Today, try reading for quick comprehension. Set the timer on your phone to 4 minutes and read as much of this article as you can. When finished try answering these questions:

1. Name 3 different types of dances that were mentioned 

2. How did dancing lead to people dying in two of the examples?

3. What are 3 benefits of dancing?

4. How do people wish dancers good luck in English?

Go back and review if you weren't able to answer any of these questions.

Dance is an integral part of the live and recorded performing arts and cultural industries. It is often collaborative and provides creative and work opportunities for artists working in a range of other art forms including music, design, film, sculpture and theatre. In addition, dancers and choreographers frequently contribute to other art forms.

It has a really long history, but I don’t want to bore you with it. Let’s find out some interesting benefits instead:

• Dancers are known to be disciplined, focused and high achievers who tend to be successful students and hard workers.
• Research also proves that dancing also reduces stress and tension for the mind and body. Studies by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute have shown that dancing also prevents heart disease in particular.
• Dancers also have increased muscular strength, endurance and motor fitness. (No wonder professional dancers are today regarded as athletes.)
• Because of high physical demand on their bodies, most professional dances retire from dancing during their mid-30s.
• They also have better coordination, agility and flexibility.

Sounds great, doesn’t it?

10 fun facts about dancing

1. The “Dancing Plague”of 1518 was a mania that lasted a month and killed dozens of people in Strasbourg, France through exhaustion or heart attack. People just danced uncontrollably until they collapsed!One other famous case involved people dancing on a bridge. Eventually so many people danced that they broke the bridge and fell into the river.
2. A world record for the longest conga dance line was set by 119,986 people in Miami in 1988.
3. An English man tragically died during an office Christmas party. The cause of death? He overexerted himself dancing to Psy’s megahit Gangnam Style. The lesson here is that if you have certain health conditions, you should not stray outside of your comfort zone.
4. You may know Tupac Shakur as the late rapping legend of the late 80s and early 90s, but what you may not know is that he used to do ballet! He became a member of the 127th Street Ensemble, a Harlem based theater company.
5. In 2008, the world’s first “sustainable” dance floor opened at Club Watt in Rotterdam, Sweden. The floor’s tiles each sit on springs hooked up to generators. The harder people dance, the more the springs are compressed and this converts into energy, which runs the LED lights in the floor.
6. The dance world is full of superstitions. By saying “break a leg” before a show, people are saying the exact opposite of what they hope will happen on stage.
7. Hindu religion has very close relationship to dance and music. This connection can be seen in their countless Bollywood movies that all celebrate dancing.
8. African slaves that were brought in Brazil 300-400 years ago were prohibited from practicing martial arts. Therefore, they developed the mix of dancing and fighting that is known today as capoeira.
9. Breakdancing was first created as a “less lethal” form of fighting between warring African-American street gangs in 1970s Bronx area of New York City. This form of dancing re-emerged into worldwide popularity during 1990s.
10. The most sensual dance of modern times is without a doubt the Tango. It originated in the 1890s inArgentina, but it quickly became very successful in Europe.