The Dad Dance

Last month, we celebrated Father’s Day; a whole 24 hours dedicated to Dad! What is not widely known, however, is that in June 2013, after hundreds of years of persistence, the world of dance made a massive step towards tolerance and further diversity by finally accepting the Dad dance. Along with ‘tweet’ and ‘geekery’, the phrase, ‘dad-dancing’ was added to the Oxford English Dictionary. It is defined as ‘an awkward, unfashionable, or unrestrained style of dancing to pop music, as characteristically performed by middle aged or older men’ and is often spotted at family parties and wedding discos. Indeed, my dad has perfected a kind of scarecrow move, which puts all those within arms-length at great danger, and here at Dancewear Central I’ve certainly seen some choice moves from male members of staff. Psychologists have recently been studying this strange phenomenon, and believe that the lack of dance skills in middle aged men is a result of evolution. They think that bad moves are used to repel younger women, but I’m not convinced my dad doesn’t just do it to embarrass me. Whatever the reasons for that cringe-worthy twitching, the dad dance is being embraced as part of the dance world. In a show entitled Dad Dancing three very brave, professional contemporary dancers, Rosie Heafford, Alexandrina Hemsley and Helena Webb, have taken on their dads in a show that seeks to celebrate and develop the father-child relationship. They have even sought to honour the classic wedding disco groove, with a routine choreographed to Whitney Houston’s I Want to Dance with Somebody. Their next performance will be at Yorkshire Dance in Leeds this Friday and they hold workshops throughout the year, which try to get Dads, granddads, and even uncles, exercising, having fun and interacting with their children no matter how questionable their moves are. Despite the moans of children everywhere it seems that the dad dance is here to stay. So next time he busts out the John Travolta Night Fever move, or starts doing the robot we will just have to join in.