Dancing makes the news

People seem to be getting all het up about dancing.

From Britain comes the news that one's dance moves are key to attracting the opposite sex.

NICE guys who can dance like John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever are most likely to attract women, British academics have found. Research suggests someone who could perform highly co-ordinated dance moves while working in a soup kitchen would be irresistible, though the flying cups of hot minestrone might pose a danger to the homeless.

Dr Peter Lovatt, a former professional dancer and a psychologist of performance at Hertfordshire University, filmed 15 clips of himself performing different dance moves and blurred out his physical features so that only his movements were visible, London's Daily Telegraph reported last week.

He showed the clips to 55 women and asked them to rate how masculine, dominant and attractive each move was. Timid dancing, such as the embarrassed side-to-side shuffle, rated lowest for all three characteristics.

Critics suggested Lovatt was merely a poor exponent of the embarrassed side-to-side shuffle, which has served men well for centuries.

"These so-called professional dancers can't shuffle to save their lives," said a guest at a Sydney wedding last weekend, eagerly seizing any excuse he could to step off the dance floor and talk to someone about something.

The guest said he was confident he had gained the attention of some attractive women while shuffling but couldn't be certain as he was looking at his feet the whole time.

He then drank three schooners in rapid succession before returning to the dance floor to perform the "exaggerated dad dance", another set of moves savaged by the Lovatt report.

"Large random dance movements, where arms and legs were flying all over the place, were very unattractive," Lovatt said, though women did rate these men highly for dominance.

"The most effective thing those people can do to increase their attractiveness is to keep things simple - open and close their legs and arms in time to the music."

A small circle of men performing the birdie dance nodded knowingly while quacking.

Lovatt said dancing was the equivalent of courtship displays used by birds and other animals.

"It is all about how we communicate through dance," he said. "There is an evolutionary reason why we dance in a particular way. As Darwin suggested, dancing is a bit like a courtship ritual to catch the eye of a high-quality member of the opposite sex."

Creationists disputed Lovatt's claims, pointing to morris dancing as something that could not possibly be a result of evolution as no one would ever mate with someone with bells and hankies on their wrists and ankles. It had to be a result of intelligent design. Well, design, anyway.




A separate study, published in the British Journal of Psychology, reported that women found displays of selflessness towards others to be the most attractive trait in a partner.

More than 1000 people of different ages were asked about the qualities they looked for in a mate, the Daily Telegraph reported.

Both men and women found altruistic traits desirable, but women particularly so. The descriptions "donates blood regularly" and "volunteered to help out in a local hospital" had strong positive reactions among women.

Men's groups said the research left men more confused than ever about what was expected of them. How would a bloke ever find time to perfect his dance moves if he was busy pretending to be nice to sick people?

Women despairing of ever finding the perfect disco-dancing altruist need not fear: hope is around the corner. South Korean scientists have developed a possible improvement on male homo sapiens: a robot that can dance, get emotional and do housework, three activities that have proved beyond most men.




The robot, Mahru, can move its lips, eyebrows and pupils to make faces and emit two fragrances to match its emotions, researchers at the Korea Institute of Science and Technology said.

Men, of course, are capable of emitting far more than two fragrances, however none of them are pleasing to women.

"Mahru, which can dance while walking on its legs, was developed as a humanoid robot capable of working in place of a human," team leader You Bum-Jae said.

"It will open the way for the commercial use of humanoid robots doing housework."

Mahru can dance to two pop tunes. Hopefully, for the sake of female-robot relations, they are Stayin' Alive and Jive Talkin'.

Uh-huh. If a robot's dance moves succeed in turning women on, perhaps it's not a man they're looking for! Might be the ultimate battery-operated boyfriend . . .

From Sweden comes news of an outraged feminist who won't take the rules of ballroom dancing lying down (or standing up, for that matter).

Sweden's Equal Opportunities Ombudsman (Jämo) has ruled against a woman who accused a dance school of discrimination when it refused to allow her to take the lead while learning the foxtrot, newspaper Svenska Dagbladet reports.

In her complaint to the government agency, the woman wrote: "It is about as logical to deny me the opportunity to take the lead when dancing as it would be to sell me strawberry rather than chocolate ice cream becase of my gender."

The irate dance student put pen to paper after the Mälarsalen dance school in Stockholm justified its decision with the contention that: "A girl can never be a boy and a boy can never be a girl."

Having taken on board the arguments put forward by both sides, however, the ombudsman eventually ruled in favour of the school.

"The courses are available to both men and women," the ombudsman's office wrote in its decision.

"The woman has therefore not in a legal sense been discriminated against by a service provider because of her gender."

The head of the school, Hans Ryberg, said the decision was entirely expected as the roles of men and women are clearly defined in the realm of ballroom dancing.

"The ombudsman should have thrown this complaint in the rubbish bin immediately; it is taxpayers' money after all," he told Svenska Dagbladet.

I couldn't agree more. Ballroom dancing has strict rules, evolved over many decades. If you don't like them - don't dance ballroom style.

Peter