Dance as an Ode to Belonging

When I walk into my local silent disco, even after five years, I still feel a small pang of awkwardness at the door. It never stays. Under a soft glow of lilac, with sequins from bags catching the light and scattering it across the floor, the format is simple: settle the body, connect, and dance. The lightly guided movement at the start puts everyone on an equal footing. Discomfort dissolves.

Uncle Shane Charles leads a smoking ceremony, honouring the Traditional Owners of this land who gathered and danced for generations before us so we can gather and dance today.

Source: Neil McCarthy Photography

For an outside observer, and silent discos always seem to draw a few, this might look like an individual activity because each person wears headphones. Yet the shared music, connection, and celebration of each other make it anything but an individual sport.

Dance helps people find small points of connection that can support belonging. Sophie Gill of POHSS Studio explains this clearly: "In our spaces people connect through the shared love of music and movement first and there is an 'unspoken' (literally) unity that occurs. The belonging comes from enjoying an experience together, firstly and then evolves into so much more. 'A community that moves together moves together' is what I often say." This shows how shared movement can help ease people into a group, as well as opportunities for belonging and social connection.

The POHSS studio community celebrating 5 years of togetherness

Source: Neil McCarthy Photography

While the research base from across the lifespan is growing, there is converging evidence that dancing with others can support belonging in ways that are immediate and meaningful.

What the research shows

• Disadvantaged adults in a 12-week dance program described stronger acceptance within the group and a growing sense of belonging, which accompanied reductions in depression and social isolation (Murrock & Graor, 2016).
• Adolescents involved in dance programs reported clearer pathways to belonging through shared activity, collaborative learning and supportive peer relations, synthesised across 14 studies (Sango & Pickard, 2024).
• Secondary school students in a year-long classroom dance intervention showed increased belonging as classmates nominated and accepted one another more over time (Kreutzmann et al., 2018).
• Conscious clubbing participants described dance gatherings as inclusive communities where people felt part of something larger and free from pressures that normally undermine belonging (Hill et al., 2022).
• Older adults with dementia using silent disco headphones in a hospital unit displayed moments of social connection and calmness that staff viewed as supportive of belonging (Hung et al., 2021).
• People seeking asylum in the U.K. used music and dance events as spaces where they felt recognised within a cultural community, strengthening belonging during periods of displacement (Lewis, 2015).
• Cornish folk festival participants used shared movement and long-standing rituals to affirm local identity and place-based belonging across generations (Cornish, 2016).
• Ravers in recovery described collective dance as an experience that supported belonging, grounding and reconnection during recovery from substance use (Day, 2023).
• Adult dancers reflecting on early childhood settings described dancing as a state that strengthened awareness of self and others, which they linked to early belonging development in children (Grindheim & Grindheim, 2021).

Community dance creators Julieahh, Claudia Sangiorgi Dalimore, and Sophie Gill (left to right)

Source: Neil McCarthy Photography

How belonging emerges from dance

Across these studies, several consistent findings appear. People tend to adjust their movement in terms of timing and pace to those around them. Research refers to this as synchrony, where individuals begin moving in ways that align with the group. Synchrony has been shown to increase affiliation in experimental work, and the community studies above show the same pattern in real-world environments.

The studies also show that shared movement reduces the usual attention people place on monitoring how they appear to others. The focus shifts toward the activity itself and the group more broadly. Students in school-based programs spoke about feeling more relaxed around classmates as they rehearsed together. Adults in conscious clubbing settings described settling into the group once movement began. Together these studies show that shared movement can give some people a brief release from self-focus.

Dance also opens participation across wide differences in age, skill, and background. Studies with asylum seekers, festival communities and rave participants highlighted that collective movement created a social environment where identity could be expressed without judgment. In these settings, belonging grew from feelings of recognition, acceptance, shared identity and emotional safety.

Taken together, the studies show that dance creates opportunities for belonging and makes the experience of belonging easier to access. The movement matters less than the shift in attention, the informal connections and the sense of being and belonging recognised by others described across the research.

Dance and connection in beautiful surrounds at Seaford Beach, Australia

Source: Neil McCarthy Photography

Ways to bring more dance into daily life

• Join a community dance class where connection and participation matters more than performance.
• Explore alcohol-free dance events if you prefer social spaces without drinking pressures.
• Add short home-based movement sessions to begin or end the day.
• If you work with children, create open-ended movement play that does not rely on skill.
• Support local cultural dance events that strengthen collective identity.
• Learn some dance moves from an online tutorial; a bonus if you can do this with a friend!

Or as Sophie suggests, maybe, try a silent disco! "Inside the silent disco headphones you step into an immersive experience where you don't have to talk. You are connected through music."

Dance will not resolve every belonging challenge people face, but across studies, ages and settings it reliably creates small moments where people feel part of something larger.

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Acknowledgements

Thank you to Sophie Gill for sharing her insights into dance facilitation and immersive movement.

POHSS studio offers silent-disco dance experiences that bring people together through shared music, movement and community. Sophie offers experiences for community and corporate groups, local and international, offline and online.

All photos supplied in appreciation by Neil MCarthy Photography.