It happens at Jazzercise classes and Taylor Swift concerts. You can feel it at in sports whether you are on the field or in the stands. Kids create it while singing and clapping together. Adults make it happen with fancy handshakes or dance moves from decades ago.
When human bodies move together we create an energy, an alive sensation that is different, somehow more than if we were moving alone.
As I prepare for teaching at the Tom Tom Festival in Charlottesville (April 20! Do come!) and for the May/June series of Nourishing Movement classes (Online! In-person! Do come!), I keep being inspired and excited by the extraordinary feeling of moving together.
Sociologists call it “collective effervescence” and about a year ago, I wrote a post on it. Below is an extended excerpt to whet your appetite for the bubbly buoyancy of moving together in whatever way you like.
When was the last time you felt “collective effervescence”?
Excerpt of Collective Effervescence ~ april 25 2023
In 1912, French sociologist Émile Durkheim coined the term ‘collective effervescence’ for the euphoric unity generated when humans move together.
In their 2016 Exercising Together Boosts Performance and Forges Friendships, Jacob Taylor, Emma Cohen, and Arran Davis explain that “coordinated group movement – what we call social motion – sets the stage for the changes in brain chemistry often associated with altered perceptions and beliefs.”
The social connection that happens in social motion can provide us with what the researchers call “the buzz necessary to reverse cycles of social and physical inactivity, bringing us closer to one another, and closer to the physical and mental health we require to thrive.”
There is lots of research that bears this out. In her 2020 Scientific American piece, Marta Zaraska writes,
Many group activities boost our sense of belonging, but research shows that doing things synchronously can build even stronger social ties and create a greater sense of well-being.
And the research of Bronwyn Tarr, an Experimental Psychologist at the University of Oxford reports that
...when you synchronise even a small movement, like the tapping of your finger in time with someone else, you feel closer and more trusting of that person than if you had tapped out of time.
...the social closeness humans feel when doing synchronised activities may be because they trigger the release of a cocktail of bonding hormones, including endorphins.
It is such a human thing when we move together. Whether in the realms of religion, dance, or sport, synchronized movement is a way of signaling to our brains and to each other that we are connected. Some researchers speculate that moving together was a way of expanding our “tribe” beyond the handful of people we could connect with directly.
What I find in my work, teaching both in-person and on-line, is that part of what connects us even more is that we are moving together but not the same. Part of what moves me to tears watching these Flash Mobs is that none of us are professional dancers. We’re all just people moving our particular bodies together and in our own way.
The cool thing is that while I’m partial to group movement to music, you can tap into the power of collective effervescence in simple ways. Rock a baby, clap along with a kiddo, sway with your beloved, or simply tap your fingers to a song with a friend. Any movements that you do with someone (including doing them online) will fire up your brain with bonding hormones.
The experience of collective effervescence is the reminder that we all need and want love and belonging...even as we find them in our own way.
