Good dancing — truly excellent work and not your 4-year-old sister’s glitter-filled, two-minute recital — is incredibly difficult to find, and our culture is worse for it. 

Dance is perhaps best understood in connection to the liberal arts. It uniquely synthesizes elements found within other artistic disciplines: the technicality and mathematics of music, the texture and lineage of visual arts, and the emotional complexity of acting. As George Balanchine, the brilliant 20th-century choreographer, famously said, “Dance is music made visible.” 

Dance, however, crowns all of these other arts by taking the world’s most precious material object as its matter: the human person. The violinist creates a harmonious sound, and the sculptor molds clay. In the same way, the dancer applies its form to the entire person, body, mind, and soul. The discipline, then, presents a unity and wholeness that cannot be found in any other artistic pursuit; the art and the artist are one. For those who believe that men are made in the image and likeness of the eternal God, there is something sacred, then, about dance. At its purest and best, dance dignifies the whole of the human person. 

If the philosophical argument isn’t enough, then consider how hard dancing really is. 

According to the Labor Department’s Occupational Information Network, dancing is the most physically demanding job in America. Yes, it looks easy, but if the dancers’ movements look hard, then they are doing something wrong. The goal of dancing is ennobling the human person, especially the body. Think of it like a classical painting, where all of the figures are elegant. Even when the people are depicted in battle or in other active occupations, they nonetheless look graceful, almost unreal in the proportionality and beauty of the depiction. Dance should achieve the same end. 

OK fine, you might say. “Dance is worth something, but how on earth can you enjoy it? How are you supposed to look at it?”

Think of it like any other painting or piece of music. Look for lines and structure. Pay attention to what emotions it creates in you. Appreciate the costumes, the color, or the athleticism. In the end, there is no wrong way to watch dance. 

Like reading a poem, it is a good experience in and of itself, enriching the viewer for simply because it has been seen. 

Not all dance is created equal. Like any other art, there is a profound amount of trashy, tacky, degrading, sexualized, or otherwise bad dance. But it is possible to find good dance, and when it is found, it should be respected as a powerful tool for promoting human dignity and the reintegration of beauty into secular culture. 

So, if you are looking for good dancing to enjoy, come to the Tower Dancers Concert on Dec. 3. It is an entirely student-choreographed performance, and you’ll even catch sections from the Nutcracker. 

Men, now is your chance to take the girl you’ve been Hillsdating to see the show. There’s nothing more romantic than ballet. You might even enjoy it.