This new book looks at the history of why we dance
'Dance Your Way Home' is published in March 2023 and written by Emma Warren
UK music journalist and writer Emma Warren has penned a new book that looks at the history of why we dance.
The idea for the book, called 'Dance Your Way Home: A Journey Through The Dancefloor', emerged after Warren focused on some specific lines from her last book, 'Make Some Space', which was about the community around London venue Total Refreshment Centre. The lines, which Warren said "a few people honed in on" was that "dancing in the dark is a human need, that we've been doing this forever, and that it's a kind of medicine".
In an Instagram post, Warren said: "Three years later, after multiple conversations and tonnes of research, writing and editing (not to mention recreating dance moves in my flat) there's a book."
The book's cover features an iconic image taken by Georgina Cook, aka dubstep scene photographer Drumz Of The South, at an edition of FWD>> at London club Plastic People in 2006.
Publisher Faber's blurb about 'Dance Your Way Home' reads: "This book is about the kind of ordinary dancing you and I might do in our kitchens when a favourite tune comes on. It's more than a social history: it's a set of interconnected histories of the overlooked places where dancing happens... Why do we dance? What does dancing tells us about ourselves, individually and collectively? And what can it do for us?
"Whether it be at home, '80s club nights, jungle raves or volunteer-run spaces and youth centres, Emma Warren has sought the answers to these questions her entire life. Dancing doesn't just refract the music and culture within which it evolves; it also generates new music and culture in and of itself. When we speak only of the music, we lose part of the story – the part that finds us dancing as children on the toes of adults; the half that triggers egalitarian communication across borders and languages; the part that finds us worried that we'll never be able to dance again, and the part that finds us wondering why we were ever nervous in the first place.
"At the intersection of memoir, social and cultural history, 'Dance Your Way Home' is an intimate foray onto the dancefloor – wherever and whenever it may be – that speaks to the heart of what it is that makes us move."
Faber will publish 'Dance Your Way Home: A Journey Through The Dancefloor' on 6th March. You can pre-order it here.
