If there is one thing that unites humans around the world, it’s that dance is a part of every human culture ever encountered. But while dance has a rich and ancient history in humans, it is considered all but absent in non-human primates. New footage from researchers in Kyoto, however, is telling us otherwise.
The researchers in Kyoto filmed the chimps performing the movements in a music booth attached to their enclosure where the apes could go to rock out to piano sounds played in the room. None of the chimps had been taught to groove, and they received no rewards for doing so in the study, but regardless they broke out into spontaneous bodily expression when the beats started.
According to the scientists, the chimpanzee moves might just prove that the origins of dance extend beyond the history of humans.
