Joint health is the connection, consider the unique knee injuries that tend to result from distance running. Dancing displays the range of motion in place so your mate can judge you with out having to run.
There's a lot of overlap, consider these factors that relate to dancing and hunting: timing aspect combined with shifting weight and body position, arm/leg coordination, underlying percussion track 60-140 bpm (the range of a heart beat), percussion generally broken down into 4 part segments corresponding with heart pumping.
So it seems like to be good at dancing (or long distance hunting) you have a good sense of timing over a long period, are aware of your heart beat, and most importantly no debilitating ankle, hip, knee, or foot injuries.
That should make a clear case for how dancing could have evolved culturally as a metric for hunting ability rather than genetically.
The issue I'd still raise is why we dance in time, several people organised with music, when dancing solo would seem plenty for such a display? That's what lots of animals do. But none of them synchronise it.
Yea those are good points. I'm not sure - I would bet the answer is cultural rather than genetic though. Hearing and group coordination may be really important in persistence hunting or maybe to indicate social acceptance. There are a lot of interesting theories in evolutionary biology, but no good way to test them.
There's a lot of overlap, consider these factors that relate to dancing and hunting: timing aspect combined with shifting weight and body position, arm/leg coordination, underlying percussion track 60-140 bpm (the range of a heart beat), percussion generally broken down into 4 part segments corresponding with heart pumping.
So it seems like to be good at dancing (or long distance hunting) you have a good sense of timing over a long period, are aware of your heart beat, and most importantly no debilitating ankle, hip, knee, or foot injuries.
That should make a clear case for how dancing could have evolved culturally as a metric for hunting ability rather than genetically.