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As the opening strains of the dance hit, “Get This Party Started,” reverberated throughout the Villanova Room at the Connelly Center, a pair of dancers glided across the floor and engaged in a carefully executed performance. Their rendition of a popular West Coast swing dance style served as the introduction for the March 27 presentation titled, “Nietzsche does the Lindy Hop.”

After the dancers completed their routine, Professor Peter Busch from the core humanities department addressed the crowd, commenting on the intentionally strange title of the presentation. He asked, “What is the connection between Nietzsche, a 19th century political philosopher and this type of dancing?” He answered that both involved notions of freedom and what it means for humans to be free.

Today, our modern democracy seems to understand freedom as being unshackled and free from restraint. Yet, are there limits to our freedom, or a necessity to practice self-control in the midst of such freedom? Busch posed these questions to the audience and discussed how it is often necessary to exercise our freedom within certain limits. For instance, personal restraint can be a part of freedom.

This paradoxical restraint is a necessary component of Nietzsche’s understanding of freedom. Busch explained that, “For Nietzsche, freedom is much more disciplined and is a product of a very long period of constraining oneself.” Busch recognized that this idea may be somewhat hard to grasp and therefore examples would be needed to illustrate its meaning. Similar to how Nietzsche himself discussed dancing in terms of freedom, Busch also made these connections. “Freedom comes from a long period of practice and obedience, so that something becomes engrained…then you can be spontaneous and free,” he said.

The practice of dancing then becomes an ideal representation of how Nietzsche’s philosophy operates. Jason Lane, one of the visiting dancers explained, “You need to train your body to dance, it takes a great deal of fine body control. There are different reasons for dancing and set patterns needed to communicate with dancing partners and a need to conform to foundational structures of dancing.”

His partner, Donna Reinhart further explained that, “dancing involves a communication that isn’t there naturally, you need to be able to recognize signals and be able to act upon these signals. These components are necessary for structured dancing.”

Following these discussions, the dancers again took the stage and exhibited the Lindy Hop as well as a salsa routine. The presentation ended with the audience participating in a basic dance lesson, learning the fundamental component of these dances. In closing, Busch urged the audience to consider their own perceptions of freedom, and “when seeing the beautiful movements of the dancers, think about the guy with the big moustache.”