A new report shows that women should swing their hips and move with asymmetric abandon to burn up the dance floor.

New research published in Scientific Reports shows that if a woman wants to be noticed on the dance floor, big hip swings and limbs moving independently of each other are key to being consider a top-notch groover.

^{Good dancing. Images courtesty of Northumbria University}

Scientists at Northumbria University in the UK asked 200 heterosexual people (57 males and 143 females) to rate 15-second clips of 39 female dancers. The team used motion-capture technology to record the movements of the young women – university students aged 18 to 30 – dancing to a basic drum beat, and then turned them into avatars so that their physical appearance did not influence the results.

The researchers found that three types of movement contributed to someone being considered a good dancer: vigorous swinging of the hips, asymmetrical movements of the legs and arms, and arms held at an intermediate level. Letting it all hang out and going for broke physically attracted the highest scores.

Women and men were in “very strong agreement” about which dancers...