The Dance and Strobe Light in All Fours: Symbol of Transcendent Communication

What Are the Dance and Strobe Light?

In Miranda July’s All Fours, the dance and strobe light function as both a literal prop and a evolving symbol. The strobe light is a handheld device that Davey brings to the motel room in chapter 10. When activated, it fractures the darkness into pulses of light, allowing the narrator and Davey to see each other only in brief, vivid flashes. The dance that follows—initially a spontaneous, playful interaction—becomes a recurring ritual that the narrator later performs alone, filming herself for Davey. By the novel’s end, dance itself (with or without the strobe) becomes a vehicle for revelation, merging the physical with the sacred.

Where the Motif Recurs

The dance and strobe light appear in four key episodes:

Chapter 10 (first strobe-light dance): Davey introduces the strobe light in the Excelsior Motel room. The narrator and Davey dance in the dark, the strobe creating moments of connection “without language.” They move from personal moves (the narrator’s “fishing” gesture) to a shared, wordless dialogue.
Chapters 15–17 (solo dance as summoning): After Davey leaves, the narrator trains her body at the gym and choreographs a solitary dance in the motel parking lot. She uses headlights instead of a strobe, records herself, and posts the video with the caption “rn.” This dance is a ritual meant to draw Davey back.
Chapter 29 (Epley maneuver as dance): Suffering vertigo, the narrator performs a series of head movements prescribed by Jordi. The sequence mirrors a dance—rotations, collapses, and resets—and becomes a chaotic, ancestral ordeal rather than a romantic summoning.
Chapter 30 (Davey and Dev’s performance): The narrator attends Davey and Dev’s dance show. The stage lights shift to a golden orange that evokes the motel room. The audience’s collective ecstasy and the narrator’s internal shift from resentment to gratitude mirror the earlier strobe-light experience, now expanded to a public, sacred space.

How the Meaning Changes

The motif’s meaning transforms across the novel:

In Chapter 10, the strobe-light dance is a private language of intimacy. It bypasses words, allowing the narrator and Davey to feel “one thing.” The strobe’s fragmentation paradoxically creates unity—each flash reveals raw souls, not social selves.
By Chapters 15–17, the dance becomes a desperate summoning ritual. The narrator believes her filmed performance can “call” Davey back. The strobe is replaced by car headlights, but the framing is identical: darkness, music, a lone dancer performing for a distant viewer. Here the dance is both an offering and a test of faith.
In Chapter 29, the Epley maneuver subverts the motif. The narrator’s vertigo forces her into an involuntary dance of survival. There is no strobe, no romantic partner—only a physical crisis that connects her to ancestral presences. This episode shows the motif stripped of fantasy, grounded in bodily vulnerability.
In Chapter 30, the dance becomes collective revelation. Davey and Dev’s performance uses golden light (not a strobe) but achieves the same transcendent effect. The narrator realizes that the motel room’s sacred quality exists everywhere. Dance itself, not the strobe, is the medium for losing the self and finding connection.

Character Connections

The narrator: She is the primary performer and choreographer. Her relationship to dance shifts from spontaneous joy to calculated use to eventual surrender. The strobe-light dance initially empowers her to express desire and later becomes a vehicle for self-transformation.
Davey: He introduces the strobe and initiates the first dance. He is both muse and audience. In the final performance, he becomes the transcendent figure who triggers the narrator’s revelation.
Jordi: Though not a dancer, Jordi guides the narrator through the Epley maneuver, reframing a medical crisis as a kind of dance. She represents practical, grounded support that parallels the narrator’s more abstract rituals.
Claire: Davey’s wife is an offstage presence. The narrator’s “summoning dance” is partly an attempt to disrupt Davey’s life with Claire, highlighting the motif’s connection to jealousy and possession.

Theme Connections

Desire and Aging: The narrator’s training for the dance (three months of weightlifting) and her use of HRT are linked to her fear of aging. The strobe-light dance is a last-ditch effort to remain desirable before perimenopause “closes the window.”
Fantasy vs. Reality: The early strobe-light dance is pure fantasy—a timeless, wordless escape. Later, the narrator’s solo dance attempts to enforce fantasy on reality (summoning Davey). The vertigo episode and the final performance force her to accept reality’s limitations while still finding transcendence.
Female Aging and Perimenopause: The narrator’s body is central to the dance. Her declining hormone levels motivate the entire “dance project.” The motif thus becomes a lens on how aging reshapes desire, effort, and self-image.
Marriage and Transformation: The dance is a secret from Harris, the narrator’s husband. It represents the separate, transformative life she maintains outside marriage. When the narrator finally releases possession of Davey in chapter 30, she transforms not as a Driver (as Harris wanted) but as a Parker who finds wholeness.
Open Marriage and Nonmonogamy: The strobe-light dance enables a nonmonogamous intimacy that never becomes fully consummated. It challenges the narrator’s marriage boundaries and forces her to negotiate what connection means outside legal commitment.

Study Questions

1. Why does the narrator believe her filmed dance can “summon” Davey?
The narrator treats the dance as a quasi-magical act, akin to a Ouija board. She has seen Davey refresh his phone every few minutes and believes he will immediately see the video and come to the motel. This faith in the dance’s power reflects her need to control the relationship—she wants the dance to replace luck, timing, and Davey’s free will. The novel later subverts this belief when she waits for hours and he never arrives.

2. How does the strobe light change the nature of communication between the narrator and Davey?
The strobe light fractures visual continuity. In the brief flashes, the characters see each other without context or social performance—just “souls, meeting each other’s eyes.” This allows them to communicate directly, bypassing language’s tendency to “take things down a notch.” The strobe’s rhythm also mirrors the beat of the music, making their bodies respond as one organism. It creates a temporary utopia of pure, preverbal connection.

3. In what ways does the Epley maneuver in chapter 29 echo the earlier strobe-light dance?
Both sequences involve repeated, prescribed movements in darkness; both require the narrator to surrender control; both include a witness (Jordi on the phone, Davey in the room). However, the Epley maneuver is involuntary and painful—a dance of survival rather than desire. It connects the narrator to her grandmother and aunt (ancestral dancers) rather than to a lover. This echo shows the motif expanding to include bodily vulnerability and lineage.

4. Why does the narrator’s attitude toward Davey shift during the dance performance in chapter 30?
Initially, she wishes the performance would fail. She feels jealousy and resentment toward the adoring audience. As the golden light spreads and she recognizes the motel room’s energy in the theater, she realizes that “the whole world was the motel room.” Possessing Davey would “use up all the oil on the first night”—waste the sacred potential she now sees everywhere. Gratitude replaces envy, and she cries alongside other audience members. The dance’s power isn’t in owning another person but in sharing a transcendent moment.

For further exploration, see the analysis of the narrator’s character and the major themes of desire and aging, fantasy vs. reality, and female aging and perimenopause.