A common trope on tv these days is the ‘dance battle’ in which thugs solve their problems not with uzis and glocks but by feats of synchronised arobics.
Maybe the States has a different breed of gangster to here, but this strikes me as incredibly stupid.
Is there any truth to this idea?
Does that kind of dancing have street cred?
Are dance battles where vicious thugs seek to ‘bring it’ a thing?
And if, as I suspect, they aren’t, where did the idea come from?
Two words - Leonard Bernstein.
^^^^ and given later popularity through Michael Jackson’s Beat It and Bad.
Three Words “West Side Story”.
The best one was in Zoolander.
But anyway, yeah. It’s a musical/movie trope. It never occurs in real life, because it’s exactly as ridiculous as you assume it is.
They did it in West Side Story because it’s a musical and that’s how all musics do “combat” scenes. Since then, (with the exception of Michael Jackson’s videos), it’s mostly played for laughs, or at least extremely tongue-in-cheek.
I guess you could tie a tenuous real-word connection to the trope with Crip Walking. 
Next thing you guys are going to tell me is that crowds of people do not spontaneously burst into song every couple of minutes to say how their life is going.
… and, if the film is set in India, that groups of women in matching saris and synchronized dance moves do not emerge from the crowds to provide backup.
There might be a vestigial trace of historical accuracy there.
Dance was an essential element of sub-Saharan African culture, and some of that has no doubt persisted in African-American culture. Note, this would specifically apply to black Americans; less so to other ethnic groups. (To the extent that it has infiltrated into gang culture, maybe it could have bled into non-black gang culture too. I have no idea about that.)
For one example, dance was a common part of African part of coming-of-age rituals, among other uses. There were also ritual warrior dances.
A few cites:
Wikipedia: African dance - Wikipedia
From dance.lovetoknow.com: Historyof African Dance.
Google Dance in African Culture to find more.
I believe one of the “not another teen movie” series poked fun at that with a comment during a dance number to the effect of “isnt it amazing that our whole high school are professional grade dancers”
West Side Story was from 1961. Previous musicals with gangster-themed dance numbers include Fred Astaire in The Band Wagon (1953), and Gene Kelly in Singin’ in the Rain (1952).
The Maori haka is another real-life example of a pre-combat dance ritual, although that would be followed up with combat.
On the other hand, Thucydides noted that while most Greek city-states would engage in some form of pre-battle ritualized chanting and shield-beating that comes close to the concept of a dance-off, the Spartans stony refusal to do so (along with their reputation) would occasionally actually frighten their opponents off the field.
I don’t really think that exotic African cultures are the only ones that use ritual dance before battles or dancing as part of a coming of age ritual.
The famous Apache Dance was created in 1908 from the dances in Apache hangouts in Paris where the thugs frolicked.
Wiki
The dance is sometimes said to reenact a violent “discussion” between a pimp and a prostitute. It includes mock slaps and punches, the man picking up and throwing the woman to the ground, or lifting and carrying her while she struggles or feigns unconsciousness. Thus, the dance shares many features with the theatrical discipline of stage combat. In some examples, the woman may fight back.
There was also Calypso stick fighting.
I remember one of the items on that “Everything I Know I Learned from the Movies” list was:
“If you decide to dance in the street, everybody you meet will know the steps.”
AFAIK, dance battles were a part of Brazilian culture, shading off at both ends into dance and violence.
At one end, the carnival dance schools are in competition. You win status by being better. At the other end, dancing, like at a dance, is what you do in between beating up strangers and rivals. You have a couple of dance numbers, then the crowd splits to the two sides of the hall and you have a fight. Then some more dancing.
And in the tex/mex and irish/italian tradition, dancing with a woman was an open invitation to violance unless you had been introduced to and accepted by the community.
I thought it was Malcolm McDowell that did “Singin’ in the Rain” in a movie… along with fancy footwork, with his droogs.
I think the typical gangster dance nowadays has more of a Mexican beat, including the grand finale where they chop all the heads off the front row dancers. And put them in a duffel bag.
It’s not completely nuts. Group dancing takes a lot of skill and training - like close order drill. It doesn’t directly make a unit more effective but it demonstrates that the unit is effective. And this in turn can have the indirect benefit of making the unit more cohesive and demoralizing its opponents.
The Mardi Gras Indians might be a good example in the US. Just listen to the song Iko Iko. The Big Chiefs have a sort of strut off, and there used to be violence involved.