created and edited by Jorge Luis Morejon
Dance: What is Dance?
Definitions, Origins and Analysis
Introduction: Our First Dance
• Dance existed before it was ever named as dance in the same way that we existed even before we were named.
• Dance is and was anything that we consider it to be. What was really our first dance ever?
• The dance of winning our right to live, the dance that made us all winners even before we were born. The dance that allowed us to be that one sperm that made it to the ovum.
• Personally, through dance I have been able to realize who I was supposed to be at the very moment of my conception.
Ways of Defining Dance
• According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, the word dance comes from the French word danser; perhaps the word derives even from the Frankish language. Others think that the word 'dance' derives from the Sanskrit 'tanha' meaning 'joy of life.' (wiggle.org.uk)
• Dance is considered an art form that generally refers to the movement of the body with a specific rhythm and to music.
• Dance is used as a form of expression, a form of social interaction or a form of spiritual experience in a performance setting or not.
• Dance is also used to describe methods of non-verbal communication such as body-language, between humans or between animals, for instance bee dance, patterns of behavior such as a mating dance.
• From a philosophical point of view anything can be considered a dance event, the motion in inanimate objects such as “the leaves danced in the wind.
• In sports, gymnastics, figure skating and synchronized swimming are considered dance disciplines while some forms of martial arts like Karate and Aikido are often compared to dances.
Dance Conceptual Flexibility
• Definitions of what constitutes dance are dependent on social, cultural, aesthetic, artistic and moral constraints and range from functional movement (such as folk dance) to virtuoso techniques such as ballet.
• Dance can be participatory, social or performed for an audience. It can also be ceremonial, competitive or erotic.
• Dance movements may be without significance, such as in some ballet, contemporary modern, post modern or European folk dance, or have a gestural vocabulary/symbolic system as in many Asian dances. Dance can embody or express ideas, emotions or tell a story.
• Dancing has evolved into certain musical forms, genres and styles. Breakdancing and Krumping are related to the hip hop culture. African dance is interpretive. Ballet, Ballroom, Waltz, and Tango are classical styles of dance while Square and the Electric Slide are forms of step dances. These classifications change all the time.
Introduction’s Summary
o In summary, dance is the movement of the living human body in performance as the primary instrument of the art form, however, from a Dance Philosophical point of view; anything and everything could be considered a dance event, the weather seasons, the movement of the grass with the wind, the movement of the ocean waves, the mating of animals.
o Dance’s flexibility makes it a complex subject of study because of its non-verbal, ephemeral, and mixed nature. Without the presence and involvement of the body itself, the study of dance becomes a disembodied experience which loses its true significance.
o Most writing on dance relies on the history of dance, the biographies of dancers, evaluation and description of dancers' performances, evaluation and description of choreographers' creations, technical discussions of dance technique, the mechanics of dance production, and the sociological and ethnological contexts of dance.
So, where should we start?
Human’s Common African Origin
Let’s start at the beginning, when dance was not dance but human movement and ritual. Now that the post-genome era has made it possible for us to study ancient human migrations without having to rely on archeological findings, let’s go to the first sperm. Based on DNA studies, one can conclude that humans first emerged in Africa. Tom Strachan, (Scientific Director of the Institute of Human Genetics and Professor of Human Molecular Genetics at the University of Newcastle in the UK) and Andrew P. Read (a Professor of Human Genetics at Manchester University in the UK) in their new book Human Molecular Genetics 3 have introduced the subject of human molecular genetics in the post-genome era.
• A genome is the entire Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) in an organism, including its genes (alleles). A gene is the basic unit of heredity in a living organism. All living things depend on genes. Genes carry information for making all the proteins required by all organisms. These proteins determine, among other things, how the organism looks, how well its body metabolizes food or fights infection, and sometimes even how it behaves. ( www.ornl.gov)
• A DNA sequence or genetic sequence is a succession of letters representing the primary structure of a real or hypothetical DNA molecule or strand, with the capacity to carry information as described by the central dogma of molecular biology.
• The possible letters are A, C, G, and T, representing the four nucleotide bases of a DNA strand — adenine, cytosine, guanine, thymine — covalently linked to a phosphodiester backbone.
• These four similar chemicals (called nucleotide bases and abbreviated A, C, G and T) are repeated millions or billions of times throughout a genome. The human genome, for example, has 3 billion pairs of bases.
• The particular order of As, Cs, Gs and Ts is extremely important. The order underlies all of life's diversity, even dictating whether an organism is human or another species
With the emergence of the human genome, new knowledge and new emphases in human molecular genetics is prevailing in the study of the origins of human beings. When applied to human populations, DNA-variations-studies have suggested not only a recent origin of modern humans from African populations but also a common one.
• Molecular genetics is the field of biology which studies the structure and function of genes at a molecular level. The field studies how the genes are transferred from generation to generation. Molecular genetics employs the methods of genetics and molecular biology. An important area within molecular genetics is the use of molecular information to determine the patterns of descent.
An early proposal, the recent African origin (RAO) model, (also called the uniregional hypothesis), suggested that our species evolved from a small African population that had subsequently colonized the whole world about 100 000 to 150 000 years ago, which is around the time when anatomically-modern-humans emerged.
Recent statistical analyses of hyplotype-trees have argued against the RAO model by posing an alternative multiregional evolution model. Some paleontologists argue that humans have emerged gradually and simultaneously from dispersed Homo-erectus populations on different continents.
The term haplotype is a contraction of the term 'haploid genotype'. The haploid number is the number of chromosomes in a gamete of an individual, (23 in humans). In genetics, a haplotype is a combination of alleles at multiple loci that are transmitted together on the same chromosome.
An individual's genotype for that gene is the set of alleles it happens to possess. In diploid organisms (two copies of each chromosome) including humans with 23 pairs, two alleles make up the individual's genotype.
However, Alan Templeton, a professor of biology in Washington University in St. Louis, suggests that humans expanded out of Africa more than once and interbred on a regional basis.
In conclusion, Human Molecular Genetics 3 follows the completion of the Human Genome Project, a project sponsored by U.S. Department of Energy and the National Institutes of Health which began in 1990 and ended in 2003. One important feature of the project was the federal government's long-standing dedication to the transfer of technology to the private sector.
National Geographic, one of the many institutions which benefited from the Human Genome Project, in the front page of its website The Genographic Project, states what we have discussed already, “that DNA studies suggest that all humans today descend from a group of African ancestors who—about 60,000 years ago—began a remarkable journey. In this, as they describe it, unprecedented and of real-time research effort, the Genographic Project is closing the gaps of what science knows today about humankind's ancient migration stories.” (genographic.nationalgeographic.com)
• Interview with Dr. Spencer Wells, researcher in residence with the National Geographic’s Genographic Project. (queue the audio at 1:43 to 4:50)
We will start our Dance journey with Africa’s indigenous groups and their dances, dances that would probably explain how closely they are connected to the places they live and their traditional ways of life and their reliance on the land, on hunting, on animal and plant species, a sense that you have always lived in the same place and the deeper connection to the African homeland.
Main Migration Patterns
• Because early migrant populations are tied to the practice of rituals, and rituals are so intrinsically tied to dance practices, at least in the early period, I would like to start the tracing of early dances from our common African origin to then follow the migration routes, suggested by the Genographic Project, to other parts of the world.
• The first migration took place 60 thousand years ago, from Africa to lower parts of Asia, using the coastal route to India and South East Asia, then to Australia about 50 thousand years ago, where we would have found the ancestors of the aborigines (we do not see archeological evidence because of the last ice age and the raise of sea levels, but there is a genetic lineage that connects the aborigines to Southern Indian groups.
• The second migration went from Africa to the higher portion of the Asian continent, Siberia. Then, within the last 10 to 15 thousand years, humans migrated across the Bering Land Bridge into Alaska, (these were the people hunting the caribou the rain dear). Then, human came to North America to finally make it, within approximately a thousand years, to South America.
Rituals
It is clear that the one aspect that remains present across these social organization models of Africa is the practice of rituals. Why? Because of play; while play may be one of those concepts that “escapes the meshes of rational definition,” as a phenomenon, one sees it everywhere, always a satisfaction to the human urge for pleasure and recreation. (Hunningher 11)
How is a rite manifested?
Dance is play, “which defines it neither as real nor as unreal, neither as good nor as bad and it may serve no practical purpose if judged by the standards of everyday life. It is uncommon and separate.” It is unlikely that any human society (at any rate until the invention of Puritanism) has denied itself the excitement and pleasure of dancing. However, like cave painting, the first purpose of dance is probably ritual, which means that dance as ritual may serve the purpose of appeasing a nature spirit, of accompanying a rite of passage, of losing oneself in rhythmic movement with other people as a form of intoxication, of establishing some control over a chaotic world, and of protecting the group from famine and death. In the words of Bay Area dancer, choreographer and community activist Anna Halprin, dance ritual is simply dancing with a purpose.
Vocabulary:
• Ritual: an established or prescribed procedure for a religious or other rite.
• Rite: a prescribed form or manner governing the words or actions for a ceremony, for instance initiation rites.
• Rite of Passage: a ritual associated with a crisis or a change of status (as marriage, illness, or death) for an individual
In 1955, Benjamin Hunningher in The Origin of the Theatre had already articulated the idea that for those who participated in the artistic experience of play, ritual becomes “truthful, important and orderly.” To primitive men, “the order of nature, the regular succession and change of seasons, the natural rhythm of growth and decline seized upon their inward understanding leading them to compulsive and reflex action.” (12) Primitive men felt the need to enact the changes of nature through their dances and plays in order to bring under their control elements they did not dominate, and if necessary correct them.
Dance as Ritual
In Dance rhythm is indispensable; it is also a basic element of music. It is natural to beat out the rhythm of the dance with sticks. It is natural to accompany the movement of the dance with rhythmic chanting. Dance and music began as partners in the service of ritual. The following general guidelines help one to understand the importance of dance as ritual for early humans.
• Dance and music began as partners in the service of ritual.
• In most ancient civilizations, dancing before the god was an important element in temple ritual.
• Dance did not often leave behind clearly identifiable physical artifacts that could last over millennia, such as stone tools, hunting implements or cave paintings. It is not possible to say, based on archeological findings, when dance became part of human culture. However, dance has certainly been an important part of ceremony, rituals, celebrations and entertainment since before the birth of the earliest human civilizations.
• One of the earliest structured uses of dances may have been the performance and the telling of myths. Before the production of written languages, dance was one of the methods of passing these myths down from generation to generation.
• Another early use of dance may have been as a precursor to ecstatic trance states in healing rituals. Dance is still used for this purpose by many cultures from the Brazilian rainforest to the Kalahari Desert.
1. First African Migration
Social Organization and Dances: Bands, Tribes, kingdoms
Dances Among Bands
It has become usual to classify the multitude of indigenous forms of African government into three main categories, conventionally known as bands, tribes, and kingdoms. Bands are relatively few and are limited to the societies with economies based on hunting and gathering, especially those of the Bushmen and the Kung of the Kalahari and the foragers of the central African forests. Their economies require a low density of population and, therefore, its wide distribution over large areas, which inhibit permanent or large settlements. These bands are not found in total isolation but are interspersed with culturally different groups with distinct and complementary economies. Essentially, the bands are large kinship groups under the authority of family elders and shamanic ritual leaders. (socially, one contemporary example of a band is a gang)
Bushmen Dance
In the Art of Africa web site, one can read about the Bushmen bands and their practice of trance- dance, which is not only done for the healing of the sick but also serves as a social and sacred function. A fire is lit where a group, mostly women sit in a circle around it. The dancers, mostly men, will start dancing in a circle around these women. They will have rattles on their legs made from dried seed pods. The group sitting around the fire will sing, clap and tend to the fire while the dancers are trying to enter a trance.
The first few hours of a trance dance are relaxed and sociable. Then, when the first person shows signs of entering a trance, the clapping and singing gets more intense. This could be when they start to sweat profusely, begin to breath heavily and have glossy stares. The dancers will soon begin to enter a trance. From here they will be able to start healing the people. A normal dance will last about 6 hours but occasionally can go for the whole day.
The Dance of the Kung from the Kalahari Dessert
In Richard Katz’s book Boiling Energy: Community Healing among the Kalahari Kung Tribes, the author introduces us to the life and rituals of the Kung people of the Kalahari desert, a hunter gather group whose culture goes back at least as far as the Pleistocene period. The Kung people are also a nomadic group moving their camps as the seasons change and dictate. Rather than making up one large community, the Kung, as a whole, are made up of smaller bands or groups that occupy the Dobe area of the Kalahari Desert in South Africa.
Although the Kung people live in separate camps they have a large understanding of community. Any member of one camp can freely walk into another camp to visit friends and relatives. This communal tie is greatest during the healing dance when people from many camps can come together to dance, sing or just to enjoy the atmosphere that is experienced during the dance. The dance can at times be performed several times in a month but the Kung may also go several weeks without performing it. Those who take part in the dance consist of the women (both young and old), adolescent males, young men and the more mature males.
The dance could last from dusk till dawn. The Kung women begin the dance once they have gathered the wood for the central fire around which the dance takes place. The Kung women build the fire and sit around it shoulder to shoulder with their legs interlocked. Then, they begin singing the num songs and clapping. It is the song and clapping that stimulates the dancers to dance. The dancers for the most part are male but this is not a rule women too can dance if they choose. In the early stages of the dance the singing and clapping are light compared to the more intense singing when the dance is at its peak. This gives the adolescent males a chance to practice their dance moves. As the night draws on the singing and clapping intensify allowing the young men and mature males to dance and to receive and activate their num, which the Kung has translated as medicine. However, num is more than that; it is a powerful energy. It is given by god and the ancestors and is received by the healers and is at its most potent during the healing dance. Num can be received by anyone but not everyone receives it. During the dance, even a strong healer who has received num many times before be refused.
During the dance the rhythmic singing and clapping of the singers along with the rhythmic dance, the small steps and more energetic stomps of the dancers brings on the onset of num. It begins in the pit of the stomach gebesi and as the singing, clapping and dancing intensify the num begins to heat up. Eventually, the num begins to boil and evaporate rising up the spine and allowing the healer to reach a state of kia or an altered state.
This process is not an easy one. The boiling of the num that is required to reach kia is described by the healers as a painful process. So painful and intense is this feeling that the healer on receiving num will collapse onto the ground where he must quickly take control of the num. However, when receiving num, there is also a fear of death. The value of reaching kia is that Those healers who enter into kia see things as they really are. Healers who experience kia can see and converse with the spirits of dead relatives and ancestors. More importantly they can see sickness and illness in those who attend the dance. To reach kia a dancer must die and be reborn a healer. During this process the dancer’s soul leaves the body and must be guided back usually with the help of the singers and or other dancers who have not yet received num.
The Foragers of the Central African Forest.
Origin stories often make reference to a god who created the world, the forest, and the first humans, after which she or he withdrew to the sky and paid no more attention to the affairs of the world. A certain powerful forest spirit influences the "living dead" (i.e., the souls of dead forest foragers). All the forager groups have traditional healers, and several of them (e.g., the Aka, Baka, and Mbuti) recognize the supernatural abilities of great hunters, who can communicate with the supernatural world, make themselves invisible, and take the forms of various animals. Each of the forager groups has several hunting rituals; their nature, occurrence, frequency, and intensity depend on hunting success, failure, and uncertainty. Among the Aka and Baka, the most important hunting rituals are linked to elephant hunting. Honey is symbolic of life substance, and gathering of the first honey is preceded by collective ceremonies, music, and dance.
The most important ceremonies follow death. The forest spirit participates in these, either through the sound of a trumpet (among the Efe and Mbuti) or dancing under a raffia mask (among the Aka and Baka). Forest-forager music is distinct from that of farmers of Central Africa. It exhibits complex vocal polyphony; yodeling is incorporated, but there is a relative lack of musical instruments. Varying by region, the latter include whistles, two-stringed bows, and drums. Unison singing is seldom realized. Collective songs have superimposed parts. The lyrics are usually not important; they may consist of meaningless vowels and syllables.
Tribal Dances
"Tribes," a word less often used today than it was formerly because it is held to imply "primitiveness," form the numerically largest political category. Tribes are larger and more settled than bands, but they still lack any overall form of centralized political authority. They have no kings and, in the past, usually had no formally appointed chiefs, although there have always been ritual leaders with some degree of political authority. Most of these societies are based upon a structure of clans, which are segmented into sub-clans and lineages, often with three or four levels of segmentation. A clan or lineage is the basic unit of such a tribal organization, in which the tribe resembles a series of small, equal, and quasi-autonomous groups. The traditional sanctions for social order are ritual, feud, and warfare.
These societies are found especially in eastern Africa among pastoralists, such as the Maasai. In yet other tribal societies, mostly in western Africa, government is by some form of association (including the so-called "secret societies") of men and women of equal age and standing. (In contemporary society this is similar to clubs, fraternities, political organizations, ethnic groups)
Dances of the Masai: The Masai Jumping Dance
The Masai Jumping dance is performed by the men of the village, who leap into the air to show their strength and stamina as tribal warriors. Each young man will jump as high as he can while the others stand in a circle and sing. The voices of the men get higher as the jumping increases. This jumping dance is performed in a red-clad and the warriors are beaded. In the Masai language, this dancing competition is called the "adumu". There are other traditional dances that the Masai perform. Masai dances are very structured and are performed for certain occasions. There are dances for celebration when a lion is killed by the warriors, a dance for the blessing of cattle, and dances performed at wedding ceremonies. Most of the Masai dances are pretty simple, and consist of a lot of bending, but with the feet staying still on the ground.
Another type of dance marks the end of the Massai as a warrior. An article published in National Geographic told the story of seven young warriors from a small village in Kenya who went through the most important ceremony of their lives. “Their Eunoto ceremony transforms them from glamorous, long haired, carefree warriors to serene, bald, elders within a space of five days.” What this means is that they will also give up their lives of freedom to settle down, get married and take on the responsibilities of Massai elder hood. They also give up the songs and dances of warriorhood that define the lives and spirit of the Massai people. They take a long journey to their Eunoto Ceremony over 200 kilometers away in Tanzania. With mixed emotions, all seven warriors traveled together on foot to the ceremonial site where 900 warriors from the Salei Massai gathered on a sacred mountain to perform secret and ancient rituals. These rituals included dances of red and white ochre and having their heads shaved by their mothers – amidst tears and trembling. This is the most important ceremony of their lives.
Kingdoms
In the third type of indigenous political structure—that of the kingdom or state—political authority is centered on the office of a king (sometimes a queen), who is chosen from a royal clan and given sacred attributes by his or her subjects. Kingdoms range in population from a few thousand people to several million, and their rulers vary from being little more than ritual figureheads (as among the Shilluk of the southern Sudan, the prototype of James G. Frazer's "divine" king) to military despots with powers of life and death.
These kingdoms may have arisen by conquest (as those of the Zulu or Swazi of southern Africa) or by combining into a federation of culturally related states (as those of the Asante or Ghana). The ruler may be regarded as a senior kinsman to his subjects, as a member of a socially senior royal clan, or as a member of an ethnically distinct autocracy (as in the former Rwanda and Burundi kingdoms). In all of the kingdoms, however powerful their rulers, there have always been institutionalized means by which the people controlled royal power. Such axioms as "the king is a slave" are accepted in many African kingdoms. In addition, it has been almost universal for there to be periodic rituals of purification of both the king as an individual and the kingship as an office or institution in its own right, independent of the temporary incumbent (well-known examples are those held in the kingdoms of the Swazi, Zulu, and Akan). (Contemporary examples of kingdoms are nation-states, institutions and corporations)
Dances of the Shilluk of the southern Sudan
The Shilluk prefer to be known as Chollo, rather than the more widely known term, Shilluk, and their language as dhok-Chollo, dhok being the Chollo word for mouth. The Chollo are a major Nilotic ethnic group. Nilotic refers to a number of indigenous East Africa peoples originating in northeast Africa in the region of the Nile River. Among the Chollo people, the initiation into adulthood is marked with ceremony of the daytime dance. It is done for the initiation of the boys while for the girls no ceremony is done to mark their adulthood. The boys, who dance on the first time in this special dance, wear regalia made of the leopard skin and it is tied on their waist. They also wear the beads made from the shell of ostrich eggs (reek) and the necklace they wear made from the giraffe’s tail mane. The young boys who were initiated on the same period form a group of mates (ric) and after that, they move to the men mess (Dipac). In that place, they will have their daily meals and chat with other men of the first graduates who help them to learn about the community issues and other related responsibilities.
The dances among the Chollo people form the core tradition of the Chollo culture. Chollo have four types of dances where they express their happiness. The first one is cong ki bul di cyang, which it means the day dance. It is called like that because the other three types of the dances are occasionally played at night. In bul dance, men wear regalia made from the leopard skin or sack material cut in special way called yoor which they tie on their low back. The women wear (lani bul) made from the cow skin. In addition, both men and women wear necklace beads on their necks. The women put extra beads style on their arms and foreheads. Men and women decorate their bodies in different special ways with dots of chalk on their foreheads and different kind of feathers (okon) on their heads.
Every one is trying to make him/her self look unique and different from the rest of the dancers. Thom is the only Chollo dance where the women do not dance in front of the men. The women form the circle around the beating drum and on the other hand, the men form their own lines behind the circle of women. The Thom dance style consists of people running in stylistic ways with a song sung by one or two people. All dancers both men and women wear beads and (Laawo) the Chollo known attire during the Thom.
Kemb is narrowly close to the bul dancing style. However, their differences are that in kemb there is no beating drum. There is only one song sung by everybody while for bul every man sings his own song. Chollo used kemb-dance in marriage ceremonies. The wearing style of kemb is similar to those of Thom and Amagaak dances. The laawo and the beads are the basic core of these three dances among the Chollo people. The Amagaak dance looks unique. In the Amagaak dance people have to sit down in circle with wide open space in the middle where the chosen men dance with the women who had picked them up. The dance is performed through clapping of the hands and people sing the song that match the rhythms of the hands clapping and the foot thumb on the ground. The girl selects the man she wants to dance. Men cannot go in the middle of the circle until chosen by a girl.
Dances Swazi of southern Africa)
When visiting the Swazi you will notice that many of the young unmarried women perform the annual Reed Dance. This was a tradition that was put in place to discourage sex before marriage and during August when the dance is performed, various education camps would be set up to teach young women about marriage and communication. The event lasts about three days and the actual dance ceremony is held for the public on the last day where the King attends and gives a speech. One of the biggest traditional music events is held in December and is called Incwala. Of the many traditional instruments the Kudu Horn, Calabash, Reed Flute, and rattles are the most popular.
Dances of the Zulu People
The Zulu girls, also known as Zulu maidens come together at the Enyokeni Zulu Royal Palace every year to celebrate the Umkhosi Womhlanga known as the Reed Dance; this promotes the purity of virgins amongst girls in kwaZulu Natal. It is called the Reed Dance because during the dance the Zulu girls fetch the reeds from the river and bring them to the royal palace for the King, it is during this dance that most Kings chose their wives. This Zulu custom has been carried out for years now, helping the girls to preserve their virginity until they get married, the purpose of the reed dance is to allow Zulu maidens to meet their king and mingle with princesses while delivering reed sticks.
The Zulu dance is a sign of happiness it's done when there is a Zulu wedding, inauguration of a king, when a child is born, when a war is won, the testing of virgins. The dance is taught to young girls and boys while in an early age. The Zulu people love to sing and tell stories to children known as "izinganekwane" this stories are normally about animals. Every Zulu person in a tribe is involved in the singing and dancing especially when a King inaugurates the kingdom
Men also dance. In their practice of Indlamu, the men have their way of singing and dancing. They lift up one leg in the air, bringing it down together with the hands following the other leg then doing it over and over changing the legs, and while doing that they lift one leg in the air and fall purposely on the ground with their backs. The boys also do the same as the men.
The women sing and clap their hands while dancing and they are the ones you hear making lots of noises with their tongues. The girls do the same as the women but at times they also lift up one leg in the air with their hands going under the leg.
Dances of the Rwanda and Burundi kingdoms
In Burundi, the use of the drum, or the ingoma, has been historically a symbol of Power; the drums were the king’s throne. Drums were believed to bring peace throughout the kingdom and this belief is still present today on an individual and communal level. The “space” created through drumming is one of the main aspects that promotes dialogue in drumming groups from Burundi to South Africa and this is mainly due to the adherence to traditional rules which do not usually allow for improvisation. However, due to the addition of other instruments such as bells and shakers allow each participant to add their own unique part to the rhythm. Drumming has had a positive emotional and spiritual impact on drummers and observers and can play a unifying role. Rituals have also played a large role in post conflict societies to unite communities through reconciliation and these rituals, especially in South Africa and Burundi have involved drums as well as other forms of artistic expression.
Dances of Ancient Egypt
The art of ancient Egypt, from the earliest dynasties, shows dancers and musicians as part of normal life. Because Egypt was a kingdom, the possibility to obtain archeological traces has been greater. The found traces describe dances from prehistoric times such as Egyptian tomb paintings depicting dancing figures from circa 3300 BC. Based on them, it seems as if in Egypt the priests and priestesses, accompanied by harps and pipes, performed stately movements which mimed significant events in the story of a god, or imitated cosmic patterns such as the rhythm of night and day. At Egyptian funerals, women danced to express the grief of the mourners.
Egyptian paintings, from as early as about 1400 B.C., depict another eternal appeal of dancing. In them one can appreciate scantily clad girls, accompanied by seated musicians, cavorted enticingly on the walls of tombs. They idea was that they would probably have delighted the male occupant during his residence in the next world.
Ancient Egyptian music extensively used harps and other string instruments like the xalam still used in west-Africa. Also percussion instruments like the sistrum were used. Sistrums are still used in religious ceremonies in Ethiopia. The flute also played a prominent role in the melodic compositions of pharaonic composers and musicians. Pharaonic flutes were longer than the ney still widely used in the Middle East and it is still used by some Ethiopian tribes.
One might think that ancient Egyptian dances were rather static as we contemplate on the pictures of Faraonic dances. I believe that this isn't quite the case. Ancient Egypt and Abyssinia have shared a common musical heritage. Sistrums are still used in the religious ceremonies (where they also do some kind of dance) in Ethiopia where the also use a big drum called kebaro. Both were used in Faraonic times. In some remote areas in Ethiopia the Faraonic flute is also found. As there is no other way to find out how faraonic dances were done, we can only rely on wall paintings and reliefs, yet it is safe to assume that music played an important role in Egyptian dances and that rhythms were accented by handclaps as well as different percussion instruments. Certain dancers accompanied themselves on wooden clappers.
Faraonic times showed a variety of dances; some worshipped fertility goddesses, such as Hathor, some were very acrobatic, some solemn and some vivid. Examples depicted in temples and tombs show dancers doing cartwheels, handstands and backbends. Dances were done in groups and dancers were not only Egyptian but from other countries as well. Costumes of the performer were sometimes nothing more than a type of leather belt containing fetishes and amulets offering protection against evil forces.
South East Asia
Dances of India
Other archeological findings have delivered other traces of dance from prehistoric times such as the 9,000 year old Bhimbetka rock shelters paintings in India. In India the formalized hand movements of the priestesses in Hindu temples are described in documents from as early as the 1st century AD. Each precise gesture is of subtle significance. A form of classical dance based upon them - known as Bharata Nhatyam - is still performed by highly skilled practitioners today. An early manuscript describing dance is the Natya Shastra on which is based the modern interpretation of classical Indian dance (e.g. Bharathanatyam).
The major Indian Classical dances are: Bharata Natyam, kathakali, Kathak and Manipuri, Kuchipudi, Odissi and Mohini Attam. In addition, there are innumerable folk and tribal dances spread all over the country.
Dances of Sri Lanka
Sri Lankan dances go back to the mythological times of aboriginal yingyang twins and "yakkas" (devils). According to a Sinhalese legend, Kandyan dances originate, 2500 years ago, from a magic ritual that broke the spell on a bewitched king. Many contemporary dance forms can be traced back to historical, traditional, ceremonial, and ethnic dances.
The ancient chronicle, the Sinhalese (Sri Lankans), the Mahavamsa states when King Vijaya landed in Sri Lanka in 543 BCE he heard sounds of music and dancing from a wedding ceremony. Origins of the Dances of Sri Lanka are dated back to the aboriginal tribes. The Classical dances of Sri Lanka, Kandyan Dances features a highly developed system of tala (rhythm), provided by cymbals called thalampataa. Ves dance, the most popular, originated from an ancient purification ritual, the Kohomba Yakuma or Kohomba Kankariya. The dance was propitiatory, never secular, and performed only by males. Other dances, equally sacred, are Naiyandi Dance, Uddekki Dance, Pantheru Dance and the adapted to dance Vannams.
Dances of Australia
Dances of Australian Aborigines
Dancing styles varied throughout the hundreds of tribal groups. Dancing was done with set arm, body and foot movements with a lot of foot stamping. Today this is called "shake a leg ". The best dancers and singers enjoyed wide reputations and high respect. Dances often imitated animals or birds. Serious ritual or sacred dancing was quite distinct from light hearted camp dancing that men, women and children could share.
Aboriginal ceremonies (known to most people as corroborees) are dramatic representations, in mime and song, of the mythical history of the tribe. These ceremonies have many functions and take many forms. There are the non-secret rituals performed in the camp at night, before an enthusiastic audience of men, women and children. A group of adult men, seated around a small fire, will chant one or another of the ancient songs, while others, their bodies decorated with strange symbols, portray, in a series of spectacular dances, the incidents in the myth. In the same way that the songman leads the chorus, the dances are lead by specialist leaders in dancing as well.
The songs are tightly connected to the dances. A song is sung as a series comprising many short verses, each of which tells about a particular event or place associated with the ancestor; or the performance may be a full ceremonial one which includes portrayal of relevant events in the performance of dances accompanied by the singing of the appropriate verses. The song associated with any one totemic "line" will have the one melodic form throughout. This refers to very long "lines" of songs, where the ancestor, reputed to have crossed thousands of miles of territory, is represented in the characteristic melodic form found in areas with different languages and musical techniques. Consequently, the song-line conforms to the same musical pattern which consists of repetitions of sections of melody for a set proportion of the time the total verse takes to perform. Because this technique allows flexibility in those areas of musical expression which tend to change from one tribe to another, the basic information can be kept intact even though the total history may be retained, section by section, in many different tribal areas. This means that, even when a visitor from afar is unable to understand the language that the locals are using in a song, he can determine, from the musical structure, to which totemic line the song belongs. And, because his own totemic song has been very strong conditioning agent in the total processes of his education to adult status in the community, the recognition of his own song in another area will have very deep significance. These history songs link the time long past with the present; the singer is part of a continuum; he is reliving events of another era, and is yet part of them.
2. Second African Migration
Dances of Siberia
In older, pre-industrialized cultures, music was more renowned for its sacred and supernatural power to captivate the audience and manifest emotion. Because of these qualities, music has often been used in conjunction with religious ceremonies across the world, for instance, in shamanic contexts, the ritual use of the shaman's drum and vocal chanting. In the study of Siberian dances it is important to focus on the shamanic rituals of the Tungus, the Tuvan, the Yakut, and the Altaian peoples of the Russian Siberia and Central Asia. As problematic as it is to define shamanic rituals in general terms, for the sake of synthesis, one could say that shamanism is characterized by two universal characteristics, the spontaneity and improvisational quality of its music and the performative, theatrical aspect of it, central to shamanic ritual.
Music is very important in Siberian shamanic ritual because besides supporting dance and performance, it also helps the shaman to enter and maintain trance states when communicating with the spirit world. In shamanic rituals the term “dance” implies physical actions that resemble dancing, but that are very different from what is commonly understood in the West as dance. The Siberian shaman's version of dance consists not only of graceful sways, sweeps, jumps, hand gestures, and rhythmic bodily gyrations, but also movements that are distinctly characteristic of shamanic dance such as: “convulsive flailing, shouting and wild gesticulation, animalistic crouches and leaps, and full-body spasms that more closely resemble a seizure than a choreographed dance.” Throughout the dance, a drum is played by the shaman's helper to provide rhythm and sound for the ritual. (realitysandwich.com)
The Yakut people
Vilmos Dioszegi in Shamanism in Siberia describes the difficulty in trying to define Yakut shamanic dance. Based on descriptions of the dance, it seems as if the dances of the Yakut shamans were ecstatic in character. By dancing and chanting the shaman forcefully works himself into a state of hysterical fits to then fall into ecstasy. The spontaneous and seemingly random aspect of the shamanic dance seems to be typical of the tendency in Siberian shamanism for improvisation in ritual ceremonies.
The Tuvan Dances
In addition to the unique spectacle presented by the shamanic dancer, there are also supernatural qualities present in the dance. Very often (but not always) these dances are associated with a state of spiritual ecstasy and trance in the shaman. There are accounts of shamans in the ecstatic state accomplishing supernatural physical feats that seem beyond their physical abilities. When fighting negative spirits, the shamanic dance symbolizes the struggle against an evil spirit who is hurting someone. The unseen spirit is subdued and defeated by the shaman partially through their use of the shaman's physical movement.
There is also clearly a performative aspect in the dancing that carries some degree of histrionic theatricality. The shaman’s brazen and bizarre movements are entertaining (and probably frightening) to members of the shaman's audience, and therefore provide the sick person's family with a supernatural spectacle that partially satisfies the needs of the participants. When a shaman is leaping around like an animal, wearing a heavy elaborate costume and making strange noises, the audience can be assured that something is happening and that hopefully the ritual will be efficacious.
The Selkup people of Western Siberia
The Selkup people of Western Siberia use shamanic chants as part of their shamanic rituals. These chants, sometimes referred to as “folk poetry”, are oral or written texts that are often said to be transmitted to the shaman by the spirits that have chosen to form a supportive relationship with the shaman (commonly referred to as “helping spirits” or lozila). (Balzer 15). When the shaman contacts the spirit world, the realm of the dead, he is given a song to sing, some sort of name that the shaman may use to call upon the helping spirits and that it is repeated by the audience/chorus.
The shaman is expected to be “possessed” by the spirits, or serve as a vessel through which the spirits and ancestors speak. Because the music is played over the course of several hours in a repetitive and consistent way, at the end of a ceremony the shaman is often exhausted not only by dancing and the engagement with spirits, but also by the act of playing and listening to the music. In many cases, these shamanic chants describe the relationship between the shaman's power and nature. They also describe the shaman's power and its attunement to the natural world. The content of these songs often involves giving praise to the natural world, and imploring the deities of various elemental forces to aid in the shaman's power to complete their task.
Native American Dances
Although Native American’s are also called First Nation, their social structure was descriptive of a tribal system. Native American dance can be a form of prayer, a way of expressing joy or grief, and a method of becoming closer with man and nature. The dance also can have healing powers, not only on the dancer, but on people that the dancer is close to, or dancing for. Because of the great number of North American tribal dances, rather than mentioning them by nation, it is more convenient to refer to them by region.
Alaska and Canada
The Arctic peoples (Alaska and Canada) have many dance songs included in their ceremonies. The best known dance song for western Arctic peoples is drum dancing. It is usually performed at a festival honoring deceased relatives. People from neighboring towns are invited. Dancers wear costumes and masks, and the hosts give gifts to the guests. When it is time to dance, many drummers stand or sit in a half circle and sing and play their drums. Men and women dance in a half circle in front of them to the music, using their arms and upper bodies to show their feelings.
Western Washington and British Columbia (Canada)
The Native Americans in western Washington and British Columbia (Canada) have another occasion for dancing, which is the potlatch. A potlatch is a community gathering to honor the host or to celebrate family events, such as births and marriages. A dance called Spirit Dancing is performed at potlatch festivals every year. Young men or women "catch" a guardian spirit, sometimes as if in a dream. The young people create their own song and dance to show the spirits of their guardians. New dancers choose costumes and paint their faces before they perform.
Other young people who performed their dances in earlier years perform their dance again. Any close relative who remembers the dances from the year before also joins in the dance. Sometimes dancers will take on an animal spirit for a dance with the help of elaborate costumes that help them appear like a raven, a bear, or another animal of their choice. Gifts are given to visitors to thank them for coming and to ask them to remember the new dances for next year.
Nevada and parts of Utah, Oregon, and California
The Great Basin people (from a region including Nevada and parts of Utah, Oregon, and California), including the Utes, Shoshones, and Paiutes enjoy a dance called the Bear Dance. The Bear Dance is performed to ask for enough food for everyone. Another Great Basin dance is the Sun Dance, which focuses on the importance of the sun.
Southwest (Arizona, New Mexico, and parts of Utah and California
The Pueblo of the Southwest (Arizona, New Mexico, and parts of Utah and California) have rituals and dances that have to do with farming and the need for water—two things necessary for their survival. One type of Pueblo dance is the blue corn dance. In this dance, the dancers act out the planting, growing, and harvesting of corn. The Hopi perform a snake dance, which lasts for four days. Snakes are caught and held while the people sing and dance. At the end of the festival, the snakes are let go—to take the prayers of the people out into the world and to their spirit friends.
From Wyoming to Minnesota, from the Canadian province of Saskatchewan to Texas
The Native Americans of the Plains (from Wyoming to Minnesota and the Canadian province of Saskatchewan to Texas), including the Blackfoot, Lakota, and Crow, are well known for their powwow dances. Powwows were first danced in the 1800s, and are still done today. Powwow dances can be held for fun. They can also serve as family or tribal reunions. The dances are usually performed in a certain order. They start with a Grand Entry. Then there is a Flag Song, which is similar to singing the United States national anthem before a baseball game. There can be as many as eight more dances. Sometimes non-Native Americans are invited to join in a powwow dance. There are very special rules that must be followed if you are invited to join a powwow dance.
Northeast
The Social Dance songs of the Iroquois in the Northeast are performed in between sacred rituals. They are often funny. There are nineteen different dances in the Social Dance set. Many of the dances are short and fast and are done by a group.
Southeast
The Southeast Native American groups (North Carolina to Florida and west to Texas), such as the Creek and the Choctaw, also have special dances. The Creek Stomp Dance is performed for the Green Corn ceremony. The dance is very exciting. A solo singer starts to sing while the dancers and shell shaker players, who are all men, get in line. The song leader and the dancers sing back and forth to each other. Then the dancers and shell shaker players dance and sing faster and faster while each song gets longer and longer.
The Choctaw Social Dance songs were performed for an event called the Ballgame ceremonies. ("Ballgame" is the forerunner of lacrosse.) After the ballgame, the players would sing songs and everyone would dance into the night. There are as many as fourteen different dances and ninety songs! Some of the dances are done in a line, some in a circle, and some are danced by couples. Changing the song means changing the dance the people are performing. These dances and ceremonies were sacred but now they are performed in secular settings, such as educational demonstrations.
North and Central American Indigenous Dances
Mayan Dance
The dances of Sijolaj, the patron saint of Chichicastenango. One sees in these dances the hands gesturing in conversation with the gods; offerings of flowers, lights, and incense; animal sacrifice; and specific requests for help with rain, the harvest, and the hunt. Not well known are the facts that indigenous dance was often organized to entertain, and not only for religious or ceremonial purposes; and that dances often could be performed only by specialists rather than with the participation of the whole community. In fact, one cannot choose to dance. One must be invited to dance, and one must petition the gods for permission to dance.
At certain ceremonies a sacrificial dance is performed in which a rooster is killed and its blood spread around the sacred site to promote a good harvest or good health or at the building of a home so that "right living" can be achieved. The Pop Wuj dance (named after the Popol Vuh, the sacred script of the pre-conquest Maya), shows the four stages of man. These are the Man of Mud or Clay, the Man of Wood, the Monkey Man, and the Human Being. The Man of Mud doesn't recognize the gods and so is destroyed. The Man of Wood is too rigid, and can burn. The Monkey Man is too playful and silly. Finally, the Human Being arrives, in a form which can recognize, respect, and petition the gods.
Aztec Dances
In the pre-Hispanic times to the singing and the dancing were called "in cuicatl in xochitl" (The singing and the flower), because that was an offering to be in contact with the natural manifestations (deities) the dance was considered a way of concentration in motion. The ritual dance was called Macehualiztli (deserving) and the popular dace was called Netotiliztli. The dance is full of symbolic meaning. The scudding and the whirling movements represent fertility; the steps that go all the way to the floor represent the earth and its crops, the spinning on the air represent the soul, the steps back and forward represent the fire and the zigzag steps represent the water. The movements are symbols of nature’s elements, some movements represent Nahuatl myths and some movements represent the translation of stars or planets, others represent the symbols of agriculture and others represent warrior dances to maintain the equilibrium of forces of nature.
South American Dances
Andean Dances
Native dances are still performed in rural areas of South America during religious or secular community celebrations, examples of this dance being: Sikuris, Pinkillus, Chaqallus, Lawa k’umus, Chuqilas, K’usillos. The events during which music and dance are traditionally performed in this region are considered expressions of community structure and solidarity through ceremonial events, which interpret and reaffirm common values and identity. Whether the event is religious or secular, private or communal, music and dance are important mechanisms of communication and underline the expressions of community.
Andean music is known as that music performed by the four basic instruments: siqu (siku), -also called panpipes or zampoñas – charango (stringed instrument), bombo (drum), and quena (flute). The siqu is of Aymara origin, while the charango was created after the Spanish conquest, as string instruments were originally unknown in the Andes. In ancient times the charango was made with the carapace of the armadillo, which historians believe first originated in Aymara territory (Potosi) in the 17th century.
Suri Siquris is a dance that dates back to 800 BC. The name comes from the great headdress made of feathers from the suri or ñandu (American ostrich) and the dance is done in relation to the harvest. The musicians who play the siqus and dance are known as Siquris. The siqus has 17 canes, and comes in four sizes. They are played in sets of two, in interlocking melody and rhythm. The men dress in beautiful Alpaca ponchos with color tassels called wichiwichi, and the women dress in beautiful party skirts.
Huayno, also spelled Huaiño or Wayno, is widely recognized as the most representative dance of the Andes, with pre-Columbian (Quechua and Aymara) origins fused with Western influences. While historians speculate that it may have come from an Inca funeral dance, today it is purely festive. A circle of dancing couples surrounds the musicians, whose instruments may be flutes, drums, harps, and guitars. Couples dancing the huayno perform sharp turns, hops, and tap-like zapateos to keep time. Huayno music is played on quena, charango, harp, and violin, however, there are dozens of regional variations, some of which involve marching bands, trumpets, saxophones and accordions.
Ecuatorian Amazon Dances
Puerto Misahualli is a small village. It's a door to the Amazonian jungle of Ecuador and the junction of two rivers, Napo and Misahualli. In this part of the world, people speak kitchwa language. Anaconda folk dance reflects traditional melodies of the Ecuatorian part of the Amazon River, formerly named by indigenous people of the area Amaru Mayu (The mother serpent of the world) River. The dance is accompanied by the rhythmic sounds of a turtle shell, a bamboo rattle, a three strings violin, a mini-guitar, a guitar, and a big drum. Girls swing grass skirts... boys, with curare blowpipes, circulate and wave between them... while an elder keeps the guard. They are attending the shaman. The Shaman invokes the spirit of anaconda. The warriors protect him.
The women shaman, followed by her maids, brings the calabash of a magic drink. The anaconda spirit guides the shaman into the world of spiritual foresight. After drinking the ayahuasca, he asks anaconda for a protection, while dancers portray the movement of anaconda's body. He leads his dancers in a mystic dream induced by ayahuasca vine, while musicians play and sing the story. The dance finishes as the Shaman offers his woman partner, the anaconda queen, to the serpent. All dancers form a protective circle around them.
Brazilian, Colombian, Venezuelan Amazon Dances
There are at least 50 indigenous groups that still don't have regular contact with the outsides and keep away from them. The Brazilian government policy towards these groups is to leave them alone, as they wish. Not very much is known about these groups as they keep going deeper and deeper into the forest as the outsiders get closer to where they live. To stop the constant migration of tribes it has been suggested that an Indigenous Protected Area be setup so they can stop running away into the most remote places of the forest.
Their numbers are increasing. This means that, after 5 centuries being destroyed, they are actually being able to live and grow in their demarcated lands. This is hope for their cultures and way of life, including dance practices. Since there are different kinds of indigenous, there are also different forms of organization. Some groups are nomads and they don't settle in a place for long periods, exchanging locations every now and then. There are others that settle in a tribe and live in the same place for centuries. The size of the groups are also very different, you can find groups with as few individuals as 200 and other with 30000.
In northwest of the Amazon rainforest there are 22 different ethnic groups in an area that is located in Brazil, Colombia and Venezuela. These 22 different indigenous groups (Baniwa, Kuripako, Dow, Hupda, Nadöb, Yuhupde, Baré, Warekena, Arapaso, Bará, Barasana, Desana, Karapanã, Kubeo, Makuna, Mirity-tapuya, Pira-tapuya, Siriano, Tariana, Tukano, Tuyuca, Wanana, Tatuyo, Taiwano, Yuruti, Kakwa and Nukak) each speak their own language, which comes from 3 different language familys. Although the languages differ, they all interact with each other in a large net of marriages, festivities, rituals and commerce. The total population of these groups reaches 65,000 individuals.
Another important "large “group is located in the Alto Xingu region in the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso. There are 14 ethnic groups (Aweti, Kalapalo, Kamaiurá, Kuikuro, Matipu, Mehinako, Nahukuá, Trumai, Wauja, Yawalapiti, Ikpeng, Kaiabi, Suyá and Yudja) in the area. The first 10 ethnic groups, like the ones in the northwestern Amazon, have different languages but share the same rivers, have culture similarities and participate in a net of marriages, festivities, rituals and commerce. The last 4 groups are very different and don't have as much contact with the others, although there is still some exchange of cultural aspects. There are other large groups in the Amazon rainforest region plus the 50 groups that don't have regular contact with outsiders and although the indigenous population is growing again they are still in danger.
The Kuarup is the biggest indigenous festival and it has being happening annually in July or August for centuries. The Kuarup festival brings many different tribes together to celebrate and honor their dead. Although the motivation is not the most cheerful one the festivities are happy and very enjoyable for outsiders. It's a huge demonstration of indigenous dance, music, rituals, games and food. Nowadays the Kuarup can be seen by the outsiders on some occasions, not always, as it depends on the mood and willingness of the tribe leaders.
Caribbean Dances
Arawak Dances: Areitos
The Areito was a socio-religious music and dance ceremony of the Taino Arawak people. Because indigenous groups on Cuba became extinct shortly after the start of Spanish colonization, current scholarly knowledge about the formal and ritual aspects of the areito is sketchy and often suppositional. According to early Spanish colonial writings, the music often involved hundreds, even thousands of participants, who would dance in concentric circles around a group of musicians who played güiros, maracas and slit-drums.
3. Third African Migration
Dances of non-Semitic Sumerians, Semitic Akkadians, Babylonians, and Assyrians:
Mesopotamia has the reputation of being the cradle of civilization. The name does not refer to any particular civilization using that name. It includes non-Semitic Sumerians, followed by the Semitic Akkadians, Babylonians (who danced to worship Ishtar) and Assyrians whose clay impressions of seals bear scenes of ritual dances. Over the course of 4000 years Sumerians recorded history and poetry for the first time. Lyres, pipes, harps and drums accompanied their songs and dances.
Dances of the Phoenicians
The Phoenicians may have been the first ancient Near Eastern culture to have a specific deity of dance. Baal Marqod, the Phoenician "Lord of the Dance" was so named either because he was thought of as the originator of dance, or because the form of his worship involved dancing. Despite the prominence of Baal Marqod, representations of the dance in Phoenician art are relatively rare and are confined to scenes of rituals.
Dances of the Hebrews
According to the Hebrew scriptures, female belly dancers were reputable and marriageable (Judges 21:21; Jeremiah 31:13), even in light of the fact they often specifically belly danced for men and publicly in religious festivals and parties (Judges 21 and Song of Solomon 6:13). Hebrew belly dancers were among the first recorded cheerleaders; they played frame drums, sang, and belly danced for their men when they returned victorious from battle (Exodus 15:20; 1 Samuel 18:6).
Dances of Syria and Turkey
There is also much evidence of dance in ancient Syria, Turkey and other countries. Some aspects of this dance were simply a form of entertainment, but it was also related to the worship of various fertility goddesses. Ancient writers record these dances as being based on movements of the hips, circling, swaying and shaking of the body. The female worshippers often danced themselves into an ecstatic frenzy where they felt they were linked to the power of the goddess.
Greek Dances
Ancient Greece drove a sharp distinction between the Apollonian dance and the Dionysian dance. The former – the Apollonian dance – was accompanied by guitars called lyres, lutes and kitharas. It was a ceremonial dance incorporating slower cult dances performed during religious festivals, as well as martial and social dances performed during communal events and funeral practices. The Dionysian or Bacchanalian dance, associated with the cult of Dionysus, is about passion, panic and desire. It is an “orgasmic” dance with breathtaking moves whose purpose is to connect all to a frenetic dance vibration. The synthesis of the Apollonian and the Dionysian is the art of dance. The tension between these opposites played an instrumental role in the shaping of the ancient Greek theatre and the birth of tragedy in the evolution of the arts for civilization.
In European culture, one of the earliest records of dancing is by Homer, who’s "Iliad"; describes chorea (khoreia). Sacred occasions in Greek shrines, such as the games at Olympia from the 8th century BC, are inaugurated with dancing by the temple virgins. The choros is originally just such a dance, performed in a circle in honor of a god. In the 6th century it becomes the centrepiece of Greek theatre. The early Greeks made the art of dancing into a system, expressive of all the different passions. For example, the dance of the Furies, so represented, would create complete terror among those who witnessed them. The Greek philosopher, Aristotle, ranked dancing with poetry, and said that certain dancers, with rhythm applied to gesture, could express manners, passions, and actions. The most eminent Greek sculptors studied the attitude of the dancers for their art of imitating the passions.
Any sufficiently uninhibited society knows that frantic dancing, in a mood heightened by pounding rhythm and flowing alcohol, will set the pulse racing and induce a mood of frenzied exhilaration. This is exemplified in the Dionysian dances of ancient Greece. Villagers, after harvesting the grapes, celebrate the occasion with a drunken orgy in honor of Dionysus, god of wine (whose Roman name is Bacchus). Their stomping makes a favorite scene on Greek vases; and dancing women of this kind, whose frenzy even sweeps them into an act of murder, are immortalized in a tragedy, the Bacchae, by Euripides. Short of this unfortunate extreme, all social dances promise the same desirable mood of release and excitement.
Roman Dances
In the beginning of its existence as a power only religious dances were practiced, and many of these were of Etruscan origin, such as the Lupercalia, and the Ambarvalia. In the former the dancers were semi-nude, and more rurally ritual; the latter was a serious dancing procession through fields and villages. It is highly probable that the Etruscan, Sabellian, Oscan, Samnite, and other national dances of the country had some influence on the art in Rome. The Pyrrhic dance was introduced in Rome by Julius Caesar, and was danced by the children of the leading men of Asia and Bithynia.
As the State increased in power by conquest, it absorbed with other countries other habits, and the art degenerated often, like that of Greece and Etruria, into a vehicle for orgies, when they brought to Rome with their Asiatic captives even more licentious practices and dances. However, no Roman citizen danced except in the religious dances
Dance During Islam and Christianity.
With the rise of Islam and Christianity dance was banned. However, despite its prohibitions against dance and music, Islam has never succeeded in eliminating either from the culture of the Middle East. The Sufis, a less conservative group, sought more direct contact with God and looked upon dance in a more tolerant way. Central Asia also had a tradition of dancing boys, called Batchas (meaning "child"). There was already a practice of dressing boys up as girls for their circumcision ceremony. The whirling dervishes of Konya in Turkey also enter a type of trance while dancing. Konya is also one of the ancestral homes of Phrygian Dionysos.
Zar cults involve groups with specific membership, generally women, which require an initiation process. The trancers impersonate various spirits and act out their roles, often in detail. Each Zar spirit has his or her characteristic whirl called gurri which includes a series of rapid turns. Arab Berbers and Muslims believe in Jnum (spirits and dance to attain a trance-like state. The Tunisians also have a true trance dance, the Stambali, performed by Tunisian blacks in relation to their patron saint, Sidi Saad.
During the early medieval period of Christian corporate worship, the priests and other holy dignitaries danced with the parishioners. Within the dances of the liturgy the movements of the individual soul were lost to the majestic rhythm of the Church. This dancing symbolized and suggested a sense of equality. During the eleventh and twelfth centuries the rising clerical hierarchy began an effort to separate themselves from the common people. Priests would only dance with other priests on certain days, deacons would dance with deacons and the people were left to dance with themselves in holy worship. The bishops would sit alone, above everyone. Certain bishops, however, joined in the dancing of the people, this tended to threaten the authority of the Church and inadvertently led to the creation of new edicts and legislation against the use of dance in its various Christian forms.
II. Dance as an Art Form
Ballet in France: 16th - 17th century AD
Entertainment, and the closely related theme of display, underlies the story of public dance. In the courts of Europe spectacles of this kind lead eventually to ballet. A favorite entertainment in Renaissance France and Italy involves ladies and gentlemen of the court being wheeled into the banqueting hall on scenic floats from which they descend to perform a dance. Such festivities are much encouraged by Catherine de Médicis after she marries into the French royal family.
In 1581 a significant step forward is taken by Catherine's director of court festivals, Baltazar de Beaujoyeulx. For a wedding celebration he produces the Balet Comique de la Reine, combining dance (which he describes as being just "geometric patterns of people dancing together") with the narrative interest of a comedy. It is the first dramatic ballet.
This French and Italian love of dance continues in the next century. At the court of Savoy, in Turin, there is a strong tradition of lavish amateur ballets for any festive occasion in the mid-17th century. In France Louis XIII, son of Marie de Médicis, loves to show off his talents in this line - although, reports a contemporary, he "never performed anything but ridiculous characters". The king's typical roles include a wandering musician, a Dutch captain, a grotesque warrior, a farmer and a woman. His son Louis XIV enjoys similar pleasures, but his roles have a little more classical gravitas - a Bacchante, a Titan, a Muse and (presumably a favorite) Apollo dressed as the sun.
The dancers in court ballets are the courtiers themselves, and a large part of the pleasure comes from watching one's friends prance about in spectacular costumes. The English diarist John Evelyn sees Louis XIV dancing in Paris in 1651; he marvels not so much at the dancing as at so many sumptuously attired aristocrats.
But Louis XIV himself is genuinely interested in dancing, and in 1661 he decides that his colleagues are not up to scratch. He brings together the best Parisian dancing masters to form the Académie Royale de Danse, where his friends' skills may be honed. It is so successful that he follows it in 1669 with a similar Académie Royale de Musique.
These two institutions are merged to form the Paris Opéra (still in existence today). From 1672 professional dancers are trained. The institution settles down into what is recognizably a ballet company.
The first director, Pierre Beauchamp, choreographs many ballet sequences with music by Lully and others - and he devises his own system for recording the steps. (He is often credited with inventing the five classic positions for the feet, but more probably he is merely the first to record them.)
A spectacular ballet by Lully and Beauchamp is Le Triomphe de l'Amour, first performed in 1681 with Beauchamp dancing Mars accompanied by ladies and gentlemen of the court. Four months later the same ballet is performed again, in a public theatre, with a significant innovation by professional female dancers.
The female ensemble is led by Mlle de Lafontaine, the world's first prima ballerina. She stars in many other ballets over the next twelve years (earning the title reine de la danse, "queen of the dance") before retiring into a convent.
Lafontaine and her colleagues are constrained by the heavy dresses which convention forces them to wear on stage, but the men suffer less restriction (when dancing heroic roles their usual costume is akin to a Roman soldier's short tunic, coming half way down the thigh).
Virtuoso male dancing rapidly becomes one of the great attractions of ballet. The first to demonstrate it is Jean Balon, who is with the Paris Opéra from 1691 to 1710. Famous for his lightness and agility, his name is possibly commemorated in the term "ballon" - still used today for the moment when a dancer can seem to pause in mid-air during a jump.
Contemporary Ballet
George Balanchine is often considered to have been the first pioneer of contemporary ballet. Today the style he developed is now known as neoclassical ballet, a style of dance between classical ballet and today's contemporary ballet. Balanchine used flexed hands (and occasionally feet), turned-in legs, off-centered positions and non-classical costumes (such as leotards and tunics instead of tutus) to distance himself from the classical and romantic ballet traditions.
Modern Dance
In the early 1900s two American female dancers, Isadora Duncan and Ruth St. Denis, as well as one German female dancer, Mary Wigman, started to rebel against the rigid constraints of Classical Ballet. Shedding the authoritarian controls surrounding classical ballet technique, costume, and shoes, these early modern dance pioneers focused on creative self-expression rather than on technical virtuosity. Modern dance is a more relaxed, free style of dance in which choreographers uses emotions and moods to design their own steps, in contrast to ballet's structured code of steps. It has a deliberate use of gravity, whereas ballet strives to be light and airy.
Contemporary Dance
Contemporary dance is the name given to a group of concert dance forms. It is a collection of systems and methods developed from modern and postmodern dance and, as such, are not a unique dance technique. Australian, European, Canadian and American contemporary dance differ from each other in a number of ways.
Contemporary dance draws on modern dance techniques developed in the first sixty years of the 20th century, as well as newer philosophies of movement that depart from classical dance techniques by altogether omitting structured form and movement.
Postmodern Dance
After the explosion of modern dance in the early 20th century, the 1960s saw the growth of post modernism. Post modernism veered towards simplicity, the beauty of small things, the beauty of untrained bodies, and unsophisticated movement. The famous ‘No’ manifesto rejecting all costumes, stories and outer trappings in favor of raw and unpolished movement was perhaps the extreme of this wave of thinking. Unfortunately lack of costumes, stories and outer trappings do not make a good dance show, and it was not long before sets, décor and shock value re-entered the vocabulary of modern choreographers.
By the 1980s dance had come full circle and modern dance (or, by this time, ‘contemporary dance') was clearly still a highly technical and political vehicle for many practitioners. Existing alongside classical ballet, the two art-forms were by now living peacefully next door to one another with little of the rivalry and antipathy of previous eras. In a cleverly designed comment on this ongoing rivalry the brilliant collaboration of Twyla Tharp (one of the 20th Century's cutting edge Dance avant gardist\(Contemporary) and Ballet dance was ultimately achieved. The present time sees us still in the very competitive artistic atmosphere where choreographers compete to produce the most shocking work, however, there are still glimpses of beauty to be had, and much incredible dancing in an age where dance technique has progressed further in expertise, strength and flexibility than ever before in history.
Hip Hop Dance
Besides Historical Dances, Ball Room Dances, Folk Dances, Social dances, Tap, jazz, etc, the main mass culture experienced expansion of street dance took place in 1974 when the famous group Jackson 5 performed on television a dance called Robot (choreographed by postmodern artist Michael Jackson). This event and later Soul Train performances by black dancers ignited street culture revolution, which later formed break dancing rocks dance.
Hip-hop dance started when Clive Campbell, aka Kool DJ Herc and the father of hip-hop, came to New York from Jamaica in 1967. Toting the seeds of reggae from his homeland, he is credited with being the first DJ to use two turntables and identical copies of the same record to create his jams. But it was his extension of the breaks in these songs - the musical section where the percussive beats were most aggressive - that allowed him to create and name a culture of break boys and break girls who laid it down when the breaks came up. Briefly termed b-boys and b-girls, these dancers founded break dancing, which is now a cornerstone of hip-hop dance.
References
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Videography
Youtube. A Dance Depicting Ancient Egyptian Art. "The Rite of the House of the Morning." Art of Ancient Egypt Through Dance. MIT, Cambridge Massachusetts. April 5, 2009.
Youtube. Africa Tribal Dances. Africa Gospel Videos. Dec 15, 2007. April 5, 2009.
Youtube. Massai Traditional Dances. Massai warriors called "Muran" do their traditional dances. April 5, 2009.
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