Encyclopaedia Britannica Online
Dance
performing arts
Table of Contents
Introduction
The aesthetics of dance
Components of the dance
Types of dance
Dance, the movement of the body in a rhythmic way, usually to music and within a given space, for the purpose of expressing an idea or emotion, releasing energy, or simply taking delight in the movement itself.
Peasant Dance, oil on wood by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, c. 1568; in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.Kunsthistoriches, Vienna, Austria/SuperStock
Dance is a powerful impulse, but the art of dance is that impulse channeled by skillful performers into something that becomes intensely expressive and that may delight spectators who feel no wish to dance themselves. These two concepts of the art of dance—dance as a powerful impulse and dance as a skillfully choreographed art practiced largely by a professional few—are the two most important connecting ideas running through any consideration of the subject. In dance, the connection between the two concepts is stronger than in some other arts, and neither can exist without the other.
Although the above broad definition covers all forms of the art, philosophers and critics throughout history have suggested different definitions of dance that have amounted to little more than descriptions of the kind of dance with which each writer was most familiar. Thus, Aristotle’s statement in the Poetics that dance is rhythmic movement whose purpose is “to represent men’s characters as well as what they do and suffer” refers to the central role that dance played in classical Greek theatre, where the chorus through its movements reenacted the themes of the drama during lyric interludes.
The English ballet master John Weaver, writing in 1721, argued on the other hand that “Dancing is an elegant, and regular movement, harmoniously composed of beautiful Attitudes, and contrasted graceful Posture of the Body, and parts thereof.” Weaver’s description reflects very clearly the kind of dignified and courtly movement that characterized the ballet of his time, with its highly formalized aesthetics and lack of forceful emotion. The 19th-century French dance historian Gaston Vuillier also emphasized the qualities of grace, harmony, and beauty, distinguishing “true” dance from the crude and spontaneous movements of early man:
The choreographic art . . . was probably unknown to the earlier ages of humanity. Savage man, wandering in forests, devouring the quivering flesh of his spoils, can have known nothing of those rhythmic postures which reflect sweet and caressing sensations entirely alien to his moods. The nearest approach to such must have been the leaps and bounds, the incoherent gestures, by which he expressed the joys and furies of his brutal life.
John Martin, the 20th-century dance critic, almost ignored the formal aspect of dance in emphasizing its role as a physical expression of inner emotion. In doing so, he betrayed his own sympathy toward the Expressionist school of modern American dance: “At the root of all these varied manifestations of dancing . . . lies the common impulse to resort to movement to externalise states which we cannot externalise by rational means. This is basic dance.”
A truly universal definition of dance must, therefore, return to the fundamental principle that dance is an art form or activity that utilizes the body and the range of movement of which the body is capable. Unlike the movements performed in everyday living, dance movements are not directly related to work, travel, or survival. Dance may, of course, be made up of movements associated with these activities, as in the work dances common to many cultures, and it may even accompany such activities. But even in the most practical dances, movements that make up the dance are not reducible to those of straightforward labour; rather, they involve some extra qualities such as self-expression, aesthetic pleasure, and entertainment.
This article discusses the techniques and components of dance as well as the aesthetic principles behind its appreciation as an art. Various types of dance are discussed with emphasis on their style and choreography. The history of dance in various regions is treated in a number of articles; see dance, African; music and dance, Oceanic; dance, Western; arts, Central Asian; arts, East Asian; arts, Islamic; dance, Native American; arts, South Asian; and arts, Southeast Asian. The interaction between dance and other art forms is discussed in folk dance. The aesthetics of dance Basic motives: self-expression and physical release
One of the most basic motives of dance is the expression and communication of emotion. People—and even certain higher animals—often dance as a way of releasing powerful feelings, such as sudden accesses of high spirits, joy, impatience, or anger. These motive forces can be seen not only in the spontaneous skipping, stamping, and jumping movements often performed in moments of intense emotion, but also in the more formalized movements of “set” dances, such as tribal war dances or festive folk dances. Here the dance helps to generate emotions as well as release them.
People also dance for the pleasure of experiencing the body and the surrounding environment in new and special ways. Dance often involves movement being taken to an extreme, with, for example, the arms being flung or stretched out, the head lifted back, and the body arched or twisted. Also, it often involves a special effort or stylization, such as high kicks, leaps, or measured walks. Dance movements tend to be organized into a spatial or rhythmic pattern, tracing lines or circles on the ground, following a certain order of steps, or conforming to a pattern of regular accents or stresses.
All of these characteristics may produce a state of mind and body that is very different from that of everyday experience. The dance requires unaccustomed patterns of muscular exertion and relaxation as well as an unusually intense or sustained expenditure of energy. The dancer may become intensely aware of the force of gravity and of a state of equilibrium or disequilibrium that normal activities do not generate. At the same time, the dance creates a very different perception of time and space for the dancer: time is marked by the rhythmic ordering of movement and by the duration of the dance, and space is organized around the paths along which the dancer travels or around the shapes made by the body.
Dance can, in fact, create a completely self-contained world for dancers, in which they are capable of physical effort, prowess, and endurance far beyond their normal powers. Ṣūfī dervishes, as an extreme example, can whirl ecstatically for long stretches of time without appearing tired or giddy, and certain Indonesian dancers can strike daggers against their naked chests without causing apparent pain or injury.
Dervishes performing a ritual dance, Konya, Tur.© Ihsan Gercelman/Dreamstime.com
This transcendence of the everyday may also be experienced by the spectators. Drawn into the rhythms and patterns created by the dancer’s movements, they may begin to share in the emotions being expressed through them. They may also experience kinesthetically something similar to the physical sensations of the dancer. Kinesthesia, or the awareness of the body through sensations in the joints, muscles, and tendons, rather than through visual perception, not only defines the dancer’s experience of his own body in movement but also the way in which dance exerts its power over the spectators, who not only see it but also feel an echo of the dancer’s movements and rhythms in their own nerve endings. Problems in defining dance
Self-expression and physical release may thus be seen as the two basic motives for dance. Dance itself, however, takes a wide variety of forms, from simple spontaneous activity to formalized art or from a social gathering where everyone participates to a theatrical event with dancers performing before an audience.