Dance

Dance generally refers to human movement used as a form of expression or presented in a social, spiritual or performance setting.

The term Dance is also used to describe methods of non-verbal communication between humans or animals (waggledance, mating dance), motion in inanimate objects (the leaves danced in the wind) and musical forms or genre. People who dance are called dancers and the act of dance is known as dancing. An event where dancing takes place may be called a dance. Choreography is the art of making dances.

Definitions of what constitutes dance are dependent on social, cultural, aesthetic artistic and moral constraints and range from functional movement (Folk dance) to codified, virtuoso techniques such as ballet. In sports, gymnastics, figure skating and synchronized swimming contain dance disciplines while Martial arts 'Kata' are often compared to dances.

see also: Dance (disambiguation)

History of dance

Throughout history, dance has been a part of ceremony, rituals, celebrations and entertainment. It is traceable through Archeological evidence from prehistory to the first examples of written and pictorial documentation from 200 BC. Many contemporary dance forms can be traced back to historical, traditional, ceremonial and ethnic dances.

see also: History of dance

Dance and music

Although dance is often accompanied by music, it can also be presented alone (Postmodern dance) or provide its own accompaniment (tap dance). Dance presented with music may or may not be performed in time to the music depending on the style of dance. Dance performed without music is said to be danced to its own rhythm'.

Categories of dance

Dance can be divided into two main categories that each have several subcategories into which most dance styles can be placed. They are:

Concert dance / Performance dance
- 20th century concert dance
- Competitive dance

Social dance / Participation dance
- Ceremonial dance
- Traditional dance

These categories are not mutually exclusive and are context-dependent; a particular dance style may belong to several categories.

see also: List of dance style categories and List of dances

Choreography and Notation

Homers poem Iliad makes reference to chorea (χορεία) a Greek Circle dance accompanied by singing. Although circle dance did not originate in Greece derivative of the name were used to describe circle dances in other counties: Khorovod (Russia), Hora (Romania, Moldova, Israel), Horo (Bulgaria). Paracelsus used the term chorea to describe the rapid, jerking physical movements of pilgrims traveling the healing shrine of St. Vitus and the associated festivals (giving rise to the terms St. Vitus' dance and Sydenhams Chorea)).

Raoul Feuillet and Pierre Beauchamp used and extension of the term chorea term to describe Dance notation. Feuillet's Chorégraphie (1700) [1] set out a method of dance notation and established the term Chorégraphie for the writing, or notating of dances. Thus a person who wrote down dances was a choreographer, but the creator of dances was still known as a Dancing Master (Le maître a danser) or in later years a Ballet Master.

Rudolf Laban extended the meaning and use of the word Choreographie with his book Choreographie (1926) in which he detailed not only a new form of dance notation but also the principles and theory of a complete system of dance that would later become Laban Movement Analysis (LMA). Rudolf Benesh and Joan Benesh coined the term Choreology to describe the aesthetic and scientific study of all forms of human movement by movement notation (1955) whilst Laban used the term Choreutics to describe LMA.

The rejection of ballet vocabulary and terms by modern dance resulted in the term Choreographer replacing Ballet Master and therefore Choreography the art of making dances.

main article: Dance notation | Choreography

Dance studies

In the early 1920s dance studies (dance theory, history and practice) began to be considered as a serious academic discipline. Today dance studies are an integral part of many universities' arts and humanities programs. In the early 21st century the recognition of practical knowledge as equal and valid to academic knowledge lead to the emergence of practice-based research and practice as research.

Dance quotes

File:Roanoke.JPG

John White's eye-witness memory of Indian dance at Roanoke, Virginia, 1585, is affected by conventions of lively Elizabethan court dancing

Everything in the universe has rhythm. Everything dances. — Maya Angelou
I have no desire to prove anything by dancing. I have never used it as an outlet or a means of expressing myself. I just dance. I just put my feet in the air and move them around. — Fred Astaire
A dance is a measured pace, as a verse is a measured speech. — Francis Bacon
Dance first. Think later. It's the natural order. — Samuel Beckett
Dance is your pulse, your heartbeat, your breathing. It's the rhythm of your life. Its the expression in time and movement, in happiness, joy, sadness and envy. — Jacques D'Amboise
To dance is to be out of yourself, larger, more powerful, more beautiful. This is power, it is glory on earth and it is yours for the taking. — Agnes de Mille
There is a bit of insanity in dancing that does everybody a great deal of good. — Edwin Denby
Dancing: The Highest Intelligence in the Freest Body. — Isadora Duncan
Dance is the hidden language of the soul. — Martha Graham
So you can't dance? Not at all? Not even one step? . . . How can you say that you've taken any trouble to live when you won't even dance? — Hermann Hesse
Dance for yourself, if someone understands good. If not then no matter, go right on doing what you love. — Louis Horst
We should consider every day lost on which we have not danced at least once. — Friedrich Nietzsche
O body swayed to music, o brightening glance, how can we know the dancer from the dance? — William Butler Yeats

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