<!--"none" is preferred when the title is sufficiently descriptive; see WP:SDNONE -->

thumb|upright=0.9|Veiled dancer, ancient Greek terracotta figurine from [[Myrina (Mysia)|Myrina, –100 BC. Louvre Museum]]

thumb|upright=0.9|Ancient Greek terracotta statuette of a dancing maenad, 3rd century BC, from [[Taranto.]]

The history of dance is difficult to access because dance does not often leave behind clearly identifiable physical artifacts that last over millennia, such as stone tools, hunting implements or cave paintings. It is difficult to determine the exact point at which dance became part of human culture. Dance is filled with aesthetic values, making it distinct from one society to another. It is filled with symbolism that expounds on the cultural heritage of a community, each style being unique from one another. Dance can help tell a story, convey feelings and emotions, and connect with others and ourselves.

Early dance

The natural impulse to dance has been found to exist in primates in response to rhythmic beat.

Dance has been an important part of ceremony, rituals, celebrations and entertainment since before the birth of the earliest human civilizations. Archaeology delivers traces of dance from prehistoric times such as the 10,000-year-old Bhimbetka rock shelters paintings in India and Egyptian tomb depicting dancing figures from c. 3300 BC. Many contemporary dance forms can be traced back to historical, traditional, ceremonial and ethnic dances of the ancient period.<gallery>

</gallery>

Means of social communication and bonding

Dance may have been used as a tool of social interaction that promoted cooperation essential for survival among early humans. Studies found that today's best dancers share two specific genes associated with a predisposition for being good at social communication.

Also, the term "kinesthetic" is the right term to help understanding how dance makes communication. "Kinesthetic" means recognition of movement of one's own body, and is a combination of two words (Greek: kinein "to move", aesthesis "perception"). Dance movements and accompanying sounds also play a significant role. In group performances (whether through holding hands, linking shoulders, or facing one another) participants often develop a sense of communication and social bonding.

As folk celebrations

Many dances of the early periods were performed as a ritual to the gods who ancestors believed needed to be kept entertained for world peace. Dance was used in many celebrations and continues to be used for the same purpose. Throughout history we can notice that dance had many uses such as also community dance, harvesting and worship. Dance evolution started as folk origins to court presentations and now theater or even cinema movies.

In ceremonies and rituals

Dance may be performed in religious or shamanic rituals, for example in rain dance performed in times of drought. Shamans dancing for rain is mentioned in ancient Chinese texts. Dance is an important aspect of some religious rites in ancient Egypt, similarly dance is also integral to many ceremonies and rites among African people. Ritual dances may also be performed in temples and during religious festivals, for example the Rasa ritual dances of India (a number of Indian classical dances may have their origin in ritual dances), and the Cham dances of Tibet.

As a method of healing

Another early use of dance may have been as a precursor to ecstatic trance states in healing rituals. Dance is used for this purpose by many cultures from the Brazilian rainforest to the Kalahari Desert. Medieval European danses macabres were thought to have protected participants from disease; however, the hysteria and duration of these dances sometimes led to death due to exhaustion.

In European culture, one of the earliest records of dancing is by Homer, whose Iliad describes chorea (χορεία khoreia). 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 passion.

Cultural traditions

Asia

thumb|upright=0.9|Shiva as [[Nataraja (Lord of Dance)]]

Indian classical dance

An early manuscript describing dance is the Natya Shastra on which is based the modern interpretation of classical Indian dance (e.g. Bharathanatyam).

During the reign of the last Mughals and Nawabs of Oudh, dance fell down to the status of 'nautch', an unethical sensuous thing of courtesans.

Later, linking dance with immoral trafficking and prostitution, British rule prohibited public performance of dance. Many disapproved of it. In 1947, India won its freedom and created for dance an ambience where it could regain its past glory. Classical forms and regional distinctions were re-discovered, ethnic specialties were honored, and by synthesizing them with the individual talents of the masters in the line and fresh innovations, emerged dance with a new face but with classicism of the past.

In Sri Lanka, the ancient Sinhalese chronicle Mahavamsa states that when King Vijaya landed in Sri Lanka in 543 BCE he heard sounds of music and dancing from a wedding ceremony. The origins of the dances of Sri Lanka are dated back to the aboriginal tribes, and to the mythological times of aboriginal yingyang twins and "yakkas" (devils). The classical dances of Sri Lanka (Kandyan dances) feature a highly developed system of tala (rhythm) and provided by cymbals called thalampataa.

Chinese dance

thumb|upright=1.2|Details from a copy of a 10th-century painting Night Revels of Han Xizai by [[Gu Hongzhong, depicting a dancer performing a dance known in the Tang dynasty.]]

There is a long recorded history of Chinese dances. Some of the dances mentioned in ancient texts, such as dancing with sleeve movements are still performed today. Some of the early dances were associated with shamanic rituals. Folk dances of the early period were also developed into court dances. The important dances of the ancient period were the ceremonial yayue dated to the Zhou dynasty of the first millennium BC. The art of dance in China reached its peak during the Tang dynasty, a period when dancers from many parts of the world also performed at the imperial court. However, Chinese opera became popular during the Song and Yuan dynasty, and many dances were merged into Chinese opera. a practice that ironically may have originated from dancing when a dancer wrapped her feet so she may dance ballet-fashion. The best-known of the Chinese traditional dances are the dragon dance and lion dance. Lion dance was described in the Tang dynasty in form that resembles today's dance.

Iranian dance

Prehistory

thumb|Dancers on a piece of ceramic from [[Cheshmeh-Ali (Shahr-e-Rey), Iran, 5000 BC now at the Louvre|alt=Dancers on a piece of ceramic from Cheshmeh-Ali (Shahr-e-Rey), Iran, 5000 BC. Currently located at the Louvre]]

The people of the Iranian plateau have known dance in the forms of music, play, drama or religious rituals and have used instruments like mask, costumes of animals or plants, and musical instruments for rhythm, at least since the 6th millennium BC. Cultural mixed forms of dance, play and drama have served rituals like celebration, mourning and worship. And the actors have been masters of music, dance, physical acts and manners of expression. Artifacts with pictures of dancers, players or actors were found in many archaeological prehistoric sites in Iran, like Tepe Sabz, Ja'far Abad, Chogha Mish, Tall-e Jari, Cheshmeh Ali, Ismaeel Abad, Tal-e bakun, Tepe Sialk, Tepe Musian, tepe Yahya, Shahdad, Tepe Gian, Kul Farah, Susa, Kok Tepe, Cemeteries of Luristan, etc.

History

thumb|right|Seal with a Persian man dancing, [[Achaemenid Empire|Achaemenid period, dated . Currently housed in the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles]]

thumb|right|Dancers and musicians on a Sasanian bowl

The earliest researched dance from historic Iran is a dance worshiping Mithra (as in the Cult of Mithras) in which a bull was sacrificed. Ancient Persia was occupied by foreign powers, first Greeks, then Arabs, and then Mongols and in turn political instability and civil wars occurred. Throughout these changes a slow disappearance of heritage dance traditions occurred. The Iranian national ballet company was dissolved and its members emigrated to different countries.

By the 18th century, ballet had migrated from the French and Italian royal courts to the Paris Opéra under the careful direction of composer/dancer Jean-Baptiste Lully. Lully sought to develop ballet into more serious art. Under his influence, ballet was turned into a recognized art that was performed by professional dancers rather than courtiers.

During the 18th century, ballet transitioned from a courtly dance of moving images as a spectacle to performance art in its own right. Ballet performances developed around a central narrative and contained an expressive movement that revealed the relationships between characters. This dramatic style of ballet became known as the ballet d'action. The ballet d'action strove to express, for the first time, human emotions drawn directly from the dancers themselves. Masks previously worn by performers were removed so that emotional content could be derived from facial expressions. Each tribe developed its own unique style of dance, falling into three categories based on purpose.

  • The first is religious dancing, which many tribes purport enhances peace, health, and prosperity. Religious dances often involved masqueraders, performing as both the spirits and those who placated them.</onlyinclude>

The late 20th and early 21st centuries

thumb|Diagram of 20th century American dance history

Postmodernism

After the explosion of modern dance in the early 20th century, the 1960s saw the growth of postmodernism. Postmodernism veered towards simplicity, the beauty of small things, the beauty of untrained body, and unsophisticated movement. The famous "No" manifesto, by Yvonne Rainer, rejecting all costumes, stories and outer trappings in favour of raw and unpolished movement was perhaps the extreme of this wave of thinking. However, it was not long before sets, décor and shock value re-entered the vocabulary of modern choreographers.

Street dance

At the same time, mass culture experienced expansion of street dance. In 1973, famous group Jackson 5 performed on television a dance called Robot (choreographed by postmodern artist Michael Jackson), a dance form cultivated in Richmond, CA. This event and later Soul Train performances by black dancers (such as Don Cambell) ignited a street culture revolution, in a sense. B-boying in New York; Locking in L.A.; Popping in Fresno, CA; Boogaloo in Oakland, CA; Robot in Richmond, CA; all had their own creative explosions happen around the late '60s–'70s. Each with its own histories, practices, innovators and foundations.

For the emergence of 20th-century modern dance see also: Mary Wigman, Gret Palucca, Harald Kreutzberg, Yvonne Georgi, and Isadora Duncan.

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 breakdancing, which is now a cornerstone of hip-hop dance.

See also

  • History of ballet
  • History of figure skating

References

Further reading

  • Adshead-Lansdale, J. (ed.) (1994). Dance History: An Introduction. Routledge..
  • Charman, S. Kraus, R, G. Chapman, S. and Dixon-Stowall, B. (1990). History of the Dance in Art and Education. Pearson Education. .
  • Dils, A. (2001). Moving History/Dancing Cultures: A Dance History Reader. Wesleyan University Press. .
  • Wood, Melusine (1952). Some historical dances twelfth to nineteenth century; their manner of performance and their place in the social life of the time, London: Imperial Society of Teachers of Dancing.
  • Historic Illustrations of Dancing from 3300 B.C. to 1911 A.D. from Project Gutenberg
  • The history of pointe shoes and technique (ballet)