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Dance in History

From the earliest times dance has been used to express humanitys fundamental needs and emotions. People danced in groups to invoke the spirits of the animals they wished to hunt or to placate the gods in times of drought, famine and war. Rain dances flourished in many cultures, and are still performed by Native American peoples, such as the Cherokee, who use then to induce precipitation and to cleanse evil spirits. A rain dance, known as Paparuda, is also performed in Romania.

The Maenads, or raving ones of ancient Greek mythology, used to dance with wild abandon, working themselves into a state of frenzy. They were the female worshippers of Dionysus, (Bacchus in Roman mythology), the god of wine and intoxication. Perhaps they are the source of ritual dances of self-sacrifice, such as The Rite of Spring, performed to ensure the fertility of the fields? In later folk literature dance could be used to punish evil characters, who were forced to dance themselves to death. Such phenomena may have been the result of ergotism, also known as St Anthonys Fire. Between 1200 and 1600 there were several outbreaks of dance mania prompted by this painful, toxic condition, which was caused by the Claviceps purpurea fungus on rye grain, used for making bread.

The medieval Dance of Death or Danse Macabre is often shown as a line of dancers, people alternating with skeletons. This blackly humorous allegory, showing the omnipresence of Death, the great social leveller, helped people to cope with the uncertainties of existence. Dance is also integral to certain religious rituals. Chinese Opera probably originated in performance to appease the spirits. Its music, dance and ritual gesture date back to the Tang Dynasty (618-907) but during the Cultural Revolution of the 1960s it was used as a channel for Maoist ideology. Kathakali, the classical dance-drama that developed in Kerala, South India, in the 17th century, is traditionally performed in Hindu temples and is rooted in Hindu mythology. The Mevlevi Order of Sufi Muslims in present day Turkey still employ their famous practice of ecstatic whirling as a form of dhikr (remembrance of God).