Dance can serve to unify and define culture through sharing its history and values, whether through competitive dance events, eroctic performances or ceremonial rituals.
Foreign invasions resulted in syncretic forces that combined cultures, creating dance styles unique to their host nation. One such artist is American choreographer Helen Tamiris who combined theatrical dance with social responsibility by dancing to Negro spirituals while employing different types of dance forms.
Origins
Dance has long been used as an expressive form of communication and ritual since early civilizations began emerging. Evidence of structured dance dates back 9,000 years; today dance is utilized for celebration, entertainment, and ritualistic purposes throughout history with elements coming from multiple cultures around the globe.
General definition of dance refers to rhythmic body movements performed within a set space for the purpose of communicating an idea or emotion. Dance can be done individually or with others and may include music or spoken word accompaniment. Dance provides both physical and emotional relief from stress or tension for its practitioners while it has also been utilized to advance social, spiritual, and personal development.
Some of the first culturally significant dances were religious or ceremonial in nature. Ancient Egyptian priests would use structured dance to convey stories about gods and kings through dance; similarly, Greek and Roman religious ceremonies involved dancing to honor Dionysus and Bacchus as wine gods.
Dance has become more mainstream as more civilizations embrace its art, becoming an everyday part of daily life. You can find dance movements everywhere – from freestyle dancing to synchronized swimming and performance-based activities like ballroom dance.
In the 1900s, technical dancing made a comeback thanks to American choreographers Agnes de Mille and Jerome Robbins’ works. These choreographers combined ballet, folk dancing, modern dance with popular music styles and cultural influences into remarkable pieces of art that they called Fusion; taking street and social dancing, ballet jazz tap and other forms of cultural dance and creating something truly new and dynamic.
Influence
Dance has long been an influential form and technique. It provides people an outlet to express themselves, communicate ideas and commemorate or mourn certain events – from early cave paintings in India and Egypt to its role in modern performance art.
Structured dancing was an entertainment staple during the Renaissance and continues to influence ballroom dancing today. Furthermore, structured dance was often employed in religious rituals among Native Americans as an integral component.
Historical invasions created forces that altered cultural landscapes of invaded countries and had repercussions in dance as well. African slaves brought north after the Civil War had an enormous effect on American theater and social dance as well as on popular forms like tap, ballet and jazz dance forms.
In the 1960s and 70s, young choreographers challenged what was seen as theatrical dance performance, shifting away from virtuosic movements towards pedestrian movements and exploring abstraction and absurdity – styles often associated with Mark Morris, Bill T Jones, and Elizabeth Streb works.
As humanity has become more accepting of its diversity, there has been an upsurge in acceptance of other traditions as dance forms. This trend can be seen in both modern dance – where Pearl Primus and Katherine Dunham bring their experience as both dancers and anthropologists to create work that is uniquely American – as well as youth dance, where children are encouraged to explore their individual expressions while making works that defy genre boundaries.
Forms
Dance can communicate ancient legends in ways not possible through written or verbal language alone. Furthermore, it can share a sense of culture through costumes, music and traditional rituals; moreover for many communities dance is more than simply entertainment; for some it has even become an essential component of daily life!
Cultural dances are dance forms specific to one group or community. These performances may honor tradition passed down through generations or celebrate an important cultural heritage or event; typically choreographed to traditional music and performed in one location.
Rhythm is one of the cornerstones of dance. It refers to moving in time with other dancers or alone and can range from fast to slow tempos. Additionally, rhythm often comes together with other elements including action, space and energy; locomotor movements include running, jumping, walking or sliding across space while space represents any area occupied by a performer as well as any movement within that space. Finally energy represents force or effort expended during movement.
Dance in the United States has always had an eclectic range of influences that are hard to categorize. Over time, its boundaries shifted between highly technical dance forms like ballet and more casual forms of dancing such as social or recreational dancing, such as street dance. But over time fusion began taking hold – including street dance, modern jazz dancing, cultural forms such as belly dancing. Artists such as Twyla Tharp, Merce Cunningham and others blended various dance styles together through their work.
Techniques
Dance is an art form which employs body movements to recreate sequences with aesthetic and symbolic value. Dance can take various forms ranging from freeform movements to predetermined choreography, and may be distinguished according to style, technique, movement style, music culture historical period or any number of factors.
As world powers reshaped their societies and philosophies in the early modern period, new dance ideas emerged. Artists such as Loie Fuller and Katherine Dunham experimented with modern dance by employing theatrical techniques like imagistic movement; creating abstract dances with images instead of narrative plotlines while incorporating aspects of theater and literature to produce their pieces.
Pearl Primus and Katherine Dunham brought African American heritage into their choreographic works, emphasizing personal expression through dance. Their techniques reflected the turbulence of modern life–such as shifting global events, social transformations, industrialization–while their dances explored various emotions.
As dance has been more shaped by world events, individuals began questioning its strict rules. Some dancers rebelled against its theatrical presentation and refused to follow established technical standards for classical dance forms such as ballet. Others, like Yvonne Ranier’s Happenings dances, forgo any attempt at rational interpretation in favor of conveying pure emotion. Other dancers preferred pedestrian movements, like walking and falling. These performers chose to explore movement accompanied by music – an important aspect of early modern jazz styles. Modern dancers later adopted techniques from other forms of exercise and training beyond dance itself, including Pilates and yoga; acting practices of Corporeal Mime-Etienne Decroux technique; somatic training methods including Alexander Technique, Feldenkrais Method Franklin Method Ideokinesis or Eutony.
Performance
Dance has long been an integral part of many cultures’ practices and rituals worldwide, dating back millennia. Through rhythmic body movement within a given space, it serves as an expression of emotion, way to commemorate births and deaths, communication tool, therapeutic solution or even just entertainment form.
History shows us that dance has taken many different forms as people bring new ideas and influences into its creation which is similar to casinos which took online form as we find them on yoakimbridge.com. For example, during the 1970s and 80s dance took on new forms with people mixing street dance, modern, jazz, tap, cultural forms with other forms and creating hybrid performances such as those created by Twyla Tharp and Yvonne Rainer who both specialize in this form of movement.
Some historians speculate that prehistoric dances may date back as far as prehistory; however, most evidence of them can only be seen through paintings or statues. By the mid-1700s however, more specific dance moves began being outlined and taught through dance books like Francis Peacock’s Sketches of Dancing; Carlo Blasis’ Code of Terpsichore; or Edward Ferrero’s 1859 The Art of Dancing.
Exploration and foreign invasion have both greatly influenced dance in ways that are often hard to measure. Cultures blending is evident in early American dance styles; African slave migration after slavery’s abolishment left its mark through hip-hop dance forms as well as other urban contemporary forms that remain popular today.