dance

v., danced, danc·ing, danc·es.

v.intr.

1. To move rhythmically usually to music, using prescribed or improvised steps and gestures.
2. 1. To leap or skip about excitedly.
   2. To appear to flash or twinkle: eyes that danced with merriment.
   3. Informal. To appear to skip about; vacillate: danced around the issue.
3. To bob up and down.

v.tr.

1. To engage in or perform (a dance).
2. To cause to dance.
3. To bring to a particular state or condition by dancing: My partner danced me to exhaustion.

n.

1. A series of motions and steps, usually performed to music.
2. The art of dancing: studied dance in college.
3. A party or gathering of people for dancing; a ball.
4. One round or turn of dancing: May I have this dance?
5. A musical or rhythmical piece composed or played for dancing.
6. The act or an instance of dancing.

[Middle English dauncen, from Old French danser, perhaps of Germanic origin.]

dancer danc'er n.
dancingly danc'ing·ly adv.

For more information on dance, visit Britannica.com.

Like ‘body’, dance's meanings and functions have been constituted differently at distinct moments in history. Louis XIV, for example, asserted that dance provides the ideal bodily preparation for the warrior, imparting the agility and adeptness necessary for effective combat. The British sexologist Havelock Ellis identified dance as the consummate elaboration of the sexual impulse, evident in the behaviour of a wide variety of species. The American choreographer Martha Graham described dance as the truthful expression of the psyche's deepest feelings, revealing through the body's movement the innermost impulses of the human soul. The dance anthropologist Joann Kealiinohomoku, having noted the marked differences in dictionary definitions of dance during the twentieth century, offered the following definition:

Dance is a transient mode of expression, performed in a given form and style by the human body moving in space. Dance occurs through purposefully selected and controlled rhythmic movements; the resulting phenomenon is recognized as dance both by the performer and the observing members of a given group.

If dance has been construed as fulfilling a variety of expressive and social functions, histories of dance have likewise been structured around distinctive conceptions of dance, reflecting in both their organization and choice of subject matter specific notions of dance's meaning. Dance, they assert, has evolved from sacred to profane, or from ritual to spectacle, or from communal play to individual discovery. What seems clear at the beginning of the twenty-first century is the historical and cultural specificity of each of these claims. The following comments, therefore, reflect this author's and this moment's assessment of dance's significance. For who can say how the meaning of dance might change for those who pass their time absorbed in the virtual technologies that the future promises to offer us?

Dance provides a rare opportunity to experience body as both functional and symbolic. While dancing, the individual is embroiled in body as the creative producer of ‘ideas’, as a medium for communicating ideas, and as the disciplined executant of those ideas. Ideas generated by the dancing body can include images of physical identity, such as a body's characteristic postures, stances, or gestures, or they might include physical representations of thoughts, feelings, moods, intuitions, or impulses. Ideas issuing from the dancing body also consist in pronouncements about its nature — its shapes, its differentiation of body parts or regions, its rhythms, and its tensile qualities of motion — as it negotiates its surroundings and the force of gravity, and as it encounters other bodies. Through the articulation of these ideas, dance both reproduces and generates key cultural values.

Bodies engaged in dancing typically learn a dance — the orchestrated movement patterns known as the choreography — and they also learn to perform the dance, according to the criteria of proper performance of the movement patterns. Both the dance's choreography and performance resonate strongly with more general cultural concerns. Ballet, as practised in Europe and the US, emphasizes the abstract geometry of bodily form exploring the heights and extensions the body can achieve both on the floor and in the air. It constructs unique roles for male and female performers who work together to create a unified whole. Ballet recognizes a hierarchy of skills and physical prowess, and commemorates that hierarchy in the arrangements of soloists and corps de ballet. At the same time, the dancers are asked to mask the extraordinary labour entailed by their bodily elevations, and to make their jumps, balances, and turns appear effortless. In contrast, the West African dance repertoire elaborates a vital connection to earth. Its dances display the capacity of the body to engage in multiple rhythmic patterns simultaneously and to move among different rhythmic structures. It also offers opportunities for improvised dialogue between dancers and musicians. The large number of dances in this tradition, performed at a range of social and religious occasions, provide numerous opportunities for non-professional dancers to participate. In each of these cultural contexts, dance works to illuminate attitudes toward the body and to exemplify patterns of physicalized sociability through which all bodies relate.

Many dance forms require extensive bodily training in order to attain competence at performance. Pedagogies of dance training typically engage the body in extended repetition of movement sequences. These exercises may be taken directly from specific dances or they may consist of sequences that are especially designed to enhance flexibility, strength, endurance, co-ordination, dexterity, or other physical attributes deemed necessary for successful performance. Each of these training programmes produces a body with distinct capacities and limitations. In ballet, exercises develop the musculature so as to construct ideal lines for arms, legs, and torso, which the choreography then displays. In West African dance, practice is required to learn rhythmic acuity and to extend the body's endurance and its capacity to articulate complex rhythms. For Tongan choreography, dancers work to acquire an articulateness of hands and arms, and a cordial relationship between gesturing appendages and central body, in keeping with the overall aesthetic demands of that form. Bodily competence in each of these forms is highly distinctive, and only rarely can a dancer adapt the training from one tradition for use in a different form.

Through the process of learning to dance, the body is made over into the kind of medium of expression required for a given dance form. The dancer extends and alters the body's physical capacities, and, also, the dancer develops a new symbolic conception of body, of what and how it means. The early modern dancer Isadora Duncan established the diaphragm as the central source of bodily movement and as the place that connected body with soul. In contrast, the Argentine tango locates bodily centre and the source of movement in the constantly changing interplay between male and female partners. The eighteenth-century ballet theorist Jean Georges Noverre asserted that the face provided a window onto the soul, but that the bottom of the foot offered the key to balance and postural alignment. Dance training inculcates the symbolic interpretation of body as well as the patterned movement responses required by a given form. As these examples demonstrate, there are as many distinct conceptions of body and mappings of bodily meaning as there are dance forms.

Dance provides a vision of what it is to be a body for those who watch it, and an experience of being a body for those who do it. Dance connects this corporeal identity to subjectivity and sociality, so that the dancing body achieves a locatedness in relation to self and others. Dance's transcendent power stems, in part, from just this ability to synthesize physicality with individual, gendered, ethnic, and social identities. At the same time, dance places this experience of identity in motion so that the dancing body comprehends the transitoriness of each moment and its changing relation to the flux of the world.

— Susan Foster

See also ballet; music and the body.

There are many types of dance ranging in intensity from the slow waltz to energetic jazz dancing and ballet. Elite dancers require total body fitness, including cardiorespiratory and muscular endurance, agility, balance, and coordination. Most people, no matter what their age or level of fitness, can find a form of dance that suits them. Dance is a beneficial form of exercise but it is difficult to be specific about the exact contribution it will make to each fitness component because it comes in so many varieties. Generally, however, the more energetic the dance, the more it will help you build stamina and protect bones. Many leisure centres offer sessions in dancercise or dance aerobics (dance movements specially designed to develop aerobic fitness). In addition to benefiting general fitness, dance also helps to strengthen leg muscles, improve flexibility, and develop balance and coordination.

verb

1. To move rhythmically to music, using patterns of steps or gestures: foot, step. Slang hoof. Idioms: cut a rug, foot it, trip the light fantastic. See repetition, work/play.
2. To leap and skip about playfully: caper, cavort, frisk, frolic, gambol, rollick, romp. See work/play.

noun

A party or gathering for dancing: ball. Informal hop. See work/play.

Idioms beginning with dance:
dance attendance on
dance to another tune

See also lead a chase (dance); song and dance.

---

The present article outlines the history of dance and its music, social, theatrical and idealized, in Western society. (Information about particular dances will be found in their individual entries, indicated by cross-references.)

References to types of dance begin to appear in writings from the 12th century onwards, with such titles as Carole, hovetantz, Estampie and Saltarello; the carole (a line or circular dance) apart, little is known about their musical or choreographic features. The more formal, processional dance types led to the classical Burgundian Basse danse and the more elaborate Italian bassadanza of the 15th century, and on to the Renaissance Pavan. Most instrumental pieces for dancing at this period fall into short, repeated sections, between three and seven in number; sometimes dances are paired, with the second of a pair faster than the first and in a different metre. Nothing is reliably known, however, of the relationship of dance steps to surviving music.

With the 15th century, traditions of dance teaching and theory arose in Italy, and instruction manuals connect music and choreography. Court dances of the time, such as the Calata and the striana, are known by name and by some salient features; a number of dances, such as the Moresca (morris, morisque) and the Branle (brando), were considered inappropriate for a gentleman. A new repertory arose after 1500 with the appearance of branles and moresche used in all parts of Europe for popular group dancing and professional solo dancing.

In the period 1550-1630 court dance is well documented and the sources reflect the popularity of dance, both social and theatrical. Vocal music of the time, though not necessarily intended for dance, reflects the rhythms of popular dance types such as the Galliard, the Canary and the corrente ( Courante, coranto). Traditionally, dance, often in triple metre, symbolized joy and requited love. At the same time dance, song and spectacle came together in the new dramatic forms including the intermedio, the ballet de cour and the masque, while dance rhythms permeated the development of the new instrumental idioms of the late 16th and early 17th centuries. At social gatherings, dances included the solemn processional pavane, circular branles and progressive longways dances; there were also individually choreographed dances for small groups and miming dances performed by couples in the embrace position which heightened the relationship between dance and the sport of love. Theatrical dance varied widely in scope; it comprehended formal processions for dignitaries, mock battles, horse ballets or stage works, sometimes with solo dances or small group dances (as in Monteverdi's Il ballo delle ingrate). There could also be geometrically figured dances for large groups such as formed the main items in the intermedio, ballet de cour and masque and persisted throughout the 17th century. Dance manuals of the period provide numerous specific choreographies for social dances, notably Fabritio Caroso's Il ballarino (1581) and Nobiltà di dame (1600), Thoinot Arbeau's Orchésographie (1588) and Cesare Negri's Le gratie d′amore (1602). Italy dominated dance in the 16th century and Italian dancing-masters worked in all parts of Europe. Surviving stage choreographies make it clear that group stage dances were elaborated versions of social dances of the time; in these, different types of movement followed in quick succession, with different numbers of dancers. It is clear that folkdance nourished court dance to some degree.

Music for dancing was supplied by any kind of instrument, but in Italy each kind of instrumentation was associated with a particular type of scene or personage: drums and double-reed instruments were used for peasants, for example. Much dance music of the time, especially in Italy, is constructed on ground basses and other variation patterns. The main types used were the Allemande, branle, corrente or courante, gagliarda or galliard, Passamezzo (or pass′ e mezzo), Pavan and saltarello; there were local types, such as the English dump, and other popular ones - including the ciaccona (or Chaconne) and Sarabande - that were considered too crude or lascivious for courtly use. The ‘dance-afterdance’ pattern, with a slow duple dance followed by a fast triple (like the pavan-galliard or passamezzo-saltarello), is common in the musical sources.

From c 1630 French influence became stronger in northern Europe while Italian, influence persisted in the south. There was a multiplicity of dance types: the sarabande and chaconne became acceptable, the courante was developed and the minuet came into prominence. French dance spectacles grew in number and in scale, culminating in the theatrical dances in the operas of Lully and the favoured early 18th-century and Regency genre, the opéra-ballet, consisting of a series of divertissements in which dance was prominent. An English parallel is found in the use of dance in Purcell's semi-operas; in Italian opera, dance was generally used only in final scenes, though in certain courtly theatrical entertainments there was dancing between the acts, the music usually supplied by specialist composers.

Dance style changed markedly in the 17th century, though there is slender documentation until Playford's English Dancing Master (1651, many edns. to 1728), which treats primarily the English country-dance type. By the end of the 17th century the most popular dances included the allemande, branle, Bourrée, canary, chaconne, Country dance, courante, Forlana, Gigue, Loure, Minuet, Passacaglia, Passepied, Rigaudon and sarabande. In social dance, as in theatrical, these were often grouped into suites of increasingly standard pattern. In Germany, the instrumental ensemble suite flourished, with Schein, Peuerl, Krieger and Georg Muffat and the harpsichord suite with Froberger, Kuhnau and later Bach. In France, keyboard dances were collected in groups by Chambonnières, the Couperins and D′Anglebert, but the true suite appeared only late in the century. English composers of dance groups include Jenkins, Locke and Purcell. Italian dance collections fall into suite-like groupings or sonatas of the sonata da camera type, by such composers as Buonamente, Marini and later G.B. Vitali and Corelli.

By the early 18th century French domination of theatrical dance was widely acknowledged; it had also begun to play a part in the drama as well as being decorative. This process had already begun with Lully and continued in some degree in the opéra-ballets of Campra. The two most influential French dancers of the early 18th century were Marie-Anne Camargo (1710-70), famous for her virtuoso technique, and Marie Sallé (1707-56), more creative an artist in her expression of emotion; both were involved in the simplification of dance dress from the formality of the previous era to increase mobility. Camargo played a prominent part in the ballets of Rameau, the most inventive composer of theatrical dance of the early 18th century.

The major dance reformer, however, was Jean-Georges Noverre (1727-1810), who was influenced by Sallé, Rameau and the English actor David Garrick. He crystallized the vision of ballet en action (or ballet d′action) as music, drama, choreography and staging, all subordinated to a general scheme, and he demanded an end to virtuosity for its own sake and stereotyped, unpractical costumes. He worked with Jommelli and in Vienna with Gluck. Other important choreographers of this period were Franz Hilverding van Wewen (1710-68), a leading Viennese ballet-master who created fully developed pantomime ballets, some of them tragic, in place of decorative divertissements; he also worked at the Russian court, with the ballet composer Starzer, who later composed in Vienna for Noverre and his rival Gaspero Angiolini (1731-1803). Angiolini collaborated with Gluck on his ‘reform’ works, the ballet Don Juan (1761) and the opera Orfeo ed Euridice (1762).

Analagous with developments in opera at the time, a new type of ballet based on a middle-class view of peasant life was developed by Jean Dauberval (1742-1806), with La fille mal gardée (1789). Another development by a Noverre pupil, in London, was a ballet by Charles Louis Didelot (1767-1837) featuring machinery that enabled dancers to ‘fly’ on wires.

Social dance of the late 18th century centred on the minuet, the most important dance in the aristocratic divertimento (as well as the symphony and the string quartet) and the symbol of aristocratic dance in Mozart's Don Giovanni. There it is contrasted with the bourgeois Contredanse (from the English country dance), usually in duple time, which later developed in different forms ( Anglaise, Écossaise, Cotillon and later the Reel) and was danced longways. In middle-class social dance, various types of round dance developed for couples in close embrace; this culminated in the waltz, which apparently developed from so-called German dances such as the Deutsche and the LÄndler. They were introduced into the ballroom c 1760. Vienna was the centre of the German dance and the waltz; Mozart and Beethoven later provided many of these for court balls, as did Schubert for bourgeois dancing. The waltz was much denounced as lascivious and immoral, but that did not prevent it from spreading (perhaps the contrary). Besides the minuet, other dances were used in art music, notably, in the mid-18th century, the polonaise, by such composers as W.F. Bach and Telemann, while the rhythms of others had an important place in vocal as well as instrumental music, lending a piece their particular expressive associations (such as the pathos of the Siciliana, in A. Scarlatti and Handel and indeed up to Mozart).

The main development of the early 19th century was the rise of the Romantic ballet, a ballet en action based on expressive mime-dance and the dramatic use of a corps de ballet; influential in this is Dauberval's pupil Salvatore Viganò (1769-1821), choreographer of Beethoven's Prometheus ballet. Most ballets (Prometheus is an exception) were assembled by theatre staff musicians to the requirements of a choreographer. This tradition developed particularly at Paris, notably with Hérold, whose score for La fille mal gardée (1828) is still performed, and Halévy, whose Manon Lescaut (1830) used melody to identify character. Dance technique of the time emphasized lightness, grace and modesty, with the use of point-shoes for artistic effect. This style was inaugurated by La sylphide (1832, Paris), in which Marie Taglioni (1804-84), whose dancing reflected the early Romantic spirit, appeared. Her style contrasted with that of the Viennese Fanny Elssler (1810-84), notable for her strong dramatic character and virtuoso technique. Another important dancer was Carlotta Grisi (1819-99), who inspired Adam's Giselle (1841, Paris), a peak of Romantic ballet. These artists made London an important ballet centre in the 1840s; also important were Copenhagen and Russia, as they remain.

Within opera, ballet retained its largely secondary place, serving primarily a decorative function during much of the 19th century, though Glinka's operas are not alone in using it in scenes that grow out of the action, incorporating folkdance to dramatic ends. Meyerbeer also used dance dramatically in Robert le diable but in most of his operas it is ornamental. Verdi's operatic ballets, mostly added for Paris productions, make some token attempt at integration into the drama, as also does Wagner's for the production of Tannhäuser in Paris, where the inclusion of ballet was a traditional prerequisite.

The classical ballet, though influenced by the work of Delibes in Paris (Coppélia 1870; Sylvia, 1876), was mainly the work of Tchaikovsky in Moscow, with his Swan Lake (1877), Sleeping Beauty (1890) and Nutcracker (1892). Sleeping Beauty was choreographed by the French ballet-master Marius Petipa (1818-1910), head of the Russian Imperial Ballet, who created 46 ballets which raised the style to a peak of spectacular grandeur. He mapped out in detail the sequence of dances which gave Tchaikovsky the practical help he needed. He also had some involvement in the other two and in ballets by Glazunov (The Seasons, 1900) and Minkus (Raymonda, 1898). The other leading Russian choreographer was Lev Ivanov (1834-1901), who worked on Nutcracker and the Polovtsian Dances in Borodin's Prince Igor (1890).

In social dance, however, Vienna's precedence remained because of the dominance of the waltz. Other important dances were the more complicated Quadrille and the lively, much simpler Galop. The Bohemian Polka also achieved great popularity towards the middle of the century, as did the Schottische. The quadrille fell into regular eight-bar patterns, but other forms allowed opportunity for greater development, especially the waltz with its extended introduction and the opportunities it allowed for melodic expansion and recapitulation. The Strauss family in Vienna were its best-known exponents. The waltz was one of the dances which, in idealized form, was used by piano composers, such as Chopin and Brahms; Chopin also drew on the rhythms of his native Polish dances such as the Mazurka and the Polonaise. Smetana and Dvořák, similarly, used such national dance forms as the Furiant and the Dumka.

The central figure in theatrical dance of the early 20th century was Sergey Dyagilev (1872-1929), whose genius changed the face and fortune of classical dance and determined its course, although he could neither choreograph nor compose. His company Ballets Russes, which first appeared in Paris in 1909, used music in three different ways: an anthology of works by one composer (for example the collection of Chopin pieces he assembled for Les sylphides, or the ‘Pergolesi’ ones that Stravinsky assembled for Pulcinella); a miscellany of works by different composers; or the use of an existing work to create a ballet quite distinct from the composer's intentions. But he also continued the practice of commissioning new music and thus created the basic repertory of modern ballet: Stravinsky's Firebird, Petrushka and Rite of Spring, Debussy's Jeux, Ravel's Daphnis et Chloé, Falla's Three-cornered Hat and Poulenc's Les biches are examples. He used such choreographers as Fokin, Massin and Balanchin; Picasso and Cocteau were among his designers. He trained the principal figures in British ballet as well as Balanchin, the most important in dance in New York. In Russia, the classical tradition was preserved and nurtured into the Soviet era, with the creation of new ballets by Glier (The Red Poppy, 1927) and Shostakovich (The Age of Gold, 1930) as well as Prokofiev (Romeo and Juliet, 1938; Cinderella, 1945). In the USA particularly, classical dance has been challenged by ‘modern’ dance, pioneered by Isadora Duncan (1878-1927), who took ancient Greek art as the inspiration for her free style of dancing (to any music that fired her), as well as Ruth St Denis (1877-1968), who drew on oriental sources and trained a new generation of American dancers, notably Martha Graham (b 1900). A pupil of Graham's, Merce Cunningham (b 1915), collaborated with John Cage, pioneering a dissociation of music and dance in which each aimed at self-sufficiency.

Social dance in the 19th century had originated in Europe and travelled to America; the traffic was reversed in the 20th. This was anticipated by the Boston (or valse boston) at the end of the 19th century; then followed the Tango, immediately before World War I, along with ragtime dances such as the Two-step and the Cakewalk, and (after World War I) the Charleston and the Foxtrot. In the 1930s, interest grew in Latin American dancing to bands including maracas, claves and Cuban drums; the Rumba, Samba and Tango were the most popular. The swing era of the 1930s saw the development of freer dances such as the Jitterbug. In the 1940s and 1950s, as the bop and cool styles transformed jazz from dance music into concert music, Latin American bands popularized Caribbean and Latin American dances including the Bossa-nova and the Cha cha cha; by the late 1950s the African-American dances associated with rhythm and blues, and later rock and roll, were preferred. Some rock dances, such as the Twist, were variants of ragtime dances, but their execution depended less on the interaction of partners than on the individual as part of a group. In the 1970s and 1980s, the driving, propulsive beats of rock, funk and soul music, on guitars, brass and drums that threaten to overpower the melody, gave rise to a concept of never-ending dance with a constant stream of sound to which dancers can create any dance movements in sequences of their own choosing.

---

English family of artists. (1) George Dance was an architect active in the city of London, whose practice was taken over upon his death by his younger son, (3) George Dance. His elder son, (2) Nathaniel Dance-Holland, was a painter.

The following members have entries:

• Sir Nathaniel Dance-Holland

See the Abbreviations for further details.

---

Dancing was an early component of Jewish ritual, ceremonial, festive, and commemorative occasions. Miriam and her maidens danced at the Red Sea (Ex. 15:20); the Israelites danced around the Golden Calf (Ex. 32:19); and David danced before the Lord (II Sam. 6:14). It would appear that in biblical times, men and women danced separately but mostly on the same occasions. Some dances were circular, others in a line, with one person leading. In Second Temple times, young maidens would dance in the vineyards on the 15th of Av when the young men selected their brides (Ta'an 4:8).

The tradition of dance remained among Jews through the ages. Talmudic rabbis danced at weddings (Ket. 17a) and dancing was part of the Water-Drawing Festival. In the ghettoes of Europe, dance was so much a part of life that some European communities had "dance houses," sometimes called "wedding houses." In Jewish homes in certain places, teachers came to give lessons not only in Torah and Talmud but also in music and dance, as there were specific dances for special occasions, such as Purim. The art of dance among Jews became so highly developed that in Renaissance Italy, Jews became dance masters for non-Jews, and on occasion participated in events outside their ghettoes. In 1313, a R. Hacen ben Salomo was forced to teach a choral dance to Christians for performance in a church at Tauste in Spain. In 1475, the Jews of Pesaro provided dances as part of the pageantry for the wedding of Camilla d'Aragona and Constanzo Sforza. On that occasion, one episode was symbolic of the Ten Commandments given to Moses and another dealt with the Queen of Sheba and King Solomon.

Jews maintained their love of dance to such an extent that some rabbis frowned upon it. They forbade mixed dancing, which began to develop at the end of the 18th century. At that time, however, in Russia, a new form of religious Jewish dance came into being: the Ḥasidic dance. From the time of the Baal Shem Tov, dancing was approved as an expression of religious joy and fervor, but with men and women dancing separately. Some Ḥasidim conclude their daily prayer with dancing.

In the East, Jewish communities also evolved their own styles of dance, mostly as in biblical times, for occasions such as weddings and religious festivals. When they arrived in modern Israel, communities such as the Yemenite, Kurdish, Bokharan, Ethiopian, and Indian Jews brought this heritage with them. The various strands have been absorbed into Israeli religious and secular dance. For all Jewish communities, the festival of Simḥat Torah (Rejoicing of the Law) is focused on dancing in the synagogue with the Scrolls of the Law.

---

A standard basic distinction in folk dance scholarship is between ‘ceremonial’ and ‘social’ dance. Ceremonial dances are performed by a special group within the community for display at special times, in special costume (as, for example, morris dance, sword dance, Molly dance, Bacup Coconut Dance, and the Helston Furry Dance) or as an integral part of a calendar custom performed only on certain occasions (such as Wishford Magna, Padstow Hobby Horse, and the Shaftesbury Byzant). Social dances, on the other hand, are performed in everyday situations by both sexes, without special training beyond knowing the basic steps and movements. This entry will concentrate on social dance.

In the sphere of social dance, the notion of a separate identifiable English ‘folk’ dance repertoire is difficult to sustain. It would be difficult to find a dance form which is not ‘traditional’, that is, informally learnt, passed on, and practised. More than most cultural forms, dances have moved up and down the social scale, have gone in and out of fashion, and undergone revival at different times, and at any given historical moment there were several possible dance repertoires existing side by side, as now. The 19th century, for example, was dominated by new dance crazes introduced from the Continent, including the Quadrille, a lively square dance for four couples, which arrived from France in 1816 (although it was based on earlier English country dances) and several ‘round’ or couple dances such as the Waltz (1812), the Polka (1844), and the Schottische (1848). Each of these was characterized by its own musical rhythm, and the Waltz and Polka in particular took the middle classes by storm, with thousands of new tunes and variations flooding the market. Each took its time filtering down the social scale. Quadrille dancing underwent a vigorous revival in the late 19th century in middle-class circles. Since the late 19th century, new dances have tended to come from America rather than Europe. What the ordinary working village or town dweller was dancing before these fashionable new dances arrived is still open to some debate.

The usual assumption, based largely on the writings of Cecil Sharp, is that the indigenous English folk dance was what became known as the ‘country dance’. The key difference between the old country dances and the new couple dances is that while in the latter couples progress independently round the room, repeating a short sequence of specified steps, in the country dances couples are included in a particular formation (circle, square, lines, etc.), and they perform a series of figures and steps in co-operation with other couples. Sharp started trying to collect country dances in rural areas about 1907, with only limited success:

In the village of today the polka, waltz and quadrille are steadily displacing the old-time country dances and jigs, just as the tawdry ballads and strident street-songs of the towns are no less surely exterminating the folk-songs. (Written in 1909; Sharp: i. 9)

There is abundant evidence from literary and historical sources that ‘country dances’ had been extremely popular at court and other fashionable balls, particularly in the 17th century. Samuel Pepys, for example, recorded a ball in the presence of the king and queen on 31 December 1662; after a bransle and a coranto: ‘… very noble it was and a great pleasure to see. Then to country dances: the King leading the first which he called for: which was, says he, ‘Cuckolds All a-Row’, the old dance of England …’ Sharp's basic assumption was that these fashionable ‘country dances’ were the existing vernacular village dances, tidied up and developed for the court and the ballroom, while they also continued in their natural habitat, the remnants of which he had hoped to find in the villages. He used early dance manuals, in particular John Playford's English Dancing Master, first published in 1650 and then in sixteen other editions until 1728, to attempt a reconstruction of earlier ‘country dance’ forms. The problem is that there is no real proof that the courtly country dances were taken from the village at all, but may have been largely invented for the court, and only loosely based on the ‘folk’ dances of the time. What evidence there is concerning the latter points to people dancing in circles, linked lines (moving in serpentine fashion), heys, or weaving in and out when two lines met, and a thread the needle movement as the line passed under an arch made by two dancers holding up their hands. The first uses of the term ‘country dance’ (from 1579 onwards) rarely give clear information but seem to refer to these types of dances. It was probably these which Queen Elizabeth I was delighted to watch the ‘country people’ dancing at Warwick in 1572, but by 1600 she was present to ‘see the ladies dance the old and new country dances’ (JEFDSS 3:2 (1937), 93-9). It seems likely, but at present still unprovable, that the new fashionable figured country dances were invented at court, probably using Italian models, and simply utilizing the lively music of the older English folk dances. These new country dances only filtered down to village level at a later date. Thomas Hardy, for example, offers some corroboration. According to him, there were two classes of people in the Dorset villages of his youth and his parents’ time (i.e. the first half of the 19th century); the tradespeople, freeholders, upper servants in one group, and the labourers and lower servants (work people) in the other, and the two had quite distinct gatherings at which they rarely mixed. The ‘country dances’ were the regular fare of the respectable tradespeople, while the work people had different dances, ‘which were reels of all sorts, jigs, a long dance called the “horserace”, another called “thread-the-needle”, &c. These were danced with hops, leg-crossings, and rather boisterous movements’ (EFDS News (Sept.1926), 383-5;JEFDS 2s:1 (1928), 52-6). He maintained that ‘country dances’ were introduced to the tradespeople class in the village in about 1800, and the work people were extremely reluctant to take them up. Sharp was disdainful of town-dwellers’ traditions, but a detailed account of London costermongers’ ‘tuppenny hops’ in the 1840s, written by Henry Mayhew, gives weight to Hardy's view. These events included jigs, hornpipes, polkas, and country dances, ‘the last mentioned being generally demanded by the women’ (Henry Mayhew, London Labour and the London Poor (1861), i. 12; a much shorter version was contributed by Mayhew to the Morning Chronicle (27 Nov.1849), letter XII).

Both Mayhew and Hardy indicate the factor which is missing in most accounts of ‘folk’ dancing, in that at least in the 18th and 19th centuries, and probably before, an extremely common form of dance for the working classes, both rural and urban, was ‘stepping’ or ‘stepdancing’. In its basic form, this involved ‘the rhythmic beating and scuffling of the feet on the floor’ (Hall, 1990: 77) and could be performed solo, or in pairs facing each other, in threes or fours, with alternate sequences of stationary stepping and changing places or doing a figure of eight, the latter being the basic form of dance called a ‘reel’. Stepping could be done any time, any place, providing there was music and a reasonably suitable floor, and there are descriptions of people taking barn doors off their hinges to dance on. It could also be taken seriously enough for competitions to be organized, often dancing on a farm cart, with the musician and judges with their backs to the dancers to avoid favouritism. In some parts, stepping developed into clog-dancing (also mentioned by Mayhew), in which the wearing of clogs with metal tips gave a more satisfying aural dimension. Regional styles of clogging developed (e.g. Lancashire and Westmorland), and champion dancers were famous enough to appear on the local music hall stage.

Until recent years, studies of dance history have usually concentrated on the dance forms themselves, and have largely ignored the social context, the venues and events, and, most importantly, the style of dancing. What little information we have in these spheres must be gleaned from other sources, such as novels and newspapers. The Mayhew description quoted above is unusually informative, while Thomas Hardy includes several descriptions of 19th-century rural dance events in his novels. His short story, Absentmindedness in a Parish Choir (1891) revolves around the fact that the same musicians played for dances and in church, and other works include dancing at a Christmas party (Under the Greenwood Tree (1872) part 1, chapters 7, 8), the social gradations of an outdoor village dance (The Return of the Native (1878) book 4, chapter 3), the innocent dance of the girls in the fields on May Day (Tess of the d'Urbevilles (1891), chapter 1), and many more. Dance venues and settings can be categorized according to the social class of the participants; the degree of formality involved; the social cohesion of the group (family, friends, work colleagues, strangers); the physical venue (pub, hired village schoolroom, village hall, commercial ballroom), and so on. Other regular venues not already mentioned include dancing-booths at fairs, where couples paid for each dance they wished to do, while in some areas a peripatetic dancing-master might stay a few weeks in the locality, giving lessons and organizing a social at the end of his stay.

The ‘country dance’ was vital for Sharp as the basic social dance in his planned revival movement, and he formed the English Folk Dance Society (EFDS) in 1911 to help spread the message. While country dances continued to fade from the village repertoire, the EFDS produced dedicated enthusiasts and dance teachers for whom country dancing at clubs, festivals, and garden parties became a normal hobby pursuit, and Sharp also succeeded in getting country dancing accepted on to the school curriculum. Throughout the inter-war years, country dancing remained a regular hobby pursuit of thousands of enthusiasts up and down the country, but had no appreciable effect on the mass popular culture which took its various dance crazes from America. Some revivalists continued Sharp's work and collected further traditional dances, and, indeed, discovered that some ‘country’ dances were still danced in amongst other dance forms, at village socials in many places in the country. After the Second World War the English Folk Dance and Song Society (as it had become in 1932) was shaken by a sudden national craze for American square dancing and, a few years later, on the back of the song revival, a boom in interest from a younger generation of enthusiasts. The new revival deliberately shunned the ‘plimsoles and gymslips’ image of the pre-war dance scene, and created a much livelier movement. The terminology changed—the word ‘ceilidh’ (under various spellings) was adopted from Ireland, coming to mean a much livelier type of event than a ‘country’ or ‘folk’ dance implied. At the time of writing, however, the term ‘barn dance’ is used by most lay people, while ‘ceilidh’ is mainly restricted to the cognoscenti. There is still a thriving barn dance/ceilidh scene in England, as one of many types of vernacular dance forms from which people can choose. There are specialist clubs and festivals in most parts of the country, and the EFDSS continues to co-ordinate and encourage. It is also quite common for non-specialist groups, such as sports and social clubs, PTAs, staff associations, churches, and so on, to organize occasional barn dances as social events, and many people also choose to have barn dancing at their wedding receptions, as it is ideal for all-age gatherings. The basic repertoire of these events is usually based loosely on the old country dances, with some newly composed dances on the same lines, and often a few similar dances from America, Scotland, and Ireland. Thus the repertoire is deliberately revived/contrived, but the informal gathering—the event itself—has many claims to be termed ‘traditional’.

Bibliography
The full bibliography list is available here.

• Reg Hall, I Never Played to Many Posh Dances: Scan Tester, Sussex Musician (1990)
• Cecil J. Sharp, The Country Dance Book (6 parts, 1909-22)
• Belinda Quirey, May I Have the Pleasure: The Story of Popular Dancing (1976)
• Cecil Sharp and A. P. Oppé, The Dance: An Historical Survey of Dancing in Europe (1924)
• Julian Pilling, FMJ 1:3 (1967), 158-79
• Anne-Marie Hulme and Peter Clifton, FMJ 3:4 (1978), 359-77
• Theresa Buckland, FMJ 4:4 (1983), 315-32
• Derek Schofield, FMJ 5:2 (1986), 215-19
• Melusine Wood, JEFDSS 3:2 (1937) 93-9
• Melusine Wood, JEFDSS 6:1 (1949), 8-12
• J. P. Cunningham, JEFDSS 9:3 (1962), 148-54

The history of American dance is as varied as the numerous dance forms that compose it. Dominated by competing senses of athleticism and grace, the American dance form came of age during the twentieth century, perfecting a combination of European and African roots. In colonial America dancing was popular wherever religious sanctions did not prevent freedom of expression. Primarily primitive in nature, colonial American dance reflected the juxtaposition of numerous immigrant groups and Native American tribes. Nevertheless, it was a blending of traditional western European and western African dance forms that provided the backbone of American dance in the twenty-first century. This amalgamation began at the end of the colonial era and continued slowly until the end of the nineteenth century with the dawning of the jazz era.

From the mid-eighteenth century to the latter part of the nineteenth century, American dance progressed from minuets and country-dances to cotillions and quadrilles. These dances were almost ritualized; they required grace and knowledge of the complex steps. Regional or country-dances, such as the Irish step dances, the Scotch-Irish jigs, or German reels, reflected the cosmopolitan nature of American dance. Incorporated into this category were the various African dance forms, such as the religious ring shout, funeral and processional strut dances, and seasonal dances. Thus, American dance combined old-world technique with new environmental and social trends to create a new hybrid of dance and music.

Perhaps the best example of this hybridization is the "jig," a step dance that was popular first in Europe, and then in America. This foot-stomping dance extended beyond class boundaries and, when combined with the African step dances, became the precursor to the twentieth-century American dance form, tap. This hybridization became the hallmark of American dance, combining a sort of individualism and improvisation that was distinctly American.

Incorporating this distinctly American style was the first "ballet" style dance. Using techniques similar to pantomime, this ballet was presented in 1735 by Henry Holt, a British dancing instructor who had opened a dancing school in 1734 in Charleston, South Carolina. The first classical performers in America were English, French, and Italian touring companies, which presented operas, operettas, and pantomimes. Dancing also made its way into circuses and variety shows, where the first notable American dancer, John Durang, made his debut. As a blackface comic, he combined comedy, acting, acrobatics, and rope dancing—again, a uniquely American style. Durang began his career in Philadelphia with the Old American Company, one of the earliest theatrical touring groups. His popularity paved the way for the joint debut in Philadelphia of two American ballerinas, Augusta Maywood, who danced primarily in Europe, and Mary Ann Lee, who danced the first American Giselle in Boston in 1846. However, these dancers were exceptions, as European dancers dominated the American scene in the nineteenth century.

Theatrical dancing, including ballet, pageantry, and melodrama, peaked in 1866 with the production at Niblo's Gardens in New York of The Black Crook, which became a fixture on the American stage for the remainder of the nineteenth century. Prior to this performance, William Henry Lane, whose stage name was Master Juba, was the only black singer-dancer to perform in white minstrel shows. The ingenuity of his improvised dance steps created a sense of interaction between dancer and audience, and his footwork originated the form known as tap dance.

The cakewalk, a black American social dance, became the first indigenous African American dance fad to spread to Europe. The cakewalk presumably began around 1850 on the plantations of the South, and its high-kneed strut was meant to parody the solemn decorum of the white masters as they promenaded in the formal marches that opened their balls. The white masters, apparently oblivious to the actual meaning, encouraged the development of this dance form.

Dance became more of a public affair in the mid-nineteenth century. In the early 1800s the popularity of the waltz, an import from Europe, and round dancing, including the polka, quadrille, and mazurka brought by new waves of eastern European immigrants, reflected the new public representation of dance. More public ballrooms were built, and dances became egalitarian events, in contrast to the smaller, more private parties of the preceding century, which had demanded a sort of ballroom etiquette. Dance manuals published in the late nineteenth century devoted less space to ballroom etiquette, and more information to the images detailing the actual dance technique itself.

At the turn of the century a rash of "animal" dances became popular. Dances like the Turkey Trot, the Kangaroo Hop, and the Grizzly Bear continued the trend in couple dances by incorporating gestures and steps from African animal dances. All body appendages could be used; elbows would flap, and heads bob, as the dancers hopped around the dance floor like bunnies. The Charleston, which had originated in black neighborhoods around 1910, made it to the white stage in Runnin' Wild in 1922. This dance craze represented a complete break from all European elements. With its African American dance elements, including the flying kicks, shimmying shoulders, and swaying hips, the Charleston made a star overseas of its protégé, Josephine Baker.

The turn of the century also inaugurated an entirely new form of dancing: the expressive or interpretive dance, known as modern dance. With the popularity of such dances as the cakewalk or the Charleston, intensity of expression became extremely important in the world of American dance. Perhaps the best-known proponent of interpretive dance was Isadora Duncan. Born in 1877 in San Francisco, California, Duncan tried the commercial stage but found it restrictive and uncreative. In 1903 in Berlin she delivered a speech entitled "The Dance of the

Future," in which she argued, "the dance of the future will have to become again a high religious art as it was with the Greeks. For art which is not religious is not art, is mere merchandise." When she returned to the United States, she went where no other solo dancer had dared to go; by dancing to the music of Ludwig van Beethoven, Frédéric Chopin, and Pyotr Ilich Tchaikovsky, she transformed the public arena of the stage. Her performances were poorly received by dance critics, who questioned her physical interpretation of symphonic music, as well as her simplistic approach to costumery. Duncan sponsored many young American dancers, and trained them in her expressive, "naturalistic" style of dancing. Her uninhibited approach to art set the foundation for the success of modern dance in America.

Similarly, the uninhibited dance style of Ruth St. Denis, originally a vaudeville dancer, ignited the imagination of her followers. She became very interested in the dance of eastern cultures and, inspired by an image of the goddess Isis in an advertisement for Egyptian Deities cigarettes, created her own unique form of dance. She began her career as a solo artist in 1905 with the dance "Radha," the story of the mortal maiden loved by the god Krishna. Like Duncan, she never felt she would receive the attention she craved in the United States, so she moved to Europe, where she built her reputation as an exotic dancer with a classical style. She returned to the United States, where she began to work with Edwin Meyers "Ted" Shawn, a stage dancer who later became her husband. Together they founded the Denishawn Company, which soon dominated the modern dance arena.

One of the protégés of the Denishawn Company, Martha Graham became one of the most influential figures of the first half of the twentieth century. She learned to discard the strict choreography and footwork that had restricted her desire for innovation. She formed her own company in 1925; her programs featured exotic solos, and her dances attempted to draw attention to the plight of the human condition. She worked closely with Louis Horst, a major figure on the American dance scene in the 1920s, 1930s, and 1940s, who encouraged her to work with contemporary composers rather than with eighteenth-and nineteenth-century music, as had previously been done. By 1930 Martha Graham had identified a method of breathing and relaxation she called "contraction and release," in which the movement originated in the tension of a contracted muscle and continued in the flow of energy released from the body as the muscle relaxed. This method gave Graham's dancers an angular look, one completely incongruous with the smooth dance styles of her predecessors. Before her death in 1991, she was often accused of making dance an "ugly" art form, but she ignited an interest in freedom of expression.

With the 1916 arrival in New York of Serge Diaghilev's Ballets Russes, ballet actually began to be taken seriously in the United States. However, it was not until the Russian dancer George Balanchine and the American Lincoln Kirstein formed the New York City Ballet in 1948 that American ballet became a recognized and valid entity. Initially based in New York's City Center, it moved to the New York State Theater at the Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts in 1964. Balanchine extended the range and symbolism of American ballet; by infusing traditional and classical steps with contemporary techniques and energy he created a uniquely American ballet. While the New York City Ballet attempted a return to neoclassicism, reveling in its simplicity, dancers Lucia Chase and Richard Pleasant in 1940 formed the beginnings of a company that incorporated a variety of choreographic techniques. The Ballet Theatre, which became the American Ballet Theatre in 1957, provided a stage for such works as Agnes de Mille's Fall River Legend and Antony Tudor's Romeo andJuliet, as well as for classic works of the nineteenth century such as Giselle and Swan Lake. The main focus of the American Ballet Theatre was to provide a forum for both classical and contemporary works.

Concurrently, in the post–World War II era, another group of dancers focused on choreography that emphasized idiosyncrasy and physicality, a formula that became the modern dance of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Acting independently, these were modern dance choreographers such as Martha Graham, Merce Cunningham, Alvin Ailey, Glen Tetley, and José Limón. Cunningham in particular began to use chance devices to structure the movement and program the timing of movement of the performing space, which gave the dance stage a new set of possibilities. Alvin Ailey created his own touring troupe in 1958, when the idea of a modern dance company, and specifically a black modern dance company, was practically inconceivable. At the time, Broadway theaters were not hospitable to the concept of modern dance, nor were modern dance companies stable enterprises. However, Ailey encouraged the enjoyment of dance as a vibrant form of theater, and his company's style focused entirely on physicality. His dancers seemed to slide across the stage with an emphasis on ecstasy. Ailey noted that he wanted to create a black folkloric company that would combine bawdy humor, earthy emotion, and honesty with the intense physicality of pelvic thrusts and long body-lines.

New dance forms are continually evolving, particularly in terms of self-expression, thanks in part to the groundbreaking work of Martha Graham, George Balanchine, Jerome Robbins, and their contemporaries. For example, choreographer Mark Morris attempted to challenge preconceived notions, just as did his predecessors. He is perhaps best known for his 1988 work, L'Allegro, il penseroso ed il moderato, set to the Handel score. He also continued in the tradition established by Martha Graham of combining well-known composers and musicians with choreographers, working with cellist Yo-Yo Ma and composer Lou Harrison. Modern dance seeks a social context, and even ballroom dancing, which has evolved as a sport in its own right, incorporates the dances popular in the nineteenth century, such as the waltz, foxtrot, and quickstep, with a contemporary pulse.

In the latter part of the twentieth century and at the beginning of the twenty-first century, dance acquired a sense of athleticism and was touted for its health benefits. Dancing in clubs only increased in popularity with American youth; movements are centered in pelvic rotations, swiveling hips, bobbing heads, and stomping and sliding feet. Popularized by the syncretic choreography of "boy bands" such as the Backstreet Boys and 'N Sync, popular dance was very much infused with the musical performance. The focus was as much on the music as on the choreography. Similarly, Oriental dance (commonly known as "belly dancing"), square dancing, Latin rhythms such as the merengue and samba, and such popular forms as jazz and tap, each focus on the combination of "feeling the music" and the choreography itself. Many popular films, including Dance with Me or Center Stage, also prompted an obsession with dance in modern culture. Dance in America is closely synonymous with everyday life, and is inspired by social and cultural issues.

Bibliography

Carbonneau, Suzanne. "Dance at the Close of the Century." USIA Electronic Journal 3, no. 1 (1998).

Cohen, Selma Jeanne. Dance as a Theatre Art: Source Readings in Dance History from 1581 to the Present. New York: Harper and Row, 1976.

Garafola, Lynn. Diaghilev's Ballets Russes. New York: Oxford University Press, 1989.

Mazo, Joseph. "Ailey and Company." Horizon 27, no. 6 (1984): 18–24.

Parks, Gary. "Critical Mass: Vintage Reviews: A Look at the Dance World through Seventy Years of Dance Magazine Reviews." Dance Magazine 71, no. 6 (June 1997): 14–35.

Riis, Thomas L. Just before Jazz: Black Musical Theater in New York, 1890 to 1915. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1989.

Thorpe, Edward. Black Dance. Woodstock, N.Y.: Overlook Press, 1990.

—Jennifer Harrison

A social activity that takes on a multitude of forms within sacred and everyday contexts in Middle Eastern societies.

The Middle East abounds in forms of dance and stylized movement ranging from those associated with ritualized religious ceremonies, such as the Semaʾa of the mystical Sufi Whirling Dervishes, to more spontaneous dancing, such as belly dancing, that occurs in informal everyday contexts. One of the earliest documents of Middle Eastern expressive arts is the multivolume tome written by Abu Faraj al-Isfahan in the tenth century, Kitab al-Aghrani (The book of songs), which indicates that the realm of the arts has always been highly cosmopolitan. Various courts had ethnically and religiously diverse dance troupes that regularly accompanied musicians. Their participation was considered a necessary element in creating tarab - the joy that is felt by performers and audience members during musical events.

Far from being merely a pastime, dance in the Middle East carries heavy symbolic meaning. Although some Middle Eastern communities adhere closely to interpretations of religious texts that warn against the carnal aspects of music and dance, other communities cannot conceive of celebrating life's important moments without music and its byproduct, dance. In the Middle East, one's ability to dance can signify a number of things. In some countries such as Morocco, for example, a woman's dance style is read as a text from which spectators make assumptions about her personality: If she shows little interest in dancing at a wedding, others may conclude that she is not sincere in her happiness for the union of the couple, or that she is not fun-loving. Small flourishes taken from international pop stars and included in one's own locally based repertoire speak volumes about taste and the cultural influences absorbed through media. And although male dancers in the Middle East have been able to reach a sort of professional (maʿalim) status, the same has not always been true for women. Sources such as Isfahan's indicate that women have been performers as long as there has been music and dance, but female performers have often been stigmatized. Although displaying a talent for dance among family and friends is desirable and in some cases required, dancing as a profession is often discouraged, and paid performers are not always accorded high social status.

Most mainstream communities in the Middle East attach a great deal of importance to dance as a necessary component to any significant celebration. Although traditions vary from region to region, dance may be present at engagement ceremonies, weddings, births and naming ceremonies, seasonal harvests, holidays (both national and religious), festivals, and circumcisions, not to mention the dayto-day visits among close friends and family that are common among women. Some religious scholars very deliberately delineate the boundaries between sacred and profane contexts, but patterned bodily movement may occur as well during Sufi dhikr ceremonies, visits to saints' shrines, and local religious ceremonies that may blend Islamic and pre-Islamic syncretic elements. In many instances there is an overlap between Christian, Jewish, and Muslim celebratory practices, as these communities have lived side by side for many centuries and have imparted their individual artistic expression to other faith groups. The Fez Festival of World Sacred Music is a case in point. Created after the first Gulf War (1991), the festival featured music and arts from around the world in order to underscore the common features of shared traditions. Such world music festivals are sites of great innovation and provide impetus for the cultural preservation and reinvention of traditions.

Among the better-known forms of dance in the Middle East are the hora, the debka, and Israeli dance, which blend the cultural traditions of the various ethnic groups living in Israel. These dance traditions are done in groups and reinforce familial and community bonds rather than showcase an individual dancer's skill. The debka (also, dabka), is performed on joyous occasions in Greater Syria. Dancers (traditionally, young men) join hands in an open circle and move slowly in step to drum-beats. The steps become faster at specific intervals, with intermittent bounces. The dancers are usually accompanied by a single dancer waving a cloth or a stick. A modified version may be performed by a new husband and wife at their wedding celebration. Similar styles of dance occur in Turkey as well. The debka is originally an Arab dance, but Israelis have created many versions of it that are performed at Israeli national festivals.

Emigrants from the Middle East take their dance traditions with them, and many Middle Eastern dance groups exist outside the region. The origins of the Hora can be traced back to the Balkans, but it was brought to Palestine after World War I by Baruch Agadati, an actor of Romanian origin. Many Israeli composers have written music using the rhythm of the Hora. Because the Balkans were once Ottoman territories, similar forms of dance exist in many regions of Turkey. In Turkey, high-school students practice various folk-dance forms and perform in traditional costumes on a Youth Day, which was created by Mustafa Kemal Atatürk in the early days of the Turkish Republic. Turkey's preservation of pre-Ottoman Turkish culture spawned a national interest in folkloric dance genres that still thrives today. Jews moving to Palestine during the twentieth century brought with them a variety of folk dances of national and local origin, including the dances of Yemenite Jews and Hasidim, and the hora, which became Israel's national dance. Dancing, with a strong folk emphasis, is a popular recreation on kibbutzim in Israel.

Raqs Sharqi, or belly dancing, was made famous in the Middle East and beyond primarily through Egyptian television. There are many variations of belly dancing throughout the Middle East, but all share an emphasis on rythmically moving the stomach, pelvis, and hips. The range of movement depends on the individual dancer's ability, and can be done casually among friends or in entertainment settings with elaborate costumes and acrobatic flourishes.

Bibliography

Kapchan, Deborah. Gender on the Market: Moroccan Women and the Revoicing of Tradition. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1996.

Lynch, David. "Staging the Sacred in Morocco: The Fes Festival of World Sacred Music." Master's thesis, University of Texas at Austin, 2000.

Racy, Ali Jihad. Music in the Genius of Arab Civilization, 2d edition. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1983.

Stokes, Martin. The Arabesk Debate: Music and Musicians in Modern Turkey. Oxford, U.K.: Clarendon Press, 1992.

Sugarman, Jane C. Engendering Song: Singing and Subjectivity atPrespa Albanian Weddings. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997.

Van Nieuwkerk, Karin. A Trade Like Any Other: Female Singers and Dancers in Egypt. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1995.

— MARIA F. CURTIS

Between the sixteenth and the eighteenth centuries, European dance existed widely within different social contexts and groups. Admittedly, religious dance no longer existed, save for rare local examples such as "The Dance of the Six" (El baile de los seises) in the Seville cathedral, since the Roman Catholic Church had refused to integrate such practices into its rituals. But secular dance, done as much as a ball as within the theater, underwent a deep renewal during this time, occupying a privileged place in court society. While the paintings of Pieter Bruegel the Elder suggest popular forms of dancing in the 1560s, there is no evidence of this style of dance in technical or aesthetic treatises. What has been studied in the history of Western dance have been those dances reserved for social elites, from which blossomed what became known as belle danse based on noble style.

Western dance originated first and foremost in the Renaissance of fifteenth-century Italy and subsequently was favored by the leadership of the Council of Trent (1545–1563) and the Counter-Reformation. It became associated both with music and with poetry, becoming an indispensable element within sumptuous feasts organized to lionize princely patrons, and it developed its own masters and traditions of apprenticeship. These masters not only taught the rules of their art, but also shaped acclaimed styles of choreography to which monarchs and courtiers themselves danced. The most renowned masters circulated chiefly between the great families in Mantua, Ferrara, Milan, and Florence, establishing a highly elaborated, refined, and stylized art that was a pleasure to dance and to see. These men wrote the first treatises on dance, books designed to serve both practice and theory. In the second half of the sixteenth century their work spread all over Europe, as their methods, styles, and terminology were adapted in new places, most prominently of all in France.

Dance crossed the Alps thanks to the Italian wars of Francis I after 1525 and the marriage of Henry II to Catherine de Médicis in 1533. Though the Valois had been accustomed to a more spontaneous form of dance, the court appropriated Italian practices in its own fashion. In the course of the seventeenth century, French masters established a new style of dance that made noble carriage and deportment, elegance, and ease the standard for all people of quality. Moreover, with its emphasis on suppleness and agility, dance was closely linked with fencing, horsemanship, and indeed with military training in general. It thereby became a necessary part of the education of the proper gentleman, the honnête homme, as much in Jesuit as in military academies. In a world where social success depended upon knowing how to comport oneself, the dance master was expected to teach his students appropriate attitude and gesture and thereby how to function on the highest levels of society. Under Louis XIII (ruled 1610–1643) and Louis XIV (ruled 1643–1715), it was indispensable for a man of quality to know how to dance, in order to participate in dignified fashion in the company of the king and his courtiers in the balls and the ballets.

Born at the end of the Valois reign in the 1580s, ballet de cour became central to Bourbon cultural leadership. Louis XIII used it as a seat of authority; Richelieu manipulated it as part of his new style of glorifying the monarch; and Louis XIV made it a centerpiece of his search for Europe-wide cultural prominence. Indeed, ballet de cour spread in related forms to Savoy, England, the Netherlands, Sweden, and Russia.

A transformation began in the dance when in 1670 Louis XIV withdrew from participating in it. The creation of the Académie Royale de Danse (Royal Dance Academy) in 1661 generated a movement of new thinking in both theory and practice among the French masters. Raoul-Auger Feuillet founded a system of notating dance movement, published in his Chorégraphie in 1700, that rapidly became standard practice Europe-wide for belle danse. Seventeenth-century choreographers applied the classicist outlook dominant in the court to notions of dancing with symmetry, equilibrium, clarity, and measure. Moreover, the academy led to a professional order of dance, in fact the first institutionalized ballet troupe, in the Académie Royale de Musique (Royal Music Academy), which was founded in 1669. The original restriction to men was dropped with the addition of women in 1681. During the second half of the seventeenth century, dance was integrated into the performance of all operatic genres, as well as some dramatic ones, and the Académie Royale de Musique, also called the Opéra (with the protection of Louis XIV and the dauphin and under the direction of Jean-Baptiste Lully), became the most prestigious hall of entertainment in Paris.

French theatrical dance proceeded to spread all over Europe in the early eighteenth century as artists started dance companies and schools. Dance styles—heroic or serious, half-serious (demicaractère), comic or grotesque—and performers became specialized, just as standards of virtuosity and expressiveness expanded for both male and female dancers. In England in the 1710s there arose a new kind of theatrical dance called ballet d'action, or ballet pantomime, that would tell a story without words or singing. Such shows became diffused throughout the main theaters in Germany, Austria, Italy, Russia, and France during the second half of the eighteenth century. Theatrical dance raised vigorous theoretical debates over claims that it rendered mimesis as an art of imitation in Aristotelian terms, as an interpretation of the totality of human experience. In the 1760s ballet began to gain independence from opera. In London, Paris, and Vienna a ballet pantomime was given on its own after an opera, though usually it was on a related theme. In Paris the practice first occurred at the highly innovative Opéra Comique in the 1760s and then at the Opéra in the 1780s. Owing to the mingling of pantomime and dance in this period, performers were required to be both mimes and dancers.

From the Renaissance to the Enlightenment, dance was not simply a distraction. Created by masters, who were almost always musicians as well as dancers, it was closely linked to the musical idioms for which it was designed—dance genres such as the pavane, galliard, branle, courante, minuet, sara-band, chaconne, rigadoon, or contredanse. Musicologists have in fact discovered that these idioms influenced many aspects of what went on in operatic and instrumental music of the eighteenth century. That is why when spectators entered the Opéra, they brought with them deep knowledge of complex interpretive aspects of dance and music, all of which was the fruit of an ancient European cultural tradition.

Bibliography

Cohen, Selma Jeanne, ed. International Encyclopedia of Dance. 6 vols. New York, 1998.

Hilton, Wendy. Dance of Court and Theater: The French Noble Style, 1690–1725. Edited by Caroline Gaynor. Princeton, 1981.

Lancelot, Francine. La belle danse: catalogue raisonné fait en l'an 1995. Paris, 1996.

Negri, Cesare. Le gratie d'amore. Milan, 1602; reprint, New York, 1969.

Rameau, Pierre. Le maître à danser, suivi d'un Abrégé de la nouvelle méthode. Paris, 1725. Reprint, New York, 1967. Translated by Cyril W. Beaumont as The Dancing Master. London, 1931. Reprint, Brooklyn, N.Y., 1970.

Tomlinson, Kellom. The Art of Dancing. London, 1735. Reprint, Farnborough, U.K., 1970.

—NATHALIE LECOMTE

A cynical view of the world by Ambrose Bierce

v.i.

To leap about to the sound of tittering music, preferably with arms about your neighbor's wife or daughter. There are many kinds of dances, but all those requiring the participation of the two sexes have two characteristics in common: they are conspicuously innocent, and warmly loved by the vicious.

---

IN BRIEF: To move the body in time to music. Also: a particular set of movements done in time to music.

Men traditionally ask women to dance.

This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)

Dansk (Danish)
v. intr. - danse
v. tr. - danse, ride ranke med
n. - dans, bal, dansemusik, dansen

idioms:

• dance attendance on    stå på pinde for
• dance attendance upon    stå på pinde på grund af
• dance to someone's tune    danse efter en eller andens fløjte

Nederlands (Dutch)
dansen, dartelen, trappelen, tintelen, dans, bal/dansavond, danskunst iemand het leven zuur maken

Français (French)
v. intr. - danser, (fig) entrer/sortir joyeusement, gambader, sautiller
v. tr. - danser, être aux petits soins pour qn
n. - bal, soirée dansante, sauterie

idioms:

• dance attendance on    être aux petits soins pour
• dance to someone's tune    se plier aux exigences de qn

Deutsch (German)
n. - Tanz, Tanzfest
v. - tanzen, schaukeln

idioms:

• dance attendance on    von vorn und hinten bedienen
• dance to someone's tune    nach jmds. Pfeife tanzen

Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - χορός, όρχηση, χοροεσπερίδα, πάρτι
v. - χορεύω, (καθομ.) πεθαίνω στην κρεμάλα

idioms:

• dance attendance on    έχω στα όπα-όπα, στέκω κερί αναμμένο σε
• dance attendance upon    έχω στα όπα-όπα, στέκω κερί αναμμένο σε
• dance to someone's tune    υπακούω στα κελεύσματα κάποιου

Italiano (Italian)
danzare, pestare i piedi, ballo, danza

idioms:

• dance attendance on    stare alle costole di
• dance to someone's tune    piegarsi ai desideri di
• lead someone a merry dance    dare del filo da torcere a

Português (Portuguese)
n. - dança (f)
v. - dançar

idioms:

• dance attendance on    servir solicitamente, fazer a corte
• dance to someone's tune    obedecer a alguém
• lead someone a merry dance    fazer alguém entrar numa roda viva

Русский (Russian)
танцевать, танцы, танец

idioms:

• dance attendance on    ходить на задних лапках перед кем-либо
• dance to someone's tune    плясать под чью-либо дудку
• lead someone a merry dance    водить кого-либо за нос

Español (Spanish)
v. intr. - bailar, danzar, saltar
v. tr. - bailar, danzar
n. - baile, velada de baile, danza

idioms:

• dance attendance on    estar pendiente de, atender los mínimos deseos de
• dance to someone's tune    bailar al son que tocan

Svenska (Swedish)
n. - dans
v. - dansa

中文（简体）(Chinese (Simplified))
跳舞, 舞蹈, 飘扬, 摇晃, 手舞足蹈, 跳, 上下摇晃, 使跳舞, 逗弄, 舞会

idioms:

• dance attendance on    奉承某人
• dance attendance upon    奉承
• dance to someone's tune    亦步亦趋

中文（繁體）(Chinese (Traditional))
v. intr. - 跳舞, 舞蹈, 飄揚, 搖晃, 手舞足蹈
v. tr. - 跳, 上下搖晃, 使跳舞, 逗弄
n. - 跳舞, 舞會, 舞蹈

idioms:

• dance attendance on    奉承某人
• dance attendance upon    奉承
• dance to someone's tune    亦步亦趨

한국어 (Korean)
v. intr. - 춤을 추다, 돌아다니다, 고동치다
v. tr. - 추다, 달래다, (상태에) 도달하게 하다
n. - 춤, 무도회, 발레

idioms:

• dance attendance on    ~의 비위를 맞추다

日本語 (Japanese)
n. - 踊り, ダンス, ダンスパーティー, ダンス音楽
v. - 踊る, 踊らせる, あやす, 揺れ動く, 軽やかに動く, 跳び回る

idioms:

• dance attendance on    機嫌をとる
• dance attendance upon    人にくっついて機嫌を取る, わざと待たされる
• dance to someone's tune    態度をがらりと変える

العربيه (Arabic)
‏(الاسم) الرقص, قطعه موسيقيه راقصه (فعل) يرقص, يؤدي رقصه‏

עברית (Hebrew)
v. intr. - ‮רקד, פיזז‬
v. tr. - ‮הרקיד‬
n. - ‮ריקוד, נשף ריקודים, נשף מחולות, לחן לריקוד‬

If you are unable to view some languages clearly, click here.

To select your translation preferences click here.

dance	dance dance revolution
dance dance	dance dance revolution xbox