Also, consider that you would know there is something definitely abnormal about a man who could bend his arm at a point midway between his wrist and elbow, because a normally constructed body would not allow such a movement without pain and injury. Thus, in a dance, to portray life on earth as a painful, crushing burden, one would devise unnatural, contorted movements for the dancer. This type of movement, however, would be absent from a dance which expressed the joy of living. The third alternative, freedom vs. restriction in movement, bears the most abstract, but very significant, relation to sense of life. The range of a man's activities in his career are related to his past accomplishments or lack of them.
Freedom also implies that the universe is essentially benevolent and open to man's actions.
Since the dance conveys values by means of physical movements, the course of a man's life, the nature of his mental processes, and his basic view of the world are all conveyed by the freedom or restriction of the dancer's movements. Let us see what choices within each of the three alternatives mean in two specific cases. In classical ballet, body control and natural, graceful movements are the standard, and the benevolent sense of life which they project are echoed in the dramatic and sparkling music written to accompany this dance form. The body postures are those of a practiced, studied sloppiness, the movements are convulsive and spastic, and the dancers' feet are firmly cemented to one spot. This contrast underscores the effect of ideas, and the sense of life they generate, on the dance.