The home journal. (Winchester, Tenn.) 1858-188?, 1873-05-08
The Dance.

The Dance.
Degraded as is the modern ballet, we
must not forget that the ballet properly
so called is the parent of all represen-
tative art. Before man wrote and
painted signs, he danced. Before music
and singing and the plastic arts there
were pantOmimic dances ; among almost
all the earliest nations dancing of some
kind entered into the rites and cere-
monies Of religion, nay, entered large
ly into social and political life, for there
were dances of war; and Of triumph,
and of pleasure.
The Jewish records ARE full OF allu.
sions to the dance-David dancing be-
fore the ark, Jephthahs md Herodias's
daughters dancing i'll joy and festivity.
Moses and Miriam dancing to songs of
triumph and the Greek chorus itself
in the Oldest times was nothing but the
assemblage in the public place OF the
whole population of the city for the
purpose of singing songs and dancing
dances of Thanksgiving to the gods.
But as to the Greeks we owe the
origin of the drama Offspring of the
pantomimic dance, 30 to them was due
probably the highest conception and
development of the art of dancing. In
combination with the science of gym
nastics or the culture of the body they
appear to have raised the dance into
system of expression capable of render
ing all the different passions The IA
nous dance of the Eumenides or Flu
ries, is said to have communicated such
terror to the spectators that the effect
could scarcely have been greater had
the Furies themselves taken possession
of the stage.
When we learn further than the at
titudes of the public dancers inspired
the greatest Greek sculptors, who
studied them for their perfect deiinea-
ton of passion, and when we look at
the works of Phidias, we begin to real
i2e the extent of difference between
those dances which the Greeks witness
ed those inelegant capers which we are
accustomed to applaud
The Spartans had II law compelling
all parents to exercise they children in
dancing from the age of fSe. The lit
tie creatures we're led by grown men
into the public place, and there trained
for the armed dance.
The Pyrrhic dance, expressive of over
taking and overcoming an enemy, per-
formed by the young men in four parts,
must have been kind of exciting bal
let or dramatic dance.
Aristotle places dancing and poetr,
in the same rank, and says in his Poet
les that there were dancers who, b,
rhythm applied to gesture, expressed
manners, passions, and actions. Th
Greeks had fine poets, and therefore w
cannot say, $50 much the worse 70
poetry !" but we cannot help seeini
how the art of dancing has fallen iron
its high estate, and become vulgar an,
tasteless exhibition of mere muscula
dexterity, actually lower down in th
scale of art than even the war-dance o
the Oiibbeways.
Greek dancing was more than mer
feat of agility. The fire that commu
nicated itself to the spectators cam
from those who were themselves touch
ed with enthusiasm, unlike the humai
marionette, the ballet-dolls wires o
to-day.
But, for good or for evil, the passion
for the dance can never die ; it is a rea
instinct irrepressible and universal
We see in all children, and in animals
and among the rudest tribes, the i'm
pulse to express various emotions by
rhythmic movement. Children Otter
dance with rage as with delight.
As we grow older, and the eye be
comes cultivated and the blood sluggish
we prefer to looking on, to dancing our
selves. And in the maturer periods o.
the world among civilized nations
dancing as a studied art, is chiefly lef
to professional and trained dancers
Yet how often when a rhythmic tune
played do grown people beat the foe
or nod the head in time with it A Ii
tie more, and they would gesticulate-
little more, and they would dance.
The singular power which rhythm
motion has over the human mind, al
its contagious property, may be motto,
in the curious dancing epidemics of Il
middle ages (which seemed to end in
kind Of possession and again in Il
coarse rites of one or two modern r
r ligious sects.