Many European folk dances are characterized by a strong emphasis on pattern and formation. The dancers frequently move in an ordered relation to one another, and the steps follow clearly delineated floor patterns on the ground. The circle is the simplest pattern, but the chain, the procession, and the longways dance are also common. (Some of the more complicated patterns are probably due to the influence of the court dances, which systematized and polished the more robust peasant forms.) Although there are numerous exceptions to the rule, the emphasis in many of those dances is on the footwork, rather than on large or vigorous movements of the body. Social dance
When the early European folk dances—particularly the courtship forms—were incorporated into court dances, they lost many of their boisterous and pantomimic elements. The man no longer thrust forward to embrace the woman or lifted her vigorously into the air, but simply knelt and took her hand. The woman’s earlier violent resistance dwindled into a coquettish turn of the head, and energetic strides and runs gave way to simple gliding steps, often forming intricate patterns that were punctuated with small poses, bows, and curtsies.
Peasant round dance from the Book of Hours of Charles d'Angoulême, late 15th century; in the Bibliothèque Nationale de France.Courtesy of the Bibliothèque Nationale, Paris
The social, as opposed to the theatrical, forms that these early court dances inspired gradually became more elaborate and more lively, with small lifts, jumps, and turns being included, as in the galliard and lavolta. Gradually, too, the emphasis began to switch from the tight group formations of many earlier dances to the individual couple. By the end of the 18th century, in dances such as the waltz and, subsequently, the polka, people simply danced in pairs, with group formations reserved for public display. At the same time these dances came to be danced by all classes of people. Steps were simplified, and dancers no longer needed special instruction to perform them.
Torch dance from the Golf Book, attributed to Simon Bening, c. 1500; in the British Museum. Courtesy of the trustees of the British Museum
In the 20th century, ballroom dances became very popular, with new dances, such as the tango and fox-trot, and new variations gradually added to the repertoire. Like the waltz and polka, ballroom dances placed importance on nimble leg- and footwork, with almost no hip movement and the torso only slightly swaying to the rhythm of the dance. The advent of jazz, however, led to other forms of social dance as Western music fell under the influence of the descendants of African slaves in America. During the jazz era of the 1920s, dances like the Charleston and the Black Bottom not only showed the syncopated rhythms, bent knees, crouched torsos, and hip and pelvic movements of African dance but also broke through the dominance of the couple form. People might still dance opposite each other in pairs, but they no longer held each other or danced in unison, and it was perfectly permissible for the dancer to dance singly. As a consequence, dancers no longer followed a set pattern of steps but invented their own within the general style.
Charleston from the cover of Life, designed by John Held, Jr., 1926.Culver Pictures
A dancer without a partner was free to choose the distance and direction in which to travel. Much more vigorous movements of the torso, legs, and arms were possible, as the dancer did not have to worry about getting in his partner’s way. The dancer might jump, kick his legs, stretch his arms out to the side or above the head or swing them through the air and might crouch, extend his body, or twist with complete freedom. The lindy and rock and roll brought back contact between the dancers, but it was of a very acrobatic and individualistic kind. The influence of African dance could still be seen in disco and other popular forms, particularly in the characteristic swaying of the hips and the jerky, percussive movements of the torso marking the rhythms of the music.
Citation Information
Article Title: Dance
Website Name: Encyclopaedia Britannica
Publisher: Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc.
Date Published: 04 April 2019
URL: https://www.britannica.com/art/dance
Access Date: August 15, 2019
Additional Reading General works
Anatole Chujoy and P.W. Manchester (comps. and eds.), The Dance Encyclopedia, rev. and enl. ed. (1967), a standard reference source with articles about all forms of dance, containing almost 300 photographs; G.B.L. Wilson, A Dictionary of Ballet, 3rd ed. (1974), a comprehensive reference source; and Curt Sachs, World History of the Dance (1937, reprinted 1965; originally published in German, 1933), a classic study of the dance in all forms, with special focus on origins, although some of Sachs’s arguments have been challenged by more recent anthropological studies. Louis Horst, Pre-Classic Dance Forms (1937, reprinted 1968), a study of early dances; Richard Kraus and Sarah Alberti Chapman, History of the Dance in Art and Education, 2nd ed. (1981); and Walter Sorell, Dance in Its Time (1981), analyze the subject within a wide cultural and social context. Roger Copeland and Marshall Cohen (eds.), What Is Dance?: Readings in Theory and Criticism (1983), is a collection of essays on the nature of dance and its different styles and forms. Physiological aspects of dance and the mechanics of human movements are discussed in Kenneth Laws, The Physics of Dance (1984). Choreography
Contemporary works on choreography include Frederick Rand Rogers (ed.), Dance, a Basic Educational Technique: A Functional Approach to the Use of Rhythmics & Dance as Prime Methods of Body Development & Control, and Transformation of Moral & Social Behavior (1941, reprinted 1980); Peggy Van Praagh and Peter Brinson, The Choreographic Art: An Outline of Its Principles and Craft (1963); La Meri (Russell Meriwether Hughes), Dance Composition: The Basic Elements (1965); and Doris Humphrey, The Art of Making Dances (1959, reprinted 1981). Reflections on the creative process involved in some of the choreographer’s major dance works can be found in Mary Wigman, The Language of Dance (1966; originally published in German, 1963). Dance notation
One of the first inventors of dance notation, Raoul-Auger Feuillet, showed the floor pattern of dances in his work Orchesography (1706, reprinted 1971; originally published in French, 1700). Other early works on the subject include Arthur Saint-Léon, La Sténochorégraphie: Ou, art d’écrire promptement la danse (1852); and V.I. Stepanov, Alphabet of Movements of the Human Body: A Study in Recording the Movements of the Human Body by Means of Musical Signs (1958, reissued 1969; originally published in French, 1892). Modern works include Rudolf Benesh and Joan Benesh, An Introduction to Benesh Movement-Notation: Dance, rev. and extended ed. (1969); Noa Eshkol and Abraham Wachmann, Movement Notation (1958), supplemented with Movement Notation Survey 1973: Eshkol-Wachmann Movement Notation (1973); and Noa Eshkol, Michal Shoshani, and Mooky Dagan, Movement Notations: A Comparative Study of Labanotation (Kinetography Laban) and Eshkol-Wachmann Movement Notation (1979). Current studies of dance notation are found in the periodicals Ballet News (monthly); and Dance Notation Journal (semiannual). Theatrical aspects of dancing