HISTORY OF DANCE

PREHISTORIC DANCE

ANCIENT CIVILIZATION

ANCIENT EGYPT

ANCIENT CRETE

ANCIENT GREECE

ANCIENT ROME

Dance Greek word damson

means to stretch or to
drag.
 The music of early man came
from stamping of feet, clapping
Shamans spearheads who are
of hands, snapping of fingers,
said to posses magical powers
or any sound that can
and who acted as physicians,
produce rhythm.
religious leaders and lead
Dancing is an art that needs
dancers, kept tribes healthy,
no instrument because the
prosperous and safe. They
dancers body is the
performed and imparted
instrument. It is an art of
dances and rituals to the
precise expression of ones
people to combat and win over
emotion through graceful
environmental forces and
movement, performed with
remain in good graces with
musical accompaniment.
the gods and the spirits.
Dance is considered the mirror
of the society because it
Dance was the ancient
respond to historical and
Egyptians primary way of
religious events as well as
expressing their religious
social and political
services and teaching about
statements.
their ancient myths.
The dancers themselves were
Prehistoric dance was very
often groups, but only of one
basic as it involved everyday
gender at a time, with little to
movements. It served as an
no evidence of males and
important means of
females dancing together. The
communication and revolved
steps were choreographed to not
around life events that were
echo one and another, but
meaningful to individuals
often, as in more recent dance
and tribes: birth, puberty,
movements, each person has
courtship, marriage and
their own gestures and
death.
positions to make on their own,
but each is working together in
 very specifically organized
ways.
With a culture so rich and
heavily involved in religion, it
is easy to say that the point of
the dances were often probably
meant to honor the gods, or
were designed with a certain
purpose; but with the little that
we know past the pictures, it is
hard to figure out what the
movements were, not to
mention what the movements
meant.
While we may not know the
particular meaning of every
step or movement made by a
dancer during any given
dance they performed, we
understand that they were
almost entirely religious in
nature, and meant to honor,
celebrate, mourn, or pacify.
As such, most of
the rituals were performed in
the name of one or many of
their gods, who they believed
helped them frequently during
the passage of a day, not to
mention the passage of time.
During these processions, it
was common for dancers to
skip or leap into the air, which
was a way of honoring and
welcoming the
goddess Hathor, who was
believed to meet the dead at
the entrance to the
underworld. By properly
honoring Hathor, it assured
them that the newly deceased
would reach his or her
destination well at the hands
of the goddess.
During these processions, it
was common for dancers to
skip or leap into the air, which
was a way of honoring and
welcoming the
goddess Hathor, who was
believed to meet the dead at
the entrance to the
underworld. By properly
honoring Hathor, it assured
them that the newly deceased
would reach his or her
destination well at the hands
of the goddess.
The Cretan civilization, which
existed from 3000 to 1400 BC,
was a cultural link in the
 ancient world between
Egyptians and Greeks. Cretans
were sophisticated and rich in
arts and culture. Like
Egyptians, their dances
intertwined religious
ceremonies and fertility rites,
myths and symbols. Dance
themes included military
training, healing, religious
rituals and entertainment.
According to Greek mythology,
It is believed that the most
ancient dances were born in
Crete and taught by Rea, the
mother of Zeus.
Dances in ancient Greece were
extremely organized and
structured. A total of 95,140
combined body movements
were calculated to have
existed in these dances. They
maximized these movements:
incorporated ritualistic,
symbolic or representative
gestures and were
accompanied by music, both
vocal and instrumental. The
dancers were also required to
sing during a performance.
The strong dancing tradition
prevalent among the Greeks
was likely inherited from Crete
which was conquered by Greece
around 1500 BC but Greece
was very effective in
synthesizing the best from
surrounding cultures, its poets
and artists borrowed
significantly from
surrounding Pyria and Thrace
and its scholars were being
initiated into the Egyptian
mysteries by temple priests long
before Alexander the Great
conquered Egypt. Learning to
dance was considered a
necessary part of and
education which favored
learning an appreciation of
beauty.
Rome as a conquering
imperial power represented
nearly the whole world of its
day, and its dances
accordingly were most
numerous. Amongst the
illustrations already given we
have many that were preserved
in Rome. In the beginning of
its existence as a power only
religious dances were
practiced, and many of these
were of Etruscan origin, such
as the Lupercalia, and the
Ambarvalia. In the former the
dancers were semi-nude, and
more rurally ritual; the latter
was a serious dancing
procession through fields and
villages. That the Etruscan,
Sabellian, Oscan, Samnite,
and other national dances of
the country had some
influence on the art in Rome is
highly probable, but the
paucity of early Roman
examples renders the evidence
difficult.

HISTORIC DEVELOPMENT
OF DANCE