Ancient Dance References - Essay Example

Ancient Dance References Dance is a pastime and a ritual that, while historical, has very little traceable history. There is plenty of evidence to show that it has existed for many millennia, perhaps even since the dawn of mankind, but there are great gaps between the dance that we know now and the dance that existed back then. Dance, being a physical activity, is unable to leave behind concrete proof of its presence. As such, it is only a guess that dance has been around since the beginning of human beings.

We are able to rely on the few bits of historical evidence to accompany this assumption, even though it still remains to be just an assumption. Likewise, the questions of where dance originated from, why it was started, and how it was originally practiced are only able to be answered with educated guesses. Descriptions of ancient dances are few and far between, but they do exist. This allows us a glimpse into the past of dancing. One of the first greatest descriptions of dance comes from India and was written by Bharata Muni, a man who lived approximately between 500 BC and 200 BC.

The textbook that he wrote, which was called the Natya Shastra, outlined many things in regard to theatre and music, but the majority of the book was based on dance. Bharata wrote in great detail about a variety of dances, focusing a lot of pages to every movement in each of the dances. He also divulged into descriptions of the social contexts that these dances would be used in. This book is considered to be the first detailed account of dance. Similarly, a book was written in the same time era and location, which was called the Mahavamsa (The Great Chronicle of early Sri Lanka society).

The subject of this book was similar to that of the Natya Shastra in the sense that it detailed some of the social contexts that dance was used in. In Sri Lanka society, dance was regarded as something related to royalty. The book discusses how the king would hold dances that were attended by men and gods alike. Though only bits and pieces of this book remain to this day, enough survived to understand the importance of dance in the Sri Lanka society. What is interesting about this is that in centuries prior to our own, dance was solely enjoyed by those of a higher class.

As time went on, however, it became more accessible to people of all classes, even though middle and higher classes often engage in it more than others. Greece, while having its own record of ancient dancing, revealed to have taken dancing to an even more sophisticated level than the cultures previously mentioned. Aristotle, in his famous book Poetics, speaks of the delicate characteristics of the dancers that he observed; he does not go into detail about the dances themselves, but focuses mainly on those performing the intriguing dances.

Homer, in the Iliad, speaks of dance on numerous occasions throughout his poems. Despite the fact that Homer talks about dance in the form of poems, they way he viewed the dancing was similar to that of how Aristotle viewed dancing. Instead of focusing on dancing as the art form, the person doing the dancing was acknowledged as being more important. After all, without the people there would be no dancing. The Bible, which is believed to be amongst the first books ever written, contains references to dancing in its earliest chapters, such as in the book of Exodus.

The book of Ecclesiastes also contains references to dancing. Like many of the texts aforementioned in the article, the biblical references do not get into detail about the dancing, but merely mention it in passing. However, it was made clear through the verses provided that dancing was an important part of society and its greatest uses were for that of celebration and worship. Even though the information about the history of dancing is very little, there is enough to understand how much dancing has evolved over the years.

While there are some ancient dances that still exist in our modern day, such as those that can be traced for many millennia throughout Africa, there are still many that are being unaccounted for. Books have been found in India and Greece that detail some of the dancing, and Egypt has pictographs that were found in caves that display people dancing, but there are still many holes that have yet to be filled in. All the same, it can be guaranteed that dance will only continue to evolve as it has been since it first began.