FIRST PART A SHORT HISTORY OF DANCE FROM ANTIQUITY TO THE BEGINNING OF THE 19TH CENTURY CHAPTER 1 DANCE IN THE ANCIENT WORLD 1.1 The functions of dance in primitive societies Although practised by all peoples since the earliest civilizations, dance could not be documented for millennia, except by figurative or literary evidence. The absence of a precise written tradition and instruments capable of recording movement did not allow historians of this artistic form to have an archive of documents, comparable to that of the other arts, to refer to. Until the beginning of the last century, the only documents to reconstruct the history of dance did not have kinetic characteristics: even when integrated with each other, still lack the specific element of dance, the visual perception of the action as it unfolds. Yet dance is perhaps the oldest of the arts. The ethnomusicologist Curt Sachs called it the ‘mother of the arts’, because 'before man entrusted his emotions to stone, to sound, he used his body to organize space and pace time”. In Western culture, dance has been documented since prehistoric times. Even before the birth of societies, prehistoric men expressed their playful and warrior instincts, the discovery of the laws of life, with bodily movement, making their body an instrument for celebrating the cosmos. Dance was probably born as a spontaneous reaction of the individual to experiences of everyday life, such as the killing of prey or the death of a member of the family clan. The original dance was probably intended as a magical religious rite, during which men had the possibility of communicating with unknown forces that went beyond their ability to control and understand. Arms raised towards the sky in supplication to invoke the rain or make the storm stop, they have remained a gesture typical of the propitiatory dance of many ethnic communities, but they have also become part of artistic dance, as can be seen in ballet and in many contemporary choreographies 1.1.1 The ritual function Among the first functions of choral dance in human history, the social and ritual one linked to human activities, war, death, rites of passage such as birth, puberty or marriage takes on a prominent role. Through the rhythmic movements of the body, man found the means to express everything that moved and honored him. Like other arts, dance has expressed over the centuries the moral and religious values and needs of the communities that have practiced it, rising to a code of behavior and an element of social distinction, or a ritual linked to folklore and tradition, spokesperson for socially recognized principles. The Jewish people made dance a prayer marked by rhythmic actions: in the Bible it is understood as a manifestation of spiritual joy, as well as a liturgical expression to celebrate a victory obtained with divine intervention. After crossing the Red Sea, Miriam, Aaron's sister, expresses her joy and thanks God by "forming dance choirs" with the other women, playing the kettledrums and singing. In the Torah, the teaching of the Jewish religious tradition, dance is considered a form of prayer, used to maintain a common tradition when words could not be used. The circular dance of the dervishes, inspired by cosmic symbolism, is still practiced in Turkey. The dervishes belong to the Muslim brotherhood of the Sufis, who propose mystical union with God through asceticism and dance. The whirling rotations of the dervish dancers, to the repetitive sound of flutes and drums, symbolize the movements of the planets around the sun. The Semazen, the one who leads the dance, represents the point of contact between divine and earthly. The mystics wear a large white tunic, down to their feet, which they uncover only shortly before the ritual, when they free themselves from a black surcoat, symbol of the dark world in which the soul is prisoner and which is freed only with meditation and dance. 1.1.2 The social function Since the dawn of civilization, dance, sometimes accompanied by forms of sound expression, has represented one of the first manifestations of social life, a way for the single individual to enter into harmony with the other members of the group. Within anthropological studies, dance occupies a central position, as it constitutes a fundamental element for understanding the heritage of values that characterizes a people. Rhythm, in fact, is the result of a series of social and ethnic factors and reflects the characteristics of those who produce it through the action of the body. Even peoples who have not produced a literary heritage, nor a written language, are instead invariably custodians of a repertoire of dances with which to affirm their identity. In all civilisations, more or less advanced, traces of permanent dance habits have always been found. They danced to invoke rain or to obtain a healing, to thank the deities for an abundant harvest, to propitiate hunting, fishing or a war venture, rites of passage such as puberty, weddings, funerals were celebrated by dancing. The personal sphere and the collective sphere coincided, since all the manifestations of individual life took place within the community. 1.1.3 The therapeutic function In primitive communities dance had a much broader meaning than what is attributed to it in our society: it was a ritual that had the aim of "responding" to risk situations, to critical moments of individual and social life that could derive from natural phenomena (astronomical phases, the alternation of the seasons and the fertility of the earth, natural disasters), or from events of human existence (birth, death, illness, love, war, hunting). Dance, in the presence of the group, had the function of channeling conflicts, resolving them and somehow "sublimating" them, dancing to cure and heal, always in the presence of the group. In many societies, until not long ago - even in ours if we think of traditions such as the taranta of South Italy - it was also used to heal: the community, participating in the therapeutic process through dance, contributed to transforming the potential enemy into an ally, to leading the sick towards recovery. 1.2 The musiké techné in Greece In ancient Greece, dances accompanied religious ceremonies and theatrical performances and could be comic or warlike depending on the rhythm, music, figures and movements. In Greek mythology Terpsichore, one of the nine muses daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne, was the protector of dance. Her name, in fact, comes from the Greek terpèo (“I like”) and choròs (“dance”). She was usually represented sitting, while she played a lyre, accompanying a group of dancers with her music. The different orchestral manifestations of Greek dance are grouped according to a fundamental distinction, as reported by Friedrich Nietzsche in his work The Birth of Tragedy : the Apollonian dance or of ethos and the Dionysian dance or of pathos. The former, with ethical and ritual content, was performed to the musical accompaniment of the lyre and included religious, warrior and social dances such as convivial and funeral ceremonies. The second, with mainly satirical and orgiastic content, expressed emotions bordering on tension, such as obsession, panic, erotic desire, and was characterized by rapid, whirling movements. Ecstatic dances were part of the rites in honor of Bacchus or Dionysius, god of the harvest and spring rebirth. Some iconographic evidence shows us the Bacchae (mostly women participated in the rites in honor of the god, as can be seen from Euripides' tragedy The Bacchae ) with their clothes in disarray, their heads and arms thrown back, their hair dishevelled, their hands holding rattles. Wine, dance and singing produced in the Bacchae a state of divine "enthusiasm" with which they came into contact with the god. Greek theatrical dance was born from the fusion of Apollonian and Dionysian elements. For the Greeks, dance was orchèsis, hence the orchestral name given to the semicircular space of the theatre in front of the stage where the chorus acted and, hence, the other choreographic term to indicate, still in a different form, dance, because it was precisely the chorus that performed the stasms of tragedy by singing and dancing. Probably, the continuous migratory flows towards Greece imported dances from other regions. Greek culture created a synthesis of what other civilizations had achieved up to then. From African dances the Greeks drew the characteristics of festivity and joy, from Asian ones the ethical-religious approach with solemn tones. The Greeks welcomed all these elements and built a dance in line with the ideal of harmony, understood as balance of spirit and body. As regards the line of the dance, it seems that the circle, open, closed, or in the shape of a snake, prevailed, the same shapes that would be found in the Middle Ages. Men danced separately from women and rarely formed couples. In theatrical performances the dancers, like all actors, were men. For Greek culture, dance constituted a sort of lyrical unity: musiké techné was the combination of music, poetry and dance. Tragedy was a theatrical form that merged poetry, music and dance, making it the metaphysical means to get closer to the divine dimension and try to understand, through the evocative force of sounds, the mystery of existence. In Greek tragedy the dramatic effect was enhanced by the presence of music, which amplified the stage situation and the psychological condition of the character, infusing the entire representation with a profound emotional charge. The use of songs and instruments was determined by the different scenic needs: the acting moments, in which the action took place, alternated with lyrical moments, in which a space-time stasis was created to allow the choir or the protagonist to express feelings, torments and reflections. Something similar is found in eighteenth-nineteenth century melodrama, in which the recitative fino (with the harpsichord) or accompanied by the orchestra alternates with arias in which the character gives free rein to his emotions. 1.3 The Saltica fabula in Rome The attitude of the Romans towards the art of Terpsichore was very different. The rationalism that dominated Roman culture was intrinsically antithetical to the spiritualism of ecstatic dances. Rather than dancing, the Romans preferred to watch dancers perform during banquets, parties and shows. In the archaic period, war dances were practiced such as the Bellicrepa, established according to legend by Romulus as a preparatory exercise for war (Bellicrepa derives from bellum-crepitare i.e. "shout mixed with the clang of weapons"). Also, in the most ancient phase of Roman civilization, pantomime spread, called Fabula Saltica as it derived from another archaic dance, the Saltatio , of a rural type (from saltus, woody place, a ritual linked to the growth of vegetation). In the second century BC. C., when Greek choreutics was imported into the City and some forms of dance acquired importance both in private and public life, dance began to be considered an educational discipline and the habit spread, in patrician families, of starting their children to study the new and refined "art of moving" which gave distinction and elegance to those who practiced it. But, although the habit of dancing had stabilized over time, even against the theories of detractors who saw in it the signs and dangers of decadence, Rome did not produce original dance forms. Detail of the pictorial frieze of the so-called Tomb of the Dancers of Ruvo, 5th century B.C. – Naples, National Archaeological Museum
