“THE DANCE OF LIFE”

Gisborne Times, Volume LXIII, Issue 10066, 3 August 1925, Page 3

“THE DANCE OF LIFE”

ANALYSIS OF NOTED PSYCHOLOGIST. Mr Havelock Ellis, tlio well-known writer on eugenics and ori the. psy chology of sex, in his most recent work,. “The Dance of Life” claims that the dance lies at the beginning of art, and that it is an art which has been intimately mixed with all the finest springs of life. Even if w& •are not ourselves dancers, we still feel ourselves in the dancer who is manifesting and expressing the latest impulse of our own being. The, author classifies dancing and •building as the two primary arts. Dancing stands at the source of all the arts that express themselves _ in the human person. The art of building, or architecture, is the beginning of all the arts that he outside the person; and in the end they unite. Music, acting, poetry proceed in- ono stream, sculpture, painting, all tlio arts of design, in the other. There is no primary art outside these two arts, for their origin is far earlier than man himself, .and dancing came first. That is one reason, why dancing, however it may be scorned by passing fashions, lias an eternal, attraction, even for those one might suoDOse farthest from its influence. The joyous beat of tlie feet of children, the cosmic play of philosophers’ thoughts, rise and fall according to the same law of rhythm. If. we are indifferent to the art of dancing, we, have failed to understand not merely the supreme manifestations of physical life, but also the supreme symbol of spiritual life. The significance of dancing, in the wide sense, lies in the fact that it is an intimate concrete appeal of that general rhythm which marks not only life, but the universe. The stars have their etlierial dancen. The waves of the sea at regular intervals accentuate this seemingly monotonous rhythm for several beats, so that the waves are'really dan'eing the measure of a time. . “In faultless rhythm the ocean rolls.”

PRIMITIVE EXPRESSION OF RELIGION.

There are still more people in tlic world who have only religions dances, and there is reason to believe, that every dance was of religions origin. To dance was at once to worship, and to pray. With us there are Divine services for all the great fundamental •acts of life—for birth, for marriage, for death, as well as for catastrophes, such as war or drought. Our forefathers, instead of praying, danced for them, the fitting dance which tradition had handed down. In the worship of solar deities it was custorrv ary to -dance round the altar as the stars danced round tlie sun.

All religions, and not merely those of primitive characters, have been in some degree saltatory 7 . It is r.Qt more pronounced in early Christianity •and among the ancient Hebrews who danced before the Ark, than among the Australian aborigines, whose great oorroborecs arc, or were, relieious dances conducted by the. medicinemen. King David, being rebuked by his wife, Miclial, for dancing, justified it as an act of worship. “Therefore will I play before the Lord.” What is considered! by some scholars to be the earliest known Christian ritual, the "Hymn of Jesus,” assigned to the second century—is nothing but a sacred dance. Ellis traces tlie employment of tlie religious dance in Greece and Rome, among the Hindus, tlio Japanese, the Turkish ( dervishes, and the American and Siberian tribes. In English cathedrals dancing went on until the fourteenth century. In Paris 'the priests danced in the choir at Easter up to the seventeenth century. ASSOCIATION WITH LOVE. Among insects and l birds dancing is often an essential part- of love. Iri courtship the male dancers, sometimes in rivalry with other males, in order to charm the female, who is ultimately aroused to shoire his ardour. The task of the male throughout nature lias been to impress the image of hinnself on tlie imagination of the female. The males who have not the sk’ll and strength to learn are left, behind, and, as they are probably the least capable members of the- ra.ee. it may be in this way that a kind of sexual selection has been embodied in unconscious eugenics, and aided the higher development of the race. In a survey- of the human world, the erotic dance of the animal world is seen not to have lost, but rather to have gained, influence. It comes about by a modification in tlie earlier method of selection that often not only the men dance for tlie women, but the women for the men, each striving ini a storm of rivalry to arouse and attract the desire of the , other. In innumerable parts of the world the season of love is a’ time which the nubile of each sex devote to dancing in each other’s presence, sometimes one sex, sometimes the other, in tlie effort to display all the force arid energy, the skill and endurance, the. beauty and grace,, which at this moment are yearning within them to he poured into the stream of the race’s life.

DANCING ETERNAL. Dancing as an art will always be undergoing a rebirth. It perpetually emerges froqJ the soul of the people. Less than a century ago the polka thus arose, extemporised by the Roll cm ien servant girl, Anna Slezakova, for the joy of lier own heart. It reached, world-wide popularity by the accident that it was observed and noted doivn by an artist. Work differs from the dance, not in kind, but only in degree, since they are both essentially rhythmic. There i« good reason why work should he rhythmic, for oil great combined efforts must bo harmonised. This is seen in the "Yo-heave-ho” of navvies,, in the chant.es of -sailors as' they hoist the topsail ya.rd or work the capstan and the pumps. In megalithic days, huge creations, like the pyramids, of Eg v pt, could only have been possible by harmonised effort. Even poetic metre mnv be conceive! as arising, out of work: metre is the rhythmic stamping of the feet, as in the technique of verse it is still metaphorically called. lambics and trochees, spoudof>s and anapaests and dactyls, may still be heard among blacksmiths smiting the anvil or nbvvies wielding their hammers.

GIFTS MISUSED. If it is true that dancing engendered morality, it is also true that in the end, by, the irony of fn.te, morality, grown’insolent. sought to crush its own parent, and for a time succeeded on’y too well. A. few centuries ago dancing was attacked by that spirit, in England called Puritanism, •which was then spread ver trie greater part of Europe. T t made no distinction between good and bad, nor paused to consider want would tome v 7 hen dancing vent. So it was that the drinking-shop -onquerod _ the dance, and alcohol replaced, the-violin. The prohibitionist would bfin alcohol because some use it to excess. Various pleasures are condemned by the illogical because of their occasioned abuse or misuse. If what is instinct in man is checked it will find emergence in another form. It is all it question of. education; arid education must bo from the inner to the outer, from tee right heart to good conduct. To reverse the order is. to court failure. In ' h's.i book,' Hovelqok Ellis; includes tbe- .a H of .Thinking, 7 thie: art d acTth © of -more 1 tYre•%’• •;