DANCING.

Otago Witness, Issue 1248, 30 October 1875, Page 19

DANCING.

The general estimate of the expressiveness of .dancing is rather a high one. Adam Smith, in his essay on the Imitative Arts, says it is much more expressive than music, and. perhaps more so than any other art. He remarks, indeed, that our dances of the. present day have little imitation in them, but he seems to think that they were in some cases derived from more expressive types. Thus he tells us that the minuet, in which the woman, after passing and repassing the man several times, gives him first one hand then the other, then both, was originally a Moorish dance representing emblematically the passion of love. Most writers, however, while admitting that our modern dances can hardly be said to imitate anything, assure us that anciently all dances were imitative and expressive. Amongst the Romans it was considered indecent to dance in private, and with them, as with most nations of antiquity, dancing was used in connection with religious and warlike exercises, as well as in the more serious departments of public and social life. The Pyrrhio dance of the Spartans seems to have been a sort of mock fight, in which the warlike skill and prowess of the performers were largely called into play. As for religious dances, the incidents of Miriam dancing after the overthrow of Pharoah, and of David dancing before the ark, will occur to the mind as instances in sacred history. Dancing was also employed in the festivals of Bacohus, Apollo, &c,, whilst funeral dances ate mentioned in connection with the Boinans. In thereign of Augustus, Pylsdes aba Bathyllus, the inventors of the pantomimic ballet properly no called, made their appearance, and the accounts given of their performances represent them as rieesed of very marvellous powers, short, without entering into any minute details, there is a concurrence of testimony in favour of the expressiveness of dancifig amongst the ancients. Adam Smith suggests that the reason of this is to be found in the fact that in early times people always danced to vocal music, which being naturally suggestive and expressive, their dances became so to. We now, on the contrary, dance to instrumental musio as a rule, and this having no definite expression, the dances which it directs, and, as it were, inspires, have lost their imitative character. If we admit that dancing i* capable of any great ex. putir MUff , the Mi tdiucsd m*y p 9 r.

haps account for the low ebb to which we must conclude it has fallen at the present day. — Tindey Magazine.