DANCE, or DANCING. The causes which produce the active operation of dancing are as completely inherent in the human system, as any of those which are generally called involuntary affec tions of the nerves. A review of the his tory of mankind will serve to prove, that the passions are expressed by the same disposition of the muscles in every quar ter of the globe, and that joy has produc ed an inclination to dance throughout the individuals of nations, who know not of each other's existence. In the very early ages of the word, before civilization had polished the ideas, sudden joy may be supposed to have been almost the stimulus to dancing, and this supposition is corroborated by present observation the moderns have, indeed, so far refined their feelings, that their disposition to leap or skip with joy is confined to the minuet step in walking, which may be frequently discovered when the features express pleasure. On the contrary, the rude child of nature, endued with nerves of exquisite sensibility, having obtained some desired object, received that inex plicable shock, which the Divinity bath decreed man shall not fully comprehend ; immediately the subtle pleasure extend ed to every fibre of his frame, and the convulsive motion became a dance ; as joy is communicable, his family were in spired, his neighbours caught the infec tion, and the manner of this first dance necessarily assumed some degree of me thod, to prevent collision. Such may have been the principal cause of dancing; another arises from. certain combinations of sounds, which, vibrating strongly upon the air, communicates an impulse to the delicately sensible something residing in the nervous system; when the sounds are musical, the limbs are compelled to an swer to them ; and whether they are merely sufficient to produce a march, or measured steps, or powerful enough to excite violent action, they equally belong to dancing. In order to demonstrate the truth of the above remarks, it may be necessary to mention the present state of dancing in savage life; the natives of Africa, particularly, carry it to the most extravagant excess ; a few strings stretch ed across a dried calabash, struck by the fingers, producing a set of deep discor dant tones, is a sufficient stimulus for the inhabitants of a village to weary nature completely, and this passion never leaves even the unhappy slaves conveyed thence to the West Indies and America, who dance away those hours granted them for repose. The Indians of North Ame rica, more ferocious in their manners, have their war dances, and others suited to the dreadful operation of torturing their prisoners. The natives of the places
discovered by captain Cook entertained him with well contrived movements by their experienced dancers, and he wit nessed others locally festive and funereal ; and the Mexicans dance in a barbarous style to the sounds of drums and pipes, similar to those of Otaheite.
Having thus shewn that dancing is less an art, than a natural effect of joy and "lively musical sounds, it will be necessary to trace its history when polished and im proved by art ; some indeed consider it as a branch of the fine arts, and closely allied to dramatic poetry. Dancing was used by the refined nations of antiquity as a religious tribute; the apostate Israel ites danced round their golden calf; and at the more improved period, when king David composed his inspired lines, the Suprerhe Being received public homage in solemn movements; and that monarch, affected by the most lively joy at the re turn of the sacred ark from captivity, danced before it, with the greatest fer vour, in the grand procession which restored it to the lawful proprie tors.
Plato classes the dances of antiquity under three heads ; the gymnopedique, performed by naked children, which were preparatory to the enoplian, or pyrrhic, danced by young men armed, in which they were taught the movements necessary for attack or defence ; the Spartans decreed by law, that all male youths, who had attained filetr fifth year, should be trained to these military dan ces. The second class, mentioned by Plato, was solely for amusement ; amongst the variety under this head, they had some extremely simple, particular the ascoliasmus, performed by jumping with one foot on oiled and distended bladders, to the sound of voices, and the kvhesle sis. now known in England as the Somer set ; but those, and others of their dances, degenerated into voluptuousness and in decency. The third class, or the reli gious, were considered indispensable in the celebrat:on of all their mysteries ; the most ancient was the bacchic, the most solemn the hypochematic, suited to the accompaniments of a lyre and the voice. Plutarch mentions a dance com posed by Theseus, and performed by him and a number of youths round the al tar of Apollo, on his return from Crete, which consisted of the strophe, the anti strophe, and the stationary ; in the first, the movements were from the right to the left ; in the second, the reverse ; and in the last, the performers danced a slow movement before the altar.