History of dance

During the reign of the last

There is a long recorded history of Chinese dances. Some of the dances mentioned in ancient texts, such as dancing with sleeve movements are still performed today. Some of the early dances were associated with shamanic rituals.

The people of the Iranian plateau have known dance in the forms of music, play, drama or religious rituals and have used instruments like mask, costumes of animals or plants, and musical instruments for rhythm, at least since the 6th millennium BC. Cultural mixed forms of dance, play and drama have served rituals like celebration, mourning and worship. And the actors have been masters of music, dance, physical acts and manners of expression. Artifacts with pictures of dancers, players or actors were found in many archaeological prehistoric sites in Iran, like Tepe Sabz, Ja'far Abad, Chogha Mish, Tall-e Jari, Cheshmeh Ali, Ismaeel Abad, Tal-e bakun, Tepe Sialk, Tepe Musian, tepe Yahya, Shahdad, Tepe Gian, Kul Farah, Susa, Kok Tepe, Cemeteries of Luristan, etc.^[17]

History

The earliest researched dance from historic Iran is a dance worshiping

Religious prohibition of dancing in Iran came with the spread of Islam, but it was spurred by historical events.[19] Religious prohibition to dancing waxed and waned over the years, but after the Iranian Revolution in 1979 dancing was no longer allowed due to its frequent mixing of the sexes.^[19][20] The Islamic Revolution of 1979 was the end of a successful era for dancing and the art of ballet in Iran.^[18] The Iranian national ballet company was dissolved and its members emigrated to different countries.^[18] According to the principles of the "cultural revolution" in Iran, dancing was considered to be perverse, a great sin, immoral and corrupting.^[18] As a result, many of the talented Persian dancers moved to the West and spread out mainly in Europe and the United States and a new generation of Iranian dancers and ballet artists have grown up in the Diaspora.^[18]

Europe

15th–19th centuries: from court dancing to Romanticism

The origins of ballet dancing can be traced to the Italian Renaissance courts of the 15th century. Dance masters would teach the steps to nobility and the court would participate in performances as a form of social entertainment. This practice continued for several centuries. In the 17th century, courtly ballet reached its peak under the rule of King Louis XIV.^[21]

By the 18th century,

During the 18th century, ballet transitioned from a courtly dance of moving images as a spectacle to performance art in its own right. Ballet performances developed around a central narrative and contained an expressive movement that revealed the relationships between characters. This dramatic style of ballet became known as the ballet d'action. The ballet d'action strove to express, for the first time, human emotions drawn directly from the dancers themselves. Masks previously worn by performers were removed so that emotional content could be derived from facial expressions.^[21]

Costumes during this time were very restricting for dancers. Although a more expressive use of the body was encouraged, dancers' movements were still restricted due to heavy materials and corseted dresses. Costumes often covered a dancer's physique and made it difficult to see complex or intricate choreography. It was not until choreographer

The era of Romanticism produced ballets inspired by fantasy, mystique, and the unfamiliar cultures of exotic places. Ballets that focused more on the emotions, the fantasy and the spiritual worlds and heralded the beginning of true pointe-work. Now, on her toes, the deified ballerina (embodied in this period by the legendary ballerina Marie Taglioni) seemed to magically skim the surface of the stage, an ethereal being never quite touching the ground. It was during this period that the ascending star of the ballerina quite eclipsed the presence of the poor male dancer, who was in many cases reduced to the status of a moving statue, present only in order to lift the ballerina. This sad state was really only redressed by the rise of the male ballet star Vaslav Nijinsky, with the Ballets Russes, in the early 20th century. Ballet as we know it had well and truly evolved by this time, with all the familiar conventions of costume, choreographic form, plot, pomp, and circumstance firmly fixed in place. Nijinsky brought athleticism into ballet. Although at that time his choreography was considered as controversial, now they are considered as one of the first contemporary ballets.[1]

Early 20th century: from ballet to contemporary dance

Since the Ballets Russes began revolutionizing ballet in the early 20th century, there have been continued attempts to break the mold of classical ballet. Currently the artistic scope of ballet technique (and its accompanying music, jumper, and multimedia) is more all-encompassing than ever. The boundaries that classify a work of classical ballet are constantly being stretched, muddied and blurred until perhaps all that remains today are traces of technique idioms such as turnout.

The 20th century was indeed a period of breaking away from everything that ballet stood for. It was a time of unprecedented creative growth, for dancers and choreographers. It was also a time of the broadening of the definition of dance. Ballets Russes was a turning point to the future of ballet in the West and in the world. Collaborating with that era geniuses, such as Coco Chanel, Pablo Picasso and others.[2] Ballets Russes brought together great music, design and dance together in a one complete performance.[3]

Africa

African dance refers mainly to the dance styles of Sub-Saharan Africa, of which many are based on traditional rhythms and music traditions of the region. Modern African dance styles are deeply rooted in culture and tradition. Many tribes have a role solely for the purpose of passing on the tribe's dance traditions; dances which have been passed down through the centuries, often unchanged, with little to no room for improvisation.^[22][23] Each tribe developed its own unique style of dance, falling into three categories based on purpose. The first is religious dancing, which many tribes purport enhances peace, health, and prosperity.^[20] Religious dances often involved masqueraders, performing as both the spirits and those who placated them.^[22] Religion and spirituality infused every part of traditional African life, and continues to affect African dance today. The second is griotic, and was a type of dance that told a story. It is named after a griot, which is a term for a traditional storyteller in West Africa. Certain griotic dances were only danced by the tribe's griot; today, troupes perform the same dances that were once exclusive to the griot. The third type is ceremonial. These dances are performed at ceremonies such as weddings, anniversaries, and rites of passage.^[20] However, many dances did not have only one purpose. Rather, there was often one primary purpose, that blended into many secondary purposes. Dance was often very important to the maintenance of a ruler's status in the tribal society. Colonialism and globalization have resulted in the eradication of certain styles of African dance. Other styles have been blended together, or mixed with dance styles outside of Africa.^[22]

African dance in the context of slavery

As people were taken from Africa to be sold as slaves, especially starting in the 1500s, they brought their dance styles with them. Entire cultures were imported into the New World, especially those areas where slaves were given more flexibility to continue their cultures and where there were more African slaves than Europeans or indigenous Americans, such as Brazil. African dance styles were merged with new cultural experiences to form new styles of dance. For example, slaves responded to the fears of their masters about high-energy styles of dance with changing stepping to shuffling.^[20] However, in North America, slaves did not have as much freedom to continue their culture and dance.^[23][20] In many cases, these dances have evolved into modern dance styles, such as African-American dance and Brazilian dance. For example, the Calenda evolved in Brazil from tribal dance. The Calenda then evolved into the Cakewalk, which was danced originally to mock plantation owners; it then evolved into the Charleston.^[20] Capoeira was a martial art practiced originally in Africa which the enslaved Africans masked as a form of dance in order to not arouse the suspicion of plantation owners.^[24]

The late 20th and early 21st centuries

Postmodernism

After the explosion of modern dance in the early 20th century, the 1960s saw the growth of postmodernism. Postmodernism veered towards simplicity, the beauty of small things, the beauty of untrained body, and unsophisticated movement. The famous "No" manifesto, by Yvonne Rainer, rejecting all costumes, stories and outer trappings in favour of raw and unpolished movement was perhaps the extreme of this wave of thinking. However, it was not long before sets, décor and shock value re-entered the vocabulary of modern choreographers.

Street dance/Hip-hop dance

At the same time,

For the emergence of 20th-century modern dance see also: Mary Wigman, Gret Palucca, Harald Kreutzberg, Yvonne Georgi, and Isadora Duncan.

• History of ballet
• History of figure skating

References