Evolution of Dance

Dance is for everybody.I believe that this art which involves movement of the body, often rhythmic to the music has come from the people and should always be delivered back to the people.Dance will help one to explode.If you are stressed,just kick off your shoes, take a break, crank the tunes and then dance and shake.This is why when people start dancing,they dance like they don’t know they are dancing.It really helps people in feeling good and rejoicing the moment and live euphoric moments.Don’t we actually move our feet rather unknowingly to the music that will make the blood surge in our veins?

Now lets have a look at the evolution of dance which doesn’t leave behind any archaeological artifacts or cave paintings to prove its origin.

Dance could be referred as a form of non verbal communication or a form of emotional expression.Folk, ballet,ballroom,tango,street dance,bharatanatyam,break dance are few forms of dances and there are countless number of styles and genres of dances practiced across the globe.Few archaeological evidences which include cave paintings and statues indicate that dance has been part of celebrations,rituals from the ancient human civilizations.Egyptian tombs have dancing pictures on them which date back to 3300 BC.

Few more evidences were found in India at  Rock Shelters of Bhimbetka which has rock paintings which are 30000 years old depicting dancing figures.The Natya Shastra  which is an ancient Indian treatise of arts including dancing and music was written during period between 200 BCE and 200 CE.One more ancient belief was that dance was used to show feelings for the opposite gender linking it to the love making.

Also read:Evolution of Kiss 

People also believe that early use of dance may have been as a precursor to ecstatic trance states in healing rituals.From the Brazilian rain forest to Kalahari desert dance has been used for this purpose in the past by many cultures.This sort of usage of dance for healing purposes is 2500 years old.In European culture the earliest records of dancing is by Homer a Greek poet who in his Iliad which describes the battles and events during the Trojan war.

There are more than 1100 dancing  forms which are ethnic,regional and folk dances.To get the list of these dancing forms grouped by their origin – List of dance forms grouped by origin.

Supreme Lord of Dance: Tandava is called as the divine dance performed by Lord Shiva also called as Nataraja.Shiva’s tandava is described as the source of cycle of creation, preservation and dissolution.Indeed all the classical dance forms evolved from the postures of Lord Shiva.

As centuries passed by dance has become part of human culture.Later it has evolved from court dancing to romanticism in 18th century and then from ballet to contemporary dance in the late 20th century.Dance forms from there have evolved greatly and we will roll out an article on Evolution of Modern Dancing forms very shortly.I conclude saying that let your life lightly dance on the edges of time like dew on the tip of a leaf.