dance

dance, spontaneous or choreographed, may take a wide variety of forms and serve many functions. As the early Christian church's attitude was ambivalent, many old ritual dances (such as those associated with maypoles) became disguised through new names and contexts, evolving into social dance or absorbed into later theatrical spectacle. The emergence of noble and peasant classes further contributed to the development of social dance: chivalric culture encouraged stately movement, accompanied by instruments such as lutes, while boisterous, rustic figure-dances were accompanied by singing. France's lead in court dance yielded to Renaissance Italy's developments, and the upper classes of early Tudor England were soon familiar with these fashionable new forms; pageants meanwhile developed into masques, which could range from simple dances with masks to elaborate entertainments with songs and speech. A new liveliness (typified by the jig) then emerged, encouraged by Elizabeth I, and dancing schools so flourished as to prompt ambassadorial comment about ‘the dancing English’. Puritan disapproval failed to suppress the popularity of dance, and John Playford's The English Dancing Master (1651), which ran to 18 editions in 80 years, eventually included 900 choral dances of rustic origins.

After 1700, ballet (formalized by the French) became increasingly confined to highly trained specialists, on stage rather than floor, while former open-air choral dances moved indoors, executed by all classes, and seen as contributing to general education and manners. Jane Austen fully appreciated the role of assemblies and balls in the marriage-market. David Dale's view of dancing—‘most favourable for [workers'] spirits, and a strong source of attachment to the works’ (1812)—was adopted by Owen at New Lanark, where drill, team dancing, and community singing were utilized to control incipient lawlessness. Public ballrooms multiplied in the 19th cent., when the waltz gained international popularity, despite some moral disapproval of such paired dancing. The 20th cent. saw renewed interest in folk dance (morris dancing, now considered a survival from a primitive religious cult; Cecil Sharpe's collections) and search for new forms. England became arbiter of taste for these novelties, Victor Sylvester's Modern Ballroom Dancing (1928) a handbook for the dancing world, and dance competitions emerged. The advent of radio, gramophone, then electronics, expanded recreational dancing everywhere, from Scottish reels to jazz-based dances without physical contact, rock 'n' roll, disco, and break-dancing. Ballet meantime had generally dissociated itself from opera, and begun to experiment with choreography. Theatrical dance continues to flourish and influence ice-skating, women's gymnastics, and synchronized swimming.

A. S. Hargreaves