History Of Dance

There have been multiple dances throughout the life of man. Some are used in rituals. These could include the Haka, the Morris Dance, and Rainmaking dances. Others are used to interpret a person’s emotions and feelings. It has more of a modern feel and began in the 1900s. However, that isn’t the dance of focus at the moment. Ballet; an artistic dance form performed to music using precise and highly formalized set steps and gestures, is the center of attention. The first form of ballet that was performed was in the early 1700s. 1735 would be a closer estimate. It is a French type of dance, so in turn, all terms for positions and movement are in the creator’s native tongue. The people who performed these dances were companies that traveled to …show more content…
No movement is awkward going from position to position, which is what it should be for a dance. A simile for the dance would be something like “as graceful as a stream”. Each movement is precise but can be sped up and slowed down to have different emotions exerted from the dancer. Even though they are precise, the motions flow. The pace, be it slow or fast, is elegant show to watch and perform. It is an amazing thing to behold, but actually dancing ballet is quite the experience. Ballet is a physical exercise that increases strength and flexibility. Not only that, but ballet can also improve speed and agility, balance, mental focus, and endurance. This makes practicing ballet a popular choice, as it can help with more than just a future in dance, but also in other fields. Football has been known to have players exercise with ballet to hone their bodies and become well rounded to the sport. Ballet is an outstanding source of training and education, however, there are other types of dances that were the origin of ballet. These were court dances, and some examples of them would be the gigue, the pavan, and the …show more content…
It was a type of court dance in the 16th and 17th century, but its has been found to go back to the early 1500s. How the dance got its name is left to two theories. The first being the adjective “pavana” which means “of Padua” in Italian. Padua is the name of the town in which the dance was created, so the reference would make sense if it is true. The second theory is the Spanish word pavón meaning peacock. A peacock’s movement and spread tail somewhat resemble that of the dance. All theories aside, Alan Brown finds a source that best describes how the dances are performed: “The pavane is easy to dance, consisting merely of two single steps [simples] and one double step [double] forward, [followed by] two single steps and one double step backward. It is played in duple time [mesure binaire]; note that the forward steps begin on the left foot and the backward steps begin on the right foot.” (Alan) Being very simple, it is as easy as learning the