Origins.

The origins of dance?

Although very little (or nothing at all!) about dance can be supported by findings from sites of human habitation more than 10,000 years old, some informed speculation is possible. What we call our "culture" over many thousands of years remains our key strategy for our survival as a species, and deeply embedded in that culture is our art. Perhaps more than we think about. The paintings we made with such remarkable skill about 30,000 years ago on the walls of caves in today's southern Europe signal a great revolution in the development of modern man. The appearance of this artwork has come to define among archaeologists that point at which we became a species fully capable of abstract thinking and innovation. It was the appearance of this art that marked the new plateau in our evolution that we still occupy today. Our art!

And who were we, at last? An aggressive human species (there have been at least seventeen such species in the past) now called Cro-Magnon man, or Homo sapiens. We had migrated, according to recent DNA testing of ancient artifacts, from southern Africa into Europe and Asia over a period of 100,000 years or more. Eventually we dominated and may have caused the extinction of another earlier human species, the Neanderthals. Although there is no hard evidence about the role dance played in those early years of our history, we must not misread an absence of archaeological evidence as evidence of the absence. The logical claim is that dance was there.

There is physical evidence from that time indicating that we might have used art to express our desire to gain some control of nature, to harness certain powers for ourselves, to gain a competitive edge against the unknown. Does this sound familiar? Do we still use our art--including dance--to these ends? Yes.

We started painting symbols on those cave walls that some archaeologists interpret as writing. Writing conveys the presence of language, which would one day become modern man's most powerful tool. And the early presence of language means the ability to speak. And based on examination of fossilized skulls, it appears that Cro-Magnon man possessed the necessary physical equipment for speech.

When did spoken language first appear? Our larynxes had probably evolved to the point where articulate speech was possible about 125,000 years ago. How did we communicate before then? It is quite reasonable to speculate that we used sounds and gestures and movement. Think dance.

Do you think that those "artists" 30,000 years ago were consciously regarded by the others in their clan as artists, separate from others because of their ability to paint or sculpt? The answer is a surprising yes, because there is evidence, from the detail and complexity of the tools and the art itself, that those artists spent long periods of time creating their work--weeks at a time, or months, or years. This meant that the artists had to be supported by others in their communities who, we can assume, understood and believed in the value of what their artists were doing. That ancient issue--support for artists--is with us still.

What purpose art? The work discovered from 30,000 years ago has been interpreted various ways. Ritualistic (rather than just decorative), it reminded our ancestors that they belonged to a particular place in the world, that humans had a shared history, and that we had to cooperate with one another in order to survive a tough, short existence. (We were fortunate if we reached the age of 18.) Again, think dance. We carry the seeds of movement deep within, and for a good reason--survival. We have only to observe our own bodies when we speak in order to know how important "silent" language is. This is how we have crossed cultural and speech barriers for thousands of generations. In our own time, dance has succeeded where our language and politics have failed, as our cultural exchanges with the Soviet Union during the Cold War illustrate all too clearly.

Traveling to Tulsa, Oklahoma, in late winter, I found myself sitting on a plane next to an anthropologist who was fascinated by Native American dances and their meanings. Why dance at all? I was interested in her insistence on the role of dancing in Native American culture. She described one dance in which stamping feet were believed to awaken the ground in spring. Similar dances are still performed by indigenous cultures around the world, perhaps suggesting common ancient origins. Or perhaps dancing is just one of those qualities of our humanity.

At one time there had been at least 260 different languages spoken among the original Americans before European colonization of the so-called New World began. Since those native languages could be as different from one another as modern French and Russian, there was a deep need to cross the barriers of language and get to the basics. Dance was one of those solutions.

There is another ancient aspect to dance that is seldom discussed and is a topic for deeper study elsewhere. We know that dancing can induce a natural high, as other forms of exertion such as aerobics or running can as well. This is part of the pleasure that keeps us coming back for more. This natural ecstasy is caused by minute amounts of chemicals called endorphins secreted in our brains. And when you combine the pleasures of an activity with a practical use such as communication, then you make survival a bit easier. My guess is that we knew about all of this long before we ever attempted speech.

If we look at the experience of dance within ourselves, if we allow ourselves to sense the deepest core of expression with the pleasures of touch and rhythm and movement, then it is only a slight stretch to recognize the ancient ingredients in modern man that have become part of our human nature. As I said at the beginning of this piece, some informed speculation about the origins of dance is possible. In this case, the source of information about origins is ourselves. Think dance.

Richard Philp has been with Dance Magazine since 1970, first as managing editor and then for many years as editor in chief. He is a writer, editor, and speaker, known for his strong support of the arts. He can be reached at [e-mail].