Editing Dance (section)

== Rhythm ==
[[Rhythm]] and dance are deeply linked in history and practice. The American dancer [[Ted Shawn]] wrote; "The conception of rhythm which underlies all studies of the dance is something about which we could talk forever, and still not finish."<ref name="Shawn 50">Shawn, Ted, ''Dance We Must'', 1946, Dennis Dobson Ltd., London, p. 50</ref> A musical rhythm requires two main elements; a regularly-repeating [[pulse (music)|pulse]] (also called the "beat" or "tactus") that establishes the [[tempo]], and a pattern of [[Accent (music)|accents]] and [[Rest (music)|rests]] that establishes the character of the [[Meter (music)|metre or basic rhythmic pattern]]. The basic pulse is roughly equal in duration to a simple step or gesture.
[[File:Tango rhythm.svg|thumb|A basic tango rhythm]]
Dances generally have a characteristic tempo and rhythmic pattern. The tango, for example, is usually danced in {{music|time|2|4}} time at approximately 66 beats per minute. The basic slow step, called a "slow", lasts for one beat, so that a full "right–left" step is equal to one {{music|time|2|4}} measure. The basic forward and backward walk of the dance is so counted – "slow-slow" – while many additional figures are counted "slow – quick-quick".<ref>Imperial Society of Teachers of Dancing, ''Ballroom Dancing'', Teach Yourself Books, Hodder and Stoughton, 1977, p. 38</ref>

Repetitive body movements often depend on alternating "strong" and "weak" muscular movements.<ref name="Kirstein 4">Lincoln Kirstein, ''Dance'', Dance Horizons Incorporated, New York, 1969, p. 4</ref> Given this alternation of left-right, of forward-backward and rise-fall, along with the [[Symmetry in biology|bilateral symmetry]] of the human body, many dances and much music are in [[duple and quadruple meter]]. Since some such movements require more time in one phase than the other – such as the longer time required to lift a hammer than to strike – some dance rhythms fall into [[triple metre]].<ref>Shawn, Ted, ''Dance We Must'', 1946, Dennis Dobson Ltd., London, p. 49</ref> Occasionally, as in [[Music of Southeastern Europe|the folk dances of the Balkans]], dance traditions depend heavily on more complex rhythms. Complex dances composed of a fixed sequence of steps require phrases and melodies of a certain fixed length to accompany that sequence.

[[File:Lululaund - The Dancing Girl (painting and silk cloth. A.L. Baldry 1901, before p.107).jpg|thumb|left|upright=0.6|''Lululaund – The Dancing Girl'' (painting and silk cloth. A.L. Baldry 1901, before p. 107), The inscription reads; "Dancing is a form of rhythm/ Rhythm is a form of music/ Music is a form of thought/ And thought is a form of divinity."]]
Musical accompaniment arose in the earliest dance, so that ancient Egyptians attributed the origin of the dance to the divine Athotus, who was said to have observed that music accompanying religious rituals caused participants to move rhythmically and to have brought these movements into proportional measure. The idea that dance arises from musical rhythm, was found in [[renaissance]] Europe, in the works of the dancer [[Guglielmo Ebreo da Pesaro]]. Pesaro speaks of dance as a physical movement that arises from and expresses inward, spiritual motion agreeing with the "measures and perfect concords of harmony" that fall upon the human ear,<ref name="Kirstein 4" /> while earlier, [[Mechthild of Magdeburg]], seizing upon dance as a symbol of the holy life foreshadowed in Jesus' saying "I have piped and ye have not danced",<ref>Matthew 11:17</ref> writes;

{{blockquote|I can not dance unless thou leadest. If thou wouldst have me spring aloft, sing thou and I will spring, into love and from love to knowledge and from knowledge to ecstasy above all human sense<ref>Lincoln Kirstein, ''Dance'', Dance Horizons Incorporated, New York, 1969, p. 108</ref>}}

[[Thoinot Arbeau]]'s celebrated 16th-century dance-treatise ''Orchésographie'', indeed, begins with definitions of over eighty distinct drum-rhythms.<ref>Lincoln Kirstein, ''Dance'', Dance Horizons Incorporated, New York, 1969, p. 157</ref>

[[File:Dancing with Helen Moller; her own statement of her philosophy and practice and teaching formed upon the classic Greek model, and adapted to meet the aesthetic and hygienic needs of to-day, with (14784705065).jpg|thumb|upright|Helen Moller]]
[[File:La Valse.jpg|thumb|upright|''[[The Waltz (Claudel)|The Waltz]]'' by [[Camille Claudel]], 1905 cast]]
Dance has been represented through the ages as having emerged as a response to music yet, as [[Lincoln Kirstein]] implied, it is at least as likely that primitive music arose from dance. Shawn concurs, stating that dance "was the first art of the human race, and the matrix out of which all other arts grew" and that even the "[[Meter (poetry)|metre]] in our poetry today is a result of the accents necessitated by body movement, as the dancing and reciting was performed simultaneously"<ref name="Shawn 50"/> – an assertion somewhat supported by the common use of the term "foot" to describe the fundamental rhythmic units of poetry.

[[Percy Scholes|Scholes]], a [[musician]], offers support for this view, stating that the steady measures of music, of two, three or four beats to the bar, its equal and balanced phrases, regular cadences, contrasts and repetitions, may all be attributed to the "incalculable" influence of dance upon music.<ref>{{cite book|last=Scholes |first=Percy A. |author-link1= Percy Scholes |title= The Oxford Companion to Music |edition= 10 |year= 1977 |publisher=[[Oxford University Press]] |chapter=Dance }}</ref>

Hence, Shawn asserts, "it is quite possible to develop the dance without music and... music is perfectly capable of standing on its own feet without any assistance from the dance", nevertheless the "two arts will always be related and the relationship can be profitable both to the dance and to music",<ref>Shawn, Ted, ''Dance We Must'', 1946, Dennis Dobson Ltd., London, p. 54</ref> the precedence of one art over the other being a moot point. The [[Common metre|common ballad measures]] of hymns and folk-songs takes their name from dance, as does the [[Carol (music)|carol]], originally a [[circle dance]]. Many purely musical pieces have been named "[[waltz]]" or "[[minuet]]", for example, while many [[concert dance]]s have been produced that are based upon abstract musical pieces, such as ''[[2 and 3 Part Inventions]], [[Adams Violin Concerto]]'' and ''[[Andantino (ballet)|Andantino]]''. Similarly, poems are often structured and named after dances or musical works, while dance and music have both drawn their conception of "measure" or "metre" from poetry.

Shawn quotes with approval the statement of Dalcroze that, while the art of musical rhythm consists in differentiating and combining time durations, pauses and accents "according to physiological law", that of "plastic rhythm" (i.e. dance) "is to designate movement in space, to interpret long time-values by slow movements and short ones by quick movements, regulate pauses by their divers successions and express sound accentuations in their multiple nuances by additions of bodily weight, by means of muscular innervations".

Shawn points out that the system of musical time is a "man-made, artificial thing.... a manufactured tool, whereas rhythm is something that has always existed and depends on man not at all", being "the continuous flowing time which our human minds cut up into convenient units", suggesting that music might be revivified by a return to the values and the time-perception of dancing.<ref>Shawn, Ted, ''Dance We Must'', 1946, Dennis Dobson Ltd., London, pp. 50–51</ref>

The early-20th-century American dancer [[Helen Moller]] stated that "it is rhythm and form more than harmony and color which, from the beginning, has bound music, poetry and dancing together in a union that is indissoluble."<ref>Moller, Helen and Dunham, Curtis, ''Dancing with Helen Moller'', 1918, John Lane (New York and London), p. 74</ref>{{refn|group=nb|Additional references:

<ref name="carnegiehall/Helen-Moller-1918">{{cite book |last1=Moller |first1=Helen |last2=Jacobs |first2=Max |author3=Orchestral Society of New York |author1-link=Helen Moller |author2-link=Max Jacobs |author3-link=Orchestral Society of New York |title=Helen Moller and Her Pupils |date=March 20, 1918 |publisher=[[Carnegie Hall]] Archives |url=https://collections.carnegiehall.org/archive/Complete-program-of-Helen-Moller-and-Her-Pupils--March-20--1918-2RRM1TZL9KAZ.html |quote=Complete program collections.carnegiehall.org/C.aspx?VP3=pdfviewer&rid=2RRM1TZL9KAZ collections.carnegiehall.org/a2c80a53-b8fa-4327-b8cf-bbde0cc95651 |archive-date=August 22, 2024 |access-date=August 22, 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240822013209/https://collections.carnegiehall.org/archive/Complete-program-of-Helen-Moller-and-Her-Pupils--March-20--1918-2RRM1TZL9KAZ.html |url-status=live }}</ref>

<ref name="nytimes/moller-appear">*{{cite news |title=Helen Moller and Dancers Appear. |url=https://www.nytimes.com/1918/12/27/archives/helen-moller-and-dancers-appear.html |access-date=19 July 2024 |work=[[The New York Times]] |date=27 December 1918 |archive-date=22 August 2024 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240822011706/https://www.nytimes.com/1918/12/27/archives/helen-moller-and-dancers-appear.html |url-status=live }} https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1918/12/27/97056760.html</ref>

<ref name="archive/dancinghelenmoll00moll">{{cite book |last1=Moller |first1=Helen |last2=Dunham |first2=Curtis |author1-link=Helen Moller |author2-link=Curtis Dunham |title=Dancing with Helen Moller; her own statement of her philosophy and practice and teaching formed upon the classic Greek model, and adapted to meet the aesthetic and hygienic needs of to-day, with forty-three full page art plates; |date=1918 |publisher=[[John Lane Company]] |location=[[New York City|New York]] and [[London]] |url=https://archive.org/details/dancinghelenmoll00moll |access-date=19 July 2024 |via= [[archive.org]]}}</ref>

<ref name="Musical-Courier-79/Helen-Moller">{{cite magazine |title=Helen Moller |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=E-k6AQAAMAAJ&q=%22Helen+Moller%22 |access-date=19 July 2024 |magazine=[[Musical Courier]] |issue=V79 |publisher=Musical Courier Company |date=1919 |location=<!-- 437 Fifth Avenue, New York, --> New York |language=en}}</ref>}}