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Chapter twelve THE MAGIC CIRCLE All forces that cannot be scientifically established and measured must be regarded,

from the philosophical standpoint, as illusory if, therefore, such forces appear to be part of our direct e!perience, they are "#irtual," i$e$ non%actual semblances$ This applies to chthonic po&ers, di#ine po&ers, fates and spells and all mystic agencies, the potency of prayer, of &ill, of lo#e and hate, and also the oft%assumed hypnotic po&er of one's mind o#er another (hereby, I do not mean to call in )uestion the phenomenon of hypnoti*ing a sub+ect, but only the concept of a psychical "force" emanating from the "master mind",$ The assumption of mysterious "po&ers," or concentrations of forces not theoretically calculable in mathematical terms, dominates all pre% scientific imagination$ The &orld picture of nai#e men naturally stems from the pattern of sub+ecti#e action and passion$ -ust as the en#isage%ment of spatial relations begins &ith &hat .oincare called our "natural geometry,"/ so the comprehension of dynamic relations starts from
our e!perience of effort and obstacle, conflict and #ictory or defeat$ The conception of "po&ers" in nature operating li0e impulses, and of force inhering in things as strength is felt to be in the body, is an ob#ious one$ 1et it is a myth, built on the most primiti#e symbol2the body (+ust as most of our descripti#e language is based on the symbolism of head and foot, leg and arm, mouth, nec0, bac0, etc$3 the "foothills" of a range, the mountain's "shoulder," the "leg" of a triangle, the "bottlenec0," the "headland," etc$,$ This en#isagement of the &orld as a realm of indi#idual li#ing forces, each a being &ith desires and purposes that bring it into conflict &ith other teleologically directed po&ers, is really the 0ey idea of all mythical interpretations3 the idea of the 4pirit 5orld$ Ernst Cassirer, in his #oluminous &ritings on the e#olution of sym%
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bolic forms,8 has traced this principle of "spirituali*ing" (&hich is not really "anthropomorphi*ing," since it affects the image of man himself in strange &ays, through the entire fabric of language, and has sho&n ho& human minds thin0ing &ith &ords ha#e built up their &hole &orld out of "po&ers," &hich are modeled on sub+ecti#e feelings of potency$ Religion, history, politics, and e#en the traditional abstractions of philosophy reflect this fundamental Weltanschauung
&hich is incorporated in language$ The formulation engendered by the sub+ecti#e model is really a great metaphor, in &hich our "natural" conception of the &orld is e!pressed but &here the human mind has only one symbol to represent an idea, the symbol and its meaning are not separable, because there is no other form in &hich the meaning could be thought and distinguished from the symbol$ Conse)uently the great metaphor is identified &ith its meaning the feelings of po&er that ser#e as symbols are attributed to the reality symboli*ed, and the &orld appears as a realm of potent :eings$

This conception of nature characteri*es &hat Cassirer calls the "mythic C;nsciousriess$" :ut, as mythic thin0ing determines the form of language and then is supported and furthered by language, so the progressi#e articulation and sharpening of that supreme instrument ultimately brea0s the mythic mold the gradual perfection of discursive jorm, &hich is inherent in the synta! of language as metaphor is inherent in its #ocabulary, slo&ly begets a ne& mode of thought, the "scientific consciousness," &hich supersedes the mythic, to greater or lesser e!tent, in the "common sense" of different persons and groups of persons$ The shift is probably ne#er complete, but to the degree that it is effected, metaphor is replaced by literal statement, and mythology gi#es &ay to science$<

The primiti#e phases of social de#elopment are entirely dominated by the "mythic consciousness$" =rom earliest times, through the late Iribal stages, men li#e in a &orld of ".o&ers"2di#ine or semidi#ine :eings, &hose &ills determine the courses of cosmic and human e#ents$ .ainting, sculpture, and literature, ho&e#er archaic, sho& us these .o&ers already fi!ed in #isible or describable form, anthropomorphic or *oo%morphic2a sacred bison, a sacred co&, a scarab, a Ti0i, a Hermes or %4ee especially >ols$ I "Cf$ his /7@
and II of Die Philosophie der symbolischen Formen; "Iso prache und Mythos !"anguage and Myth#, and $n %ssay on Man, .art I, passim, especially chap$ 8, "A Clue to the ?ature of Man3 the 4ymbol$" ubstance and Function&

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Aore, finally an Apollo, Athena, Bsiris, Christ2the God &ho has a personal appearance e#en to the cut of his beard, a personal history of birth, death, and glorification, a symbolic cult, a poetic and musical liturgy$ :ut in the first stages of imagination, no such definite forms embody the terrible and fecund .o&ers that surround humanity$ The first recognition of them is through the feeling of personal po&er and &ill in the human body and their first representation is through a bodily acti#ity &hich abstracts the sense of po&er from the practical e!periences in &hich that sense is usually an obscure factor$ This acti#ity is 0no&n as "dancing$" The dance creates an image of nameless and e#en bodiless .o&ers filling a complete, autonomous realm, a "&orld$" It is the first presentation of the &orld as a realm of mystic forces$ This e!plains the early de#elopment of dance as a complete and e#en sophisticated art form$ Curt 4achs, in his compendious World )istory *+ the Dance, remar0s &ith some surprise3 "4trange as it may sound%since the 4tone Age, the dance has ta0en on as little in the &ay of ne& forms as of ne& content$ The history of the creati#e dance ta0es place in prehistory$"C Dance is, in fact, the most serious intellectual business of sa#age life3 it is the en#isagement of a &orld beyond the spot and the moment of one's animal e!istence, the first conception of life as a &hole2continuous, superpersonal life, punctuated by birth and death, surrounded and fed by the rest of nature$ =rom this point of #ie&, the prehistoric e#olution of dancing does not appear strange at all$ It is the #ery process of religious thin0ing, &hich begets the conception of ".o&ers" as it symboli*es them$ To the "mythic consciousness" these creations are realities, not symbols they are not felt to be created by the dance at all, but to be in#o0ed, ad+ured, challenged, or placated, as the case may be$ The symbol of the &orld, the balletic realm of forces, is the &orld, and dancing
is the human spirit's participation in it$ 1et the dancer's &orld is a &orld transfigured, &a0ened to a special 0ind of life$ 4achs obser#es that the oldest dance form seems to be the ,eigen, or circle dance, &hich he ta0es to be a heritage from animal ancestors$ E He regards it as a spontaneous e!pression of gaiety, nonrepresentati#e and therefore "intro#ert," according to his (rather unfortunate, adaptation of categories borro&ed from -ung's dynamic psy% chology$ :ut the circle dance really symboli*es a most important reality in the life of primiti#e men2the sacred realm, the magic circle$ The ,eigen as a dance form has nothing to do &ith spontaneous prancing it fulfills a holy office, perhaps the (irst holy office of the dance2it di#ides the sphere of holiness from that of profane

e!istence$ In this &ay it creates the stage of the dance, &hich centers naturally in the altar or its e)ui#alent2the totem, the priest, the fire2or perhaps the slain bear, or the dead chieftain to be consecrated$ -. F

In the magic circle all daemonic po&ers are loosed$ The mundane realm is e!cluded, and &ith it, #ery often, the restrictions and proprieties that belong to it$ Dr$ 4achs has said )uite truly that all dance is ecstatic 2the holy group dance, the #ertigi nous indi#idual &hirl

dance, the erotic couple dance$ "In$ the ecstasy of the dance man bridges the chasm bet&een this and the other &orld, to the realm of demons, spirits, and God$" 6 4ometimes the fight against po&ers of dar0ness is enacted in a &eapon dance &ith an in#isible partner sometimes military pro&ess is represented as a clash of #isible contestants$ The #irtue of &eapons themsel#es may be celebrated by flinging, catching, t&irling and flourishing them$ All #ital and crucial acti#ities ha#e been sanctified by dance, as in birth, puberty, marriage, death2planting and har#est, luinting, battle, #ictory2seasons, gatherings, house&armings$ The occasions of such sacred dances naturally led to pantomime illustrating the ob+ects of desire or fear pantomime furnished ne& dance forms, often capable of great elaboration the elaborations re)uired properties2costumes, implements,

li#ely circle dance about some tall, firmly fi!ed ob+ect must ha#e come do&n to man from his animal ancestors$ 5e may therefore assume that the circle dance &as already a permanent possession of the .aleolithic culture, the first, perceptible stage of human ci#ili*ation$" /0bid&, p$ 8@9$,
Dr$ 4achs certainly o#ersimplifies the problem of art and o#erestimates the e#idence (from Aohler, for the solution he accepts$ 5e do not 0no& that the apes e!perience only li#ely fun as they trot around a post perhaps some fic0le forerunner of mystical e!citement a&a0ens in them at that moment$ .erhaps their antics are merely playful$ .erhaps the tendency to rhythmic tramping &as set off liy .rof$ Aohler's e!ample, and &ould ne#er ha#e de#eloped in the +ungle unless llicy &atched human dancers some&here$ 5e 0no& too little to infer anything from "the dance of the apes$"'
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mas0s2and these in turn created dance characters, spirits and animals, ghosts and gods, according to the conceptual stoc0 in trade of the dancers$ The "Country De#il" of the Congo is a giant dance mas0 &hose dread habitat is a tree in the +ungle, &here it hangs bet&een dances, at a safe distance from the compound$ G The "May
;ueen" of European tradition is a dance personage, probably ta0ing the place of a fertility goddess to &hom the dance &as originally addressed$ The secondary character of the "Aing of the May," sometimes cro&ned and e!alted beside the )ueen, suggests that the center of the &hole ceremony may ha#e been an erotic couple dance, in#o0ing the procreati#e forces in fields and #ineyards and floc0s, or urging them along by "sympathetic magic$" ?o matter &hat the dance is supposed to achie#e, &hat dramatic or ritualistic elemeats it embraces, its first mo#e is al&ays the creation of a realm of #irtual .o&er$ "Ecstasy" is nothing else than the feeling of entering such a realm$ There are dance forms that ser#e mainly to se#er the bonds of actuality and establish the "other&orldly" atmosphere in &hich illusory forces operate$ 5hirling and circling, gliding and s0ipping and balancing are such basic gestures that seem to spring from the deepest sources of feeling, the rhythms of physical life as such$ :ecause they present no ideas of things outside the organism, but only ob+ectify #itality itself, Dr$ 4achs has designated these elements as "imageless," and regards them as the special stoc0 in trade of "intro#ert" peoples$ The distinction bet&een "intro#ert" and "e!tra#ert" dancers, measured by the uses of "imageless dances" and "image dances" (miming, respecti#ely, goes through the &hole boo0$ :ut it ne#er rests on any psychological findings that pro#e the purely ecstatic dancers2der#ishes, de#il dancers, contortionists2to be more intro#ert than (say, the maenads &ho enact the death and resurrection of Dionysus, or to distinguish the mentality of persons &ho dance on the #illage green in a simple ring from that of the dancers &ho &ind a

"chain%dance," borro&ing their motif from the process of &ea#ing, or &ho &a#e outstretched hands to simulate birds in flight$ As he traces the history of "imageless dances," they appear to merge &ith dramatic pantomime and con#ersely his account of imitati#e gestures sho&s their choric de#elopment to be generally a&ay from mimicry, to&ard pure rhythmic and e!pressi#e gesture$ In summary of his findings he notes this himself$ "=rom these e!amples," he says, "&e may see that it has been the fate of the animal dance to gro& continually a&ay from nature$ The urge to compose the mo#ements into a styli*ed dance, therefore to ma0e them less real, has ta0en more and more of the natural form from the steps and gestures$ All too )uic0ly the duc0 &al0 becomes a simple s)uatting step$ $ $ $ "Bn the other hand, perhaps motions of a purely indi#idual motor origin ha#e been considered mimetic and animal%li0e and gi#en a ne& interpretation$" 9

Reflecting on these facts, he ma0es a general obser#ation that sho&s the &hole imitati#e business of art in &hat I consider its proper light 2as a guiding concept, or moti(& "There are therefore in the animal dance
e!actly the same relationships," he says, "&hich are familiar in the history of decoration3 ha#e &e to deal &ith the abstraction and geometri*a%tion of an animal theme or &ith the *oomorphic naturali*ation of an abstract and geometric themeH" (Compare this remar0 &ith the reflections on design%motifs in Chapter C 3 at once a fundamental relation bet&een t&o #ery different arts becomes apparent, namely their strictly similar use of natural (orms&#

The distinction bet&een e!tra#ert and intro#ert, representati#e and non%representati#e dance, &hich becomes more and more tenuous throughout the &or0, is really much less useful than the consideration of what is created in the #arious 0inds of dance, and &hat purposes, therefore, the
#arious rhythmic, mimetic, musical, acrobatic, or other elements ser#e$ 5hat is created is the image of a &orld of #ital forces, embodied or disembodied in the early stages of human thought &hen symbol and import are apprehended as one reality, this image is the realm of holiness in later stages it is recogni*ed as the &or0 of art, the e!pressi#e form &hich it really is$ :ut in either case, the se#eral dance elements ha#e essentially constructi#e functions$ They ha#e to establish, maintain, and articulate the play of ".o&ers$" Mas)uerading and miming alone cannot do this, any more than naturalistic representation of ob+ects can of itself create or shape pictorial space$ :ut histrionic motifs assure the illusion, the "dance ecstasy$" "It aims simply at ecstasy," says Dr$ 4achs,
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"or it ta0es o#er the form of the mystic circling, in &hich po&er +umps across from those on the outside to the one on the inside or #ice #ersa
$ $ $ the people encircle the head of an enemy, the sacrificial buffalo, the altar, the golden calf, the holy &afer, in order that the po&er of these ob+ects may flo& across to them in some mysterious &ay$"7

5hate#er motifs from actual life may enter into a dance, they are rhythmici*ed and formali*ed by that #ery ingression$ 5ithin the Magic Circle e#ery action gro&s into balletic motion and accent3 the lifting of a child or of a grail, the imitations of beasts and birds, the 0iss, the &ar &hoop$ =ree dance mo#ement produces, abo#e all (for the performer as &ell as the spectator, the illusion of a con)uest of gra#ity, i$e$ freedom from the actual forces that are normally 0no&n and felt to control the dancer's body$ =ran0 Thiess remar0ed this fact in his e!cellent boo0, already )uoted in the pre#ious chapter$ After some pertinent comments on the e!cessi#e use of stretching, leaping, and balloon%bouncing techni)ues in other&ise )uite empty performances, "in &hich the ballerinas see0 to demonstrate that the earth's gra#itation has practically no hold upon them," he adds3 "?one the less, this demand for con)uest of gra#ity &as based on a

correct conception of the nature of dance for its main tendency is al&ays to surmount the bonds of massi#e &eight, and lightness of mo#ement is, perhaps, the cardinal demand one has to ma0e on a dancer$ $ $ $ It is, after all, nothing but the con)uest of material resistance as
such, and therefore is not a special phenomenon at all in the realm of art$ Consider the triumph of sculpture o#er the stone, of painting o#er the flat surface, of poetry o#er language, etc$ It is, then, precisely the material &ith &hich any particular art has to &or0 that is to be o#ercome, and to a certain degree is to be rendered no longer apparent$"/@ 4ome&hat later, still in this connection, he designates the toe dance as "the fro*en symbol of this ideal," especially intended to sho& that the body has lost nearly all its &eight, so that it can be supported by the tips of its toes$ And here he adds a comment significant for the theory of semblance3 "In actuality," he says, "the toes are securely bo!ed, the support of the body is the instep$ :ut that is neither here nor there the body is supposed to appear &eightless, and thus, from the artistic standpoint, to be so$"//

E#en the toe dance, so much despised by Isadora Duncan and by the schools she inspired, is essentially creati#e, not athletic$ The art of dancing is a &ider category than any particular conception that may go#ern a tradition, a style, a sacred or secular use &ider than the cult dance, the fol0 dance, the ballroom dance, the ballet, the modern "e!% pressi#e dance$" Isadora, con#inced that the e!hibition of personal feeling &as the only legitimate theme for terpsichorean art, could not understand her o&n reactions to the dancing of Aschins0y and .a#lo#a, &hich capti#ated her despite her beliefs and ideals$ "I am an enemy of the :allet," she &rote, "&hich I consider a false and preposterous art, in fact, outside the pale of all art$ :ut it &as impossible not to applaud the fairyli0e figure of Aschins0y as she flitted across the stage more li0e a lo#ely bird or butterfly than a human being$ $ $ $ 4ome days later I recei#ed a #isit from the lo#ely .a#lo#a and again I &as presented &ith a bo! to see her in the ra#ishing :allet of Gisele$ Although the mo#ement of these dances &as against e#ery artistic and human feeling, again I could not resist &armly applauding the e!)uisite apparition of .a#lo#a as she floated o#er the stage that e#ening$"/8 Ho& a ballet could be "ra#ishing," in &hich e#ery mo#ement &as contrary to art and human feeling, &as a problem that she e#idently did not pursue in her theoretical musings$ Had she thought more deeply about her o&n &ords, she might ha#e found the ans&er, the 0ey to the lo#eliness of Aschins0y and .a#lo#a and their entire "false and preposterous art," and the #ery thing her o&n dance seems to ha#e lac0ed most grie#ously3 the dancer as an apparition$ The play of #irtual po&ers manifests itself in the motions of illusory personages, &hose passionate gestures fill the &orld they create%a re% mote, rationally indescribable &orld in &hich forces seem to become #isible$ :ut &hat ma0es them #isible is not itself al&ays #isual hear% ing and 0inesthesia support the rhythmic, mo#ing image, to such an e!tent that the dance illusion e!ists for the dancer as &ell as for the spectators$ In tribal society some dances include all persons present, lea#ing no spectators at all$ ?o&, a person dancing has #isual impres% sions, but ne#er the actual impression of the performance as a &hole$
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A solitary dancer does not e#en see other members of some group in &hich he ta0es a part$ 1et dance is essentially addressed to sight$ I 0no& of no cult that practices dancing in total dar0ness, nor of any accomplished dancer &ho is blind$ ?ear dar0ness is often courted, but precisely (or its visual e((ects, the blurring and melting of forms, the mystery of
blac0 spaces$ Moonlight and firelight are used by primiti#e dancers as artfully as footlights and colored spotlights by modern choreographers, e!cept that the dance is brought to the light source, so to spea0, so that a gi#en illumination is e!ploited, instead of bringing prescribed light effects to bear on a performance for &hich they are deliberately in#ented$/<

The solution to this difficulty lies in the reali*ation that the basic abstraction is #irtual gesture, and that gesture is both a #isible and a muscular phenomenon, i$e$ may be seen or felt$ Conscious gesture is essentially communication, li0e language$ In total dar0ness it loses its communicati#e character$ If &e commune &ith oursel#es, &e imagine its #isible character, and this, of course, &e can do also in the dar0 but to a blind person conscious gesture is as artificial as speech to the deaf$ Bur most direct 0no&ledge of gestic e!pression is muscular feel% ing, but its purpose is to be seen$ Conse)uently the illusion of gesture may be made in terms of #isual or 0inesthetic appearance but &here only one sense is actually appealed to, the other must be satisfied by implication$ :ecause dance%gesture is symbolic, ob+ectified, e#ery dance &hich is to ha#e balletic significance primarily for the people engaged in it is necessarily ecstatic$ It must ta0e the dancer "out of himself," and it may do this by an astounding #ariety of means3 by the merest suggestion of motion, &hen physical preparations ha#e been made in ad#ance through drin0, drugs, or fasting by music at once monotonous and e!citing, such, for instance, as the der#ishes listen to for a long period before they arise by strong musical and physical rhythms that enthrall the dancer almost instantly in a romantic unrealism (this is the usual techni)ue of the secular "ballroom" dance, or2most primiti#e and natural of all2by &ea#ing the "magic circle" round the altar or the deity, &hereby e#ery dancer is e!alted at once to the status of a mystic$ His e#ery motion becomes dance% gesture because he has become a spirit, a dance%personage, &hich may be more or less than a man2more, if the appeal of the tribe is concentrated in his particular performance less, if he simply merges his mo#ing limbs &ith the greater mo#ement of the ,eigen, and his mind &ith the #ague and a&ful .resence that fills the circle$ E#ery dancer sees the dance sufficiently to let his imagination grasp it as a &hole and &ith his o&n body%feeling he understands the gestic forms that are its inter&o#en, basic elements$ He cannot see his o&n form as such, but he 'nows his appearance2the lines described by his body are implied in the shifts of his #ision, e#en if he is dancing alone, and are guaranteed by the rhythmic play of his muscles, the freedom &ith &hich his impulses spend themsel#es in complete and intended mo#ements$ He sees the world in which his body dances, and that is the primary illusion of his &or0 in this closed realm he de#elops his ideas$ The dance in its pristine strength is completely creati#e$ .o&ers be% come apparent in a frame&or0 of space and time but these dimensions, li0e e#erything else in the balletic realm, are not actual$ -ust as spatial phenomena in music are more li0e plastic space than li0e the spaces of geometry or of geography, /C so in dance both space and
time, as they enter into the primary illusion, and occasionally appear in their o&n

right as secondary illusions, are al&ays created elements, i$e$ #irtual forms$ .rimiti#e dance ma0es its o&n realm, and assures its o&n duration, chiefly by the unbro0en tension of its circling and shifting, its acrobatic balances and rhythmic completion of mo#ements$ The "body set" of the dancers, maintained by the ecstatic concentration for great feats of leaping, &hirling, stamping piston%li0e beats, holds the time structure together, and the acti#ity itself gi#es rise to the tonal accompaniment that is at once a musical by%product and a strong binding de#ice$ The Indian's "ho&%ho&%ho&" is an integral part of the &ar dance, as the fa0ir's hum is of his mystic actions$ 4achs points out that animal dances are )uite naturally accompanied by sounds reminiscent of the represented animal, and remar0s3 "The genuine animal dance has need of no other music$" The tonal element is a dance acti#ity, a means of filling and #itali*ing the time frame of the performance$
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not re)uire a #ery &ell%made musical fabric to emphasi*e and assure it fragments of song and the atonal beats of stic0s or drums, mere punctuations of sound, suffice$ The bodily sensations of the dancers, merging &ith sights and sounds, &ith the &hole 0aleidoscope of figures (fre)uently mas0ed, and mystic gestures, hold the great rhythm together$ The indi#idual dancer dances not so much &ith his fello&s2they are all transformed into dance%beings, or e#en into mere parts of a daemonic organism 2as he dances &ith the &orld he dances &ith the music, &ith his o&n #oice, &ith his spear that balances in his hand as though by its o&n po&er, &ith light, and rain, and earth$ :ut a ne& demand is made on the dance &hen it is to enthrall not only its o&n performers, but a passi#e audience (rustic audiences that furnish the music by singing and clapping are really participants they are not included here,$ The dance as a spectacle is generally regarded as a product of degeneration, a seculari*ed form of &hat is really a re% ligious art$/G :ut it is really a natural de#elopment e#en &ithin the confines of the
"mythic consciousness," for dance magic may be pro+ected to a spectator, to cure, purify, or initiate him$ Tylor describes a sa#age initiation ceremony in &hich the boys solemnly &itnessed a dog dance performed by the older men$ 4hamans, medicine men, &itch doctors and magicians commonly perform dances for their magical effects not on the dancer, but on the a&ed spectators$ =rom the artistic standpoint this use of the dance is a great ad#ance o#er the purely ecstatic, because addressed to an audience the dance becomes essentially and not only incidentally a spectacle, and thus finds its true creati#e aim2to ma0e the &orld of .o&ers #isible$ This aim dictates all sorts of ne& techni)ues, because bodily e!periences, muscular tensions, momentum, the feelings of precarious balance or the impulsions of unbalance, can no longer be counted on to gi#e form and continuity to the dance$ E#ery such 0inesthetic element must be replaced by #isual, Musical and pictorial effects, &hich ha#e been &idely and #ariously regarded as the essence, the aim, or the controlling models of the dancer's art, seem rather to ha#e been de#eloped )uite independently of plastic arts or of harmony, as dance elements &ith structural, purely balletic functions$ :ecause of the comple! nature of its primary illusion2the appearance of .o&er2and of its basic abstraction2#irtual gesture, primiti#e dance holds a complete hegemony o#er all artistic materials and de#ices, though &ithout e!ploiting them beyond its o&n needs$ There are se#eral dancers, and also aestheticians of the dance, &hose &ritings bear &itness to the importance of terpsichorean space and time, and to their essentially artistic, illusory nature$ Hanns Hasting, in a study entitled "Music for the Dance," ma0es this telling obser#ation3 "5hen a dancer spea0s of space, he does not only, nor e#en principally mean actual space, but space &hich signifies something immaterialistic, unreal, imaginary, &hich goes beyond the #isible outlines of one or more gestures$" /E

The real profundity, ho&e#er, of the relationship among the arts by #irtue of their characteristic symbolic creations is attested by a passage in Rudolf 4onner's Musi' und Tan2, &here he says3 "Bn lo&er cultural
le#els, dance is a typical symbol of space, and begets an intense space%e!perience$ =or there is, as yet, no place of &orship sa#e possibly a plotted field (sacred gro#e,, a holy ground$ :ut from the moment &hen, by the building of temples, a ne&, deep space% e!perience is created in terms of another symbolism, dance as a IspatialJ cult ceremony seems to be superseded by the forces of architecture$ $ $ $" /K

The relation bet&een dance and music is more ob#ious, and has been studied far more e!hausti#ely$ 5hether a dance is accompanied by music or not, it al&ays mo#es in musical time; the recognition of this natural
relation bet&een the t&o arts underlies their uni#ersal affinity$ In highly ecstatic performances the temporal autonomy of the dance does

need for musical forms &hich create the same musical space$" Although such emphasis on spatial #alues may sometimes be ad#antageous, I cannot agree &ith the &riter on the general principle of parallelism &hich he de#elops from this point on$ There is no reason &hy generally the space effect achie#ed in dance should be audible, or histrionic elements to create a comparable ecstatic illusion for the audience$ At this stage, the problems of the tribal or cult dance are practically those of the modern ballet3 to brea0 the beholder's sense of actuality and set up the #irtual image of a different &orld to create a play of forces that con(ronts the percipient, instead of engulfing him,
as it does &hen he is dancing, and his o&n acti#ity is a ma+or factor in ma0ing the dance illusion$ The presence of an audience gi#es dance its artistic discipline and &here this audience commands great respect, for instance &here the dancers perform to royal spectators, choreographic art soon becomes a highly conscious, formali*ed, and e!pert presentation$ It may, ho&e#er, still be religious in the Brient it has ne#er entirely lost its cult significance, although its long tradition has brought it, by this time, to a state of technical perfection and cultural sophistication that our o&n balletic efforts cannot match, and indeed, our balletic thin0ing probably cannot fathom$ "In southeastern Asia," says Dr$ 4achs, "&here the &rench dance has mo#ed into a more restricted pro#ince, the limbs are methodically &renched out of +oint$ $ $ $ "In Cambodia, as also in :urma, the arms and legs are bent at an angle, the shoulder blades are pushed together, the abdomen is contracted, and the body as a &hole is in 'bit and brace position'$ $ $ $ "There is a #ery conscious relationship to the puppet dance2&here according to absolute standards the dance as a high art has reached one of its pea0s2in the dances of the 4ultan families of -a#a, and, some&hat degenerated, in those of the -a#anese professional dancers, &ho use the former dances as a model$ =or the dance of li#ing men and &omen on the stage of -a#a and the presentation in pantomime on a &hite screen of old hero stories by means of dolls cut out of leather, ha#e stood for centuries side by side stylistically and other&ise$ $ $ $ The -a#anese dance is almost in t&o dimensions, and since e#ery limb of the body must re#eal itself complete and unforeshortened, it is incomparably e!pressi#e$"/9

4uch dancing is designed entirely to present a unified and complete appearance to


an audience$ 1et the most theatrical dance may still ha#e religious connotations$ "According to the strict Hindu #ie&, dance &ith%

345& cit&, pp$ CE%C6$ out prayer is considered #ulgar he &ho &itnesses it &ill be childless and &ill
be reincarnated in the body of an animal$" /7

The most important effect of the passi#e audience on the history of dancing is, I thin0, the separation of the dance as spectacle from the dance as acti#ity, and the conse)uent separate histories of these t&o distinct phases$ =rom one &e ha#e deri#ed the ballet, &hich is entirely

a professional affair, and from the other the social dance, &hich is almost as completely an amateur pursuit$ The tap dance and clog dance hold an intermediate position li0e the s)uare dance, they are really fol0 art, not &holly di#orced from the #illage dance in &hich the audience participates by singing, and sometimes clapping, stamping, or +igging$ As such they ha#e really not de#eloped under the influence of the passi#e audience, but belong to a more primiti#e order$ .erhaps this has something to do &ith their re#i#al and popularity in our society, &hich bears many mar0s of primiti#ism2fairly crude face painting, artificially altered eyebro&s, dyed finger% and toe%nails, etc$ a lo#e of louder and louder noises, music learned from sa#age peoples a strong tendency to myth and cult acti#ity in political life, and a return to all%out, tribal soldiery instead of the more speciali*ed reliance on professional armies that had allo&ed se#enteenth% and eighteenth%century Europe to de#elop an essentially ci#il culture$ :e that as it may, the separation of stage dancing from the purely ecstatic too0 place long ago2probably much longer ago in some parts of Asia than in Europe2and e#er since this schism, the t&o 0inds of dance ha#e follo&ed different lines of de#elopment, and each has been affected in its o&n &ay by the great trauma that 5estern ci#ili*ation has of necessity inflicted on all the arts2seculari*ation$ 5hy, &ithout moti#es of &orship or magic%ma0ing, did people go on dancing at allH :ecause the image of .o&ers is still, in some sense, a &orld image to them$ To the "mythic consciousness" it presents reality, nature to a secular mind it sho&s a romantic &orld to the 0no&ing psychologist this is the infantile "&orld" of spontaneous, irresponsible reactions, &ish%potency, freedom2the dream &orld$ The eternal popularity of dance lies in its ecstatic function, today as in earliest times but instead of transporting the dancers from a profane to a sacred state,
67

0bid&, p$ 88<$

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it no& transports them from &hat they ac0no&ledge as "reality" to a realm of romance$ There are )uite genuine "#irtual po&ers" created e#en in social dance artistically they may be tri#ial2merely the magnetic forces that unite a group, most simply a couple, of dancers, and the po&ers of rhythm, that "carry" the body through space &ith seemingly less than its usual re)uirement of effort2but they are con#incing$ =or this reason e#en social dancing is intrinsically art, though it does not achie#e more than elementary forms before it is put to non%artistic uses 2delusion, self%deception, escape$ The dream &orld is essentially a fabric of erotic forces$ Bften the dance techni)ue ser#es merely to set up its primary illusion of free, non%physical po&ers, so that a daydream may be "started" by the dancer's ecstatic remo#al from actuality, and after that the dance becomes confused and ma0es &ay for self%e!pression pure and simple$ Dancing &hich ends in ma0ing actual indecent passes at the girl, li0e the :a#arian chuhplattler, in hugging and 0issing, as the early &alt* usually did, or e#en )uite
innocently in a game of genuine competition2trying to catch a ring, trying to escape

from a circle, etc$2such dancing is merely instrumental$ Its creati#ity is the lo&est possible, and as soon as it has ser#ed a practical purpose the dance itself collapses$ :ut this is an e!treme picture of the degeneration of dance due to seculari*ation$ Its normal fate is simply the shift from religious to romantic uses$ Nndoubtedly the artistic #irtues of some religiously ecstatic dances, practiced year in, year out by dancing sects, are no greater than those of the saraband, the minuet, the &alt*, or the tango$ In fact, the di#ine .o&ers contacted in traditional mystic dancing are often but #aguely distinguishable from the erotic forces, the bonds of lo#e and the communing sel#es, or the freedom from gra#ity, &hich enthusiastic ballroom dancers e!perience$ The most important, from the balletic standpoint, is the last2the sense of freedom from gra#ity$ This ingredient in the dance illusion is untouched by the shift from cult #alues to entertainment #alues$ It is a direct and forceful effect of rhythmici*ed gesture, enhanced by the stretched posture that not only reduces the friction surfaces of the foot, but also restricts all natural bodily motions2the free use of arms and shoulders, the unconscious turnings of the trun0, and especially the automatic responses of the leg muscles in locomotion2and thereby produces a ne& body% feeling, in &hich e#ery muscular tension registers itself as something 0inesthetically ne&, peculiar to the dance$ In a body so disposed, no mo#ement is automatic if any action goes for&ard spontaneously, it is induced by the rhythm set up in imagination, and prefigured in the first, intentional acts, and not by practical habit$ In a person &ith a penchant for the dance, this body%feeling is intense and complete, in#ol#ing e#ery #oluntary muscle, to the fingertips, the throat, the eyelids$ It is the sense of #irtuosity, a0in to the sense of articulation that mar0s the talented performer of music$ The dancer's body is ready (or rhythm&

The rhythm that is to turn e#ery mo#ement into gesture, and the dancer himself into a creature liberated from the usual bonds of gra#itation and muscular inertia, is most readily established by music$ In the highly serious, in#ocati#e, religious dance, the music often had to establish a complete trance before the dancers mo#ed but in the secular pleasure%dance the illusion to be created is so elementary, the gesture pattern so simple, that a mere metric rhythm is usually enough to acti#ate the performers$ T&o bars, four bars, the feet begin to tap, the partners to con+oin their motions, and the ecstasy builds up in repetition, #ariation, and elaboration, supported by a pulse beat of sound more felt than heard$ .opular dancing so moti#ated, carried on in a spirit of romance, escape, relief from the burden of actuality, &ithout any spiritually strenuous achie#ement2that is to say, the erotic and entertaining pleasure%dance2has begotten a corresponding genre of musical composition, originally intended merely as part of the dance3 the &hole literature of "dance music$" This in turn has produced musical forms &hich are independent, today, of that original connection3 the suite, sonata, and symphony$ E#en the &alt*, the tango, the rumba, ha#e suggested &or0s of music that are not really intended to be danced$8@ :ut such de#elopments are musical e#ents, not balletic$ The dance, in
relation to the concert suite that begins &ith an intrata and eifds &ith a gigue, ser#es as a musical motif, &hich is fairly &ell dropped by the time Haydn ta0es the sonata in hand$ Real "dance music" is a different thing, and e#ery age has its har#est of it music e!pressly fashioned to be "s&allo&ed" by the simple, entranc%
8@

A study of this influence of dance on the history of music may be found in li#elyn .orter's Music Through the Dance&

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different notions &hich dancers and aestheticians ha#e held as to &hat is the essence of dance$ E#ery one of its secondary illusions has been hailed as the true 0ey to its nature, assimilating the &hole phenomenon of dance to the realm &herein the gi#en illusion is

primary dance has been called an art of space, an art of time, a 0ind of poetry, a 0ind of drama$ 8/ :ut it is none of those things, nor is it the mother
of any other arts2not e#en drama, as I thin0 a study of dramatic creation &ill presently sho&$88

As a rule, the dancers &ho ta0e dance motion to be essentially musical are those &ho thin0 mainly in terms of the solo dance, and are not )uite &eaned a&ay from the sub+ecti#e, 0inesthetic e!perience of dance forms as the full apprehension of them$ Musical rhythm enters some&hat more directly and insistently into the 0inesthetic perception of one's o&n gestures than into the ob+ecti#e perception of gestures performed by others, no matter ho& &ell the music is used in the latter case$ Bn the other hand, those &ho regard dance as an art of space are usually the true stage dancers and masters of ballet$ 1et both parties are misled by their a&areness of secondary illusions, &hich are really de#ices that support the total creation or enhance its e!pressi#eness$ In the possibility of such passing artistic effects, &hich really suggest, for the moment, an e!cursion into some different realm of art, lies the clue to one of the deepest relations among the great art genders2the 0inship of their primary illusions$ This relation, ho&e#er, is al&ays 0inship and not identity, so that t&o radically distinct orders ne#er merge a &or0 ne#er belongs to more than one realm, and it al&ays establishes that one completely and immediately, as its #ery substance$ :ut the distinct appearance of a simpler illusion, e$g$ pure space or pure time, in (he conte!t of the more comple! illusion of dance or of literature,8< often effects a sudden re#elation of emoti#e import by
stressing a formal aspect and abstracting it, &hich ma0es its feeling%content apparent$ The same emphasis is sometimes achie#ed by passing momentarily to another mode of I he primary illusion 4ulli#an remar0ed that sculptural decoration in in hitecture ser#es for the intensification of feeling, 8C and D$ G$ -ames,

%Bf$ Chap$ //, especially pp$ /67%/G8$ %%4oe belo&, Chap$ /G$
8O, 8

Thc reader is referred to the ne!t chapter for an account of the literary Illusion$

9:indergarten Chats, p$ /99$

ing, but ephemeral, amateur dance of the ballroom$ Nsually it is artis% tically as negligible as the romantic creations it ser#es$ :ut here2as in all the labyrinthine by&ays of art2a piece of music so concei#ed may be a &or0 of true art$ And then it does something to the dance, as soon as it comes to the ears of a gifted dancer for the social dance, too, has all the possibilities of serious art$ There is no theoretical limit to the e!pressi#eness of the E!hibition Dance$ Its one re)uirement for ob+ecti#e significance and beauty is2balletic genius$ To ma0e the dance a &or0 of art re)uires that translation of 0ines% thetic e!perience into #isual and audible elements, &hich I mentioned abo#e as the artistic discipline imposed by the presence of passi#e spectators$ The dancer, or dancers, must transform the stage for the audience as &ell as for themsel#es into an autonomous, complete, #irtual realm, and all motions into a play of #isible forces in unbro0en, #irtual time, &ithout effecting either a &or0 of plastic art or of "melos$" :oth space and time, as perceptible factors, disappear almost entirely in the dance illusion, ser#ing to beget the appearance of interacting po&ers rather than to be themsel#es apparent$ That is to say, music must be s&allo&ed by mo#ement, &hite color, pictorial composition, costume, decor 2all the really plastic elements2become

the frame and foil of gesture$ The sudden effects of pure time or perfect space that sometimes occur are almost immediately merged again into the life of the dance$ The primary illusion of dance is a peculiarly rich e!perience, +ust as immediate as that of music or of the plastic arts, but more comple!$ :oth space and time are implicitly created &ith it$ 4tory runs through it li0e a thread, &ithout lin0ing it at all to literature impersonation and miming are often systematically in#ol#ed in its basic abstraction, #irtual gesture, but dance pantomime is not drama the mummery of mas0s and costumes, to &hich its thematic gestures belong, is depersonali*ing rather than humanly interesting$ Dance, the art of the 4tone Age, the art of primiti#e life par e!cellence, holds a hegemony o#er all art materials$ 1et li0e all art it can harbor no ra& material, no things or facts, in its illusory &orld$ The #irtual form must be organic and autonomous and di#orced from actuality$ 5hate#er enters into it does so in radical artistic transformation3 its space is plastic, its time is musical, its themes are fantasy, its actions symbolic$ This accounts, I thin0, for the many 8o6
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in 'epticism and Poetry, claims that each one of 4ha0espeare's central characters
achie#es a "depersonali*ation of feeling" in a lyrical passage, &hich is really the apotheosis of the play$8E

In the dance, the rich fabric of its primary illusion confuses the theorist, but to the creati#e artist e#erything is part of his dance that can ser#e to ma0e the semblance of psychic and mystic .o&ers an image of the "po&ers" directly felt in all organic life, physical or mental, acti#e or passi#e$ "4trong and con#incing art," said Mary 5igman, "has ne#er arisen from theories$ It has al&ays gro&n organically$ Its carriers and supporters ha#e been those fe& creati#e natures for &hom a path of &or0 has been determined by destiny$"89 Today, in our secular culture, those artists are the dancers of the stage, of the Russian ballet and its deri#ati#es, of the #arious schools of "Modern Dance," and occasionally of the re#ue, &hen some number in its potpourri of good and bad entertainment rises to unscheduled heights, through the inad#ertant engagement of a genius$ The &or0 of dance composition is as clear and constructi#e, as imaginati#e and as contri#ed as any plastic or musical composition it springs from an idea of feeling, a matri! of symbolic form, and gro&s organically li0e e#ery other &or0 of art$ It is curious to compare the further &ords of Mary 5igman, in the essay from &hich I ha#e +ust )uoted, &ith the testimonies of musicians8G on the creati#e process3
"All dance construction arises from the dance e!perience &hich the performer is destined to incarnate and &hich gi#es his creation its true stamp$ The e!perience shapes the 0ernel, the basic accord of his dance e!istence around &hich all else crystalli*es$ Each creati#e person carries &ith him his o&n characteristic theme$ It is &aiting to be aroused through e!perience and completes itself during one &hole creati#e cycle in manifold radiations, #ariations and transformations$" 89

The substance of such dance creation is the same .o&er that en% chanted ancient ca#es and forests, but today &e in#o0e it &ith full 0no&ledge of its illusory status, and therefore &ith &holly artistic in%

86

"The ?e&QGerman Dance," in Modern Dance, p$ 8@$

tent$ The realm of magic around the altar &as bro0en, ine#itably and properly, by the gro&th of the human mind from mythic conception to philosophical and scientific thought$ The dance, that most sacred instrument of sorcery, &orship, and prayer, bereft of its high office, suffered the degeneration of all cast%off rituals into irrational custom or social play$ :ut it has left us the legacy of its great illusions, and &ith them the challenge to an artistic imagination no longer dependent on delusions for its moti#e po&ers$ Bnce more human beings dance &ith high seriousness and fer#or the temple dance and the rain dance &ere ne#er more re#erent than the &or0 of our de#out artists$ 4erious dance is #ery ancient, but as art it is relati#ely ne&, e!cept possibly in some old Asiatic cultures$ And as art it creates the image of that pulsating organic life &hich formerly it &as e!pected to gi#e and sustain$ "The image &hich has assumed form gi#es e#idence of the primary #ision concei#ed through the inner e!perience$ That creation &ill e#er be the most pure and forceful in its effect, in &hich the most minute detail spea0s of the #ibrating, animated unity &hich called forth the idea$ The shape of the indi#idual's inner e!perience $ $ $ &ill also ha#e the uni)ue, magnetic po&er of transmission &hich ma0es it possible to dra& other persons, the participating spectators, into the magic circle of creation$" 87

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