DANCING is the expression of inward feelings by means of
rhythmical movements of the body. Usually these movements are
in measured step, and are accompanied by music.

In some form or another dancing is as old as the world, and has been
practiced by rude as well as by civilized peoples. The passion for
amateur dancing always has been strongest among savage nations,
who have made equal use of it in religious rites and in war. With
the savages the dancers work themselves into a perfect frenzy, into
a kind of mental intoxication. But as civilization has advanced
dancing has modified its form, becoming more orderly and
rhythmical. The early Greeks made the art of dancing into a system,
expressive of all the different passions. For example, the dance of
the Furies, so represented, would create complete terror among
those who witnessed them. The Greek philosopher, Aristotle, ranked
dancing with poetry, and said that certain dancers, with rhythm applied
to gesture, could express manners, passions, and actions. The most
eminent Greek sculptors studied the attitude of the dancers for their
art of imitating the passions. In a classical Greek song, Apollo, one
of the twelve greater gods, the son of Zeus the chief god, and the god
of medicine, music, and poetry, was called The Dancer. In a Greek
line Zeus himself is represented as dancing. In Sparta, a province of
ancient Greece, the law compelled parents to exercise their children
in dancing from the age of five years. They were led by grown men,
and sang hymns and songs as they danced. In very early times a
Greek chorus, consisting of the whole population of the city, would
meet in the market-place to offer up thanksgivings to the god of the
country. Their jubilees were always attended with hymn-singing and