Dance is an art of human movement. However, the human body movement, must be refined, organized and beautified human body movement - dance human body movement. In addition, belonging to the category of human movement art also has many kinds, such as acrobatics, mime, human sculpture, rhythmic gymnastics and so on. Therefore, dance is different from other human movement art is the main aspect: it is to dance movement as the main means of artistic expression, focusing on the expression of language and text or other means of artistic expression is difficult to express people's inner deep spiritual world - delicate emotions, profound ideas, distinctive character, and man and nature, man and society, man and man and the conflict between people and the people themselves, to create a vivid dance image that can be perceived by the people. To create a vivid dance image that can be perceived by people, in order to express the aesthetic feelings and ideals of the dance authors (choreographers and dancers), and to reflect the aesthetic attributes of life. In addition, due to the human body movements without stopping the flow of the characteristics of change, it must be in a certain space (stage or square) and a certain amount of time; and in the dance activities, generally have to be accompanied by music, to wear a specific costume, some dances but also to hold a variety of props, if it is performed on the stage, the lights and scenery is also indispensable. Therefore, it can also be said that dance is a spatial, temporal and comprehensive dynamic modeling art.
In the eyes of philosophers and aesthetes, the art of dance has been elevated to a kind of life, even the art of life. In the ancient social life, there is almost nothing more important than dance - marriage and funeral, fertility and sacrifice, sowing and harvesting, driving away diseases and evil spirits, all of which are inseparable from dance. Dance became a simple way of life and a means of perceiving the world for ancient peoples. In the north of New Caledonia, traders in market stores took turns to come out and dance in order to display their goods; the inhabitants of North Queensland danced a festive ring dance to catch lice one by one; the chiefs of Cameroon, Africa, even sang and danced their way to the execution ground when they were sentenced to death for betrayal. The dance of modern society is a shrinking relative to the dance of antiquity. So remembering the journey of this mother of arts becomes a trek to trace the passion of life and revitalize the culture of the human body. The German-Jewish scholar Kurt Sachs Sachs has historiographically divided the world's dances
into the Stone Age, the Upper Paleolithic, the Middle Paleolithic, the Waltz of the 18th and 19th centuries, the Polka Era, and the Tango Era of the 20th century. And in Dance Morphology (by Yu Ping), the cultural pattern of traditional dance in the whole world establishes eight cultural circles-Chinese Dance Culture Circle, Indo-Malay Dance Culture Circle, Indian Dance Culture Circle, Malay-Polynesian Dance Culture Circle, Arab Dance Culture Circle, Latin American Mixed Dance Culture Circle, Black African Dance Culture Circle, and European Dance Culture Circle.
Origin of the art of dance
According to art historians, the earliest art produced by mankind was dance.