History of Dance

History :

Where does music come from? Where does the dance come from? It all comes from that natural and spiritual life that is within ...... music touches our innermost being and in that way produces new life, a life that gives exaltation to the whole being, raising it to that perfection in which lies the fulfillment of human life.

Dance History is difficult to access due to fact that dance does not often leave behind clearly identifiable physical artifacts that last over millennia, such as stone tools, hunting implements or cave paintings. It is not possible to say when dance became part of human culture. In early manuscript , dance is the Natya Shastra on which is based the modern interpretation of Classical Indian Dance.

One of the earliest structured uses of dances may have been in the performance & in the telling of myths. It was also sometimes used to show feelings for one of the opposite gender. It also linked to the origin of "love making". Dance was one of the methods of passing these stories down from generation to generation. Another early use of dance may have been as a precursor to ecstatic trance states in healing rituals. Dance is used for this purpose by many cultures from Brazilian Rain-forest to the Kalahari desert.  

Dance of the 20th Century in India : 

Hazrat Inayat Khan (1882-1927), who first brought the message of universal Sufism to the West in 1910. Hazrat Inayat Khan brought the Sufi Message of Love, Harmony and Beauty to Europe and the U.S. from India in the years 1910 – 1926 and his teachings have blossomed in a number of Western Sufi lineages. He was born into a family of musicians and through the guidance of the spiritual teachers of India with whom he was associated, he became the musician of the soul, for his work was mostly performed in the higher spheres, tuning people to their real pitch. Hazrat Inayat Khan called for the awakening of the individual as the awakening of the consciousness of humanity to the divinity in every person, our inheritance of the divine perfection. He offered beautifully spoken teachings on the unity of religious ideals and the one source of all human religious expression. These teachings in particular inspire the Dances of Universal Peace.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

During the reign of the last Mughals and Nawabs of Oudh dance fell down to the status of Nautch, an unethical sensuous thing of courtesans. Later, linking dance with immoral trafficking and prostitution, British rule prohibited public performance of dance. Many disapproved in it. In 1947, India won her freedom and for dance an ambiance where it could regain its past glory. Classical form and regional distinctions were re-discovered, ethnic specialties were honored and by synthesizing them with the individual talents of the masters in the line and fresh innovations emerged dance with a new face but with classicism of the past.