The purpose of this post is not to suggest learning the art of ballet, dance or any of its equivalents, nor to transmit how the human body works in movement -during these rhythmic, cadence, practices, nor how its mechanical parts such as muscles, bones, joints, etc. work. Our wish is to transmit the importance of the walking exercise, the upright movement, looking at it from another perspective – anthropological and artistic – from what dance and ballet represent, since these are performed with movements very similar and equivalent to the exercise of walking, besides, for the majority of human beings, dance and ballet are very pleasant.
In order to explain the subject that concerns us, I must point out that there are two specific terms that differentiate in certain aspects this form of movement that the human body uses to express itself naturally: ballet and dance.
Ballet and dance are terms that are often used interchangeably, but there are subtle differences between them. Dance refers to a form of bodily expression in which rhythmic and paced (cadenced) movements are used to accompany music. Dancing can be a social or entertainment activity, and can have a variety of purposes, such as expressing emotions, celebrating a special occasion, keeping fit, or simply having fun. Dancing is usually performed between two people, a man and a woman.
On the other hand, ballet is an art form that focuses on body expression and choreographic movement. Ballet can be a way of acting out (telling) stories or conveying emotions, and can be accompanied by music or performed silently. Unlike dance, ballet is often considered an art form and can be the subject of academic study and analysis.
While dance focuses on rhythmic movements that accompany music, ballet is represented by artistic expression through rhythmic movements and may or may not be accompanied by music. Ballet is performed individually or in a group, by two or more people, of the same or different sex. However, it depends on which human group is being referred to in this context for these definitions to be correct and accepted.
To be more specific in the English language, the word “dance” is used for the first bodily expression described, and the word “ballet” is used for the second bodily expression referred to, although, depending on the context, the word “dance” is also used. To differentiate between them when naming them, we can say “dance” to refer to dance in general, while for “ballet” we can also use “dance” but with a descriptive adjective, such as “modern dance” or “contemporary dance”, referring to a specific type of dance.
For example, “I love to dance salsa” and “I’m taking ballet classes” are examples of how the terms could be differentiated in English.
Regardless of this differentiation, both words mean a rhythmic movement of the body responding to a musical or percussive sound, or to the body’s own expression. In this Post it will not be necessary to mark this difference in any of its sections, however, it is convenient to be aware of this distinction, for the own knowledge and understanding required for the subject.
In our case, the use of the 2 words represents the same benefits, therefore their use is indistinct.
Although the definitions of ballet and dance, are different, everything mentioned in this post will be applicable to both practices, as both ballet and dance are performed with rhythmic “movements”. Dance is the natural movement of the human being, which responds to a personal rhythm (or a musical one) and is performed either by means of established steps and sequences or only by means of an individual beat. Ballet is the dance that is developed following a musical rhythm and established steps and sequences to be performed individually or in a group; however, it can also be practiced following one’s own cadences.
I repeat: In this Post, it will not be necessary to make any difference between these two words, as they will be considered identical, in all their sections, as they generate the same effects and benefits on the human body and mind.
Now, in order to continue developing this topic, it is necessary to consider the relevance of anthropological, spiritual and artistic in the practice of dance.
In this post, the word “dance” is generally used, not “ballet”. Only in specific cases is the word ballet used.
THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL: Let’s remember that -according to our interpretation- the dance is born by the innate and imperious necessity in the human being to walk -a dynamism that transmits movement to the body and the brain, stimulating the mind and the spirit- and this necessity is sharpened in a very remote time, when the human being stopped being nomadic and he begins to imitate the animals, giving new impulses to the walking, same that provoke the emergence of the dance. In the Post TOTEM AND WALKING-PART I, ANTHROPOLOGICAL ASPECTS, I express: “Walking was analogically preserved as a spiritual practice within the Totemist system. That imperious need to wander, whose beginnings are 2 million years old, we managed to satisfy it spiritually by imitating the animals in their walking and with dance; a rhythmic and cadenced dance, which communicates with a percussive rhythm to their body with the external natural environment…”.
We already commented in Post WALKING AND THE ARCHETYPE “MAGIC” that: “The displacement that is achieved through the archetype ‘Magic’, the soul or spirit of the individual -or group- that is involved in the process of the archetypal images, usually participated by disguising with animal or vegetable costumes, with or without mask, and with rhythms and movements (dance) that resembled the animals he wanted and needed to be present in the ceremony or in the magical ritual, so there is always a relationship between the clothing (or the cave painting mentioned above) that is usually called totemism and the archetype ‘Magic’”.
Walking is a constant flow that renews our existence (Post WALKING AND ITS SYMBOLISM), in the same way that dance does. This arises in a more complex way than walking, perhaps because of the same crisis that the human being begins to suffer in his new sedentary state, because he needs to communicate the distancing that his unconscious suffers with his spirituality, due to the gradual decrease in his walking.
THE SPIRITUAL: We have already referred to what we conceive as spiritual in Post TOTEM AND WALKING-PART I, ANTHROPOLOGICAL ASPECTS, that although it is related to the religious, it is only a part of the being, the other part is made up of artistic activities. We express: “when I use the word ‘spiritual’ I am not referring exclusively to the religious concept; of course they are intimately related, but they are not equivalent. Religion is an evolved phase of Magic and Totemism, as rightly mentioned by James George Frazer, and spirituality is the sensitive and dynamic force (energy), which escapes the rational and the senses for its quantification, dimensions and power, through which, the human being develops certain forms and religious aspects, but also dozens of other functions and soul operations, which only with this ethereal energy, constitutive of being, can achieve them”.
Dance is an intrinsic activity of Totemism, since it leads it accompanies it during all its preeminent presence, that up to the present time we find some primitive groups practicing it, and during their mystical and spiritual representations, dance is their main activity. We can also observe that in modern times we still observe dance as a complementary activity to others, in an unconscious way, such as the preparation of food, requests, petitions and thanks to the gods, games (Huizinga considers dance as something intrinsically ludic), amusements, etc.
We have commented on the biunivocity between dance and food preparation: “An ancestral parallels are the activities we perform when we prepare the daily meal. Sounds are eternal units that reside in the mind, in the interiority of the being, entities that participate in creation when they are emitted by the voice, or by any other means, and received by the ear. It would seem that someone whispered to us advising us that the highest art, the best art, is the one that is performed with the greatest number of human senses. And therefore, we could venture to say that the rhythm in the bodily movements has a profound and subtle effect on the preparation of the cymbals. That rhythmic faculty, sensation and capacity are determinant in the being for it. I do not wish to expand on this, but I do want to comment that the activities that are developed in the kitchen, tending to elaborate the food, have always been carried out in company of movements and work chants – rhythm and compass – since the most ancient times and in very primitive activities such as grinding, cutting, kneading, mashing, combining, chopping, mincing, scalping, severing, mutilating, dismembering, slicing, carving, mixing, baking, roasting, and all of them surely had a compass, a chant, a rhythm, a melody, a cadence (lapse of time), which accompanied and led them. It was characteristic that these were performed in groups and as the activity of food preparation became more of an individual activity, the custom and its rituals of accompanying them with chants and rhythmic body movements in groups was lost”.
Dance has always accompanied Totemism; both are a constant and inseparable binomial. Dance nurtures totemism and stimulates it with rhythmic movements, which usually imitate the way of walking of the animal they are leading – mammal, bird, or any other species – and the group identifies with that animal, since it is the totem they have chosen. At that stage of human development, they began to consider that all things have souls -living and inanimate beings, such as stones and rocks- so they also imitated “the posture and walking” of some plants (animism).
The most common and traditional practice of performing this dance accompaniment to the totem, is its intense realization until reaching ecstasy, losing to a certain degree the senses, placing oneself in “trance” with impetuous movements, until reaching the spiritual contact with the totem-animal.
At present, in our religious rites of all kinds, these ritual dances persist and are practiced in the same way by beginners and advanced dancers or masters, who through them reach semi-conscious states of mystical type, to achieve the union with their god, which is the ultimate goal of all religion (to unite spiritually with their creator god).
THE ARTISTIC: Thus, dance evolves into a new language of the human being to communicate with the rest of the world, with the things and entities that surround him. A new symbolic form using his whole body: body language (Post WALKING AND ITS SYMBOLISM).
Dance is an artistic manifestation of the human body itself that combines music and plastic; in other words, dance is movement, rhythm and plastic.
Dance is born in its origins from the imperious need of being the human being in movement; as well as from the observation and imitation of the instinctive dances of animals, especially (with much curiosity, attention and seduction) in their rituals of courtship and pre-mating, so the dancer executes his artistic creation using his physical body putting it in a continuous movement, which generates an effect of imitation transmitting it to his spectators. I repeat: when I speak of dance I refer to all its equivalents.
Dance is a corporal movement but as a result of that artistic-spiritual need of walking that transforms into a MOVEMENT OF THE SPIRIT, a MOVEMENT of an ARTISTIC type, as a response to that human need of expression.
From Post LISTENING TO OUR BODY WHILE WE WALK I extract the following quote: “Regarding the conjunction and harmony of the body with music, there are elements that correlate them intimately, such as rhythm, pauses, silences, cadence, compass, and all of them in movement (mobility), vibration, displacement, rest and balance. For those people who are inclined to dance or bailar, and also for those individuals who have been told or they believe that they have no rhythm, this conceptualization we will present in the future Post THE WALK-RWD SYSTEM AND DANCING, because they may not respond to traditional rhythms, however, all human beings have their own musical rhythm, and for that reason the same WALK-RWD System orients them to how to be able to know their own compass that will allow them to accept it and to execute it, because for sure they will be able to discover new rhythms, since this is similar to what happens in the artistic plastic environment, even in the musical one, that discover new styles; those people that accept themselves as they are, with their forms and styles that are unrepeatable. “
In this regard, it is important to note the combination of dance with walking, by observing the backward dance made fashionable by Michael Jackson (singer, songwriter and dancer). Walking backwards we have recommended it in the Post CEREBRAL GYMNASTICS WHILE WALKING. EXERCISES. Of course this dance backwards is artistic, representing a new style, and shows us this binomial (walking-dance) that has arisen from an imperious need in the human being.
Something outstanding that I would like to mention that is related to the topic discussed here, is about the Melopea, which one of its defining meanings is the “rhythmic intonation that is achieved when reciting a text in prose or verse”. Already in Post WALKING IN THE RAIN. PART I, I point out something related to this practice: “I would like to mention that I have two books where I have been able to transmit this dance performed at the same time with poetry and plastic arts; one of them is Tap Tap and Poetry and the other is Tap Tap, Plastic Arts and Poetry, and in both I try to transmit my experience of creating music with the percussion of Tap Tap to harmonize Poetry and Plastic Arts, together, in a tri-artistic harmony. I emphasize that I do not use any commercial music, but I fundamentally musicalize with the percussion of the sound created with the Tap Tap dance”. This is none other than the Melopea, that is, a Composition recited with musical accompaniment, of the commercial type; in this artistic process that I have created with Tap Tap and poetry, together with the Plastic Arts, a harmonic Composition is achieved through the percussive accompaniment of the Tap Tap (dance), the rhythm created with the Tap Tap (music) and the poem that is recited.
In order to better understand this relationship between dance and walking and to better expose its artistic and aesthetic characteristics, I will allow myself to compare it with two artistic genres.
Sculpture is permanent visible matter and is plastic because it forms an outline, a figure, a perimeter and a volume, and its visible permanence makes it unlimited. Dance is also matter and plastic, similar to sculpture but in movement, restricted to the human body and not permanently visible.
Music is sound, rhythm and harmony, but it is not visible. Dance is similar to music because it has rhythm, harmony; it is also visible and has movement, aspects and characteristics that imprint and enhance its primal force.
Movement is to dance what sound is to music. Without movement there is no dance, without sound there is no music.
The symbiosis between dance and walking is precisely that movement.
Now, what is movement?
Let us discover the effects that movement has on the human being.
A simple definition of movement in relation to the human body is the change of position experienced by all or part of it, in space and time.
There are 3 propulsive forms that put us in movement: the external stimuli to our organism, the voluntary and conscious needs, and the unconscious or uncontrolled ones.
All human beings respond to the stimuli we receive from the natural and social environment external to our organism, and one of these ways is to set ourselves in motion. However, we also move voluntarily when we consciously wish to do so, without the need of any stimulus –apparently– from the environment around us. The human body is also in permanent motion in some of the organs, systems and glands, generated by the respective physiological functions themselves.
Let us see and analyze only those that put us in motion by our own efforts, by ourselves voluntarily and consciously.
As we have already commented on other occasions, not enough is known about the psychic processes of the mind. In this same context, we can say that we also do not have complete knowledge about the effects that we have when the body is in movement, in such diverse forms as walking, dancing, running, gymnastics, acrobatics, athletics, etc.
The movement of the body is the element or factor that allows us to have a better tangible knowledge of the different physical parts that compose it with the space that surrounds us and with the external material environment in which we are immersed.
In dance, the human physical body is the unique means of expression that together with the motor skills available to the individual, places it in an artistic and aesthetic representation, combined with rhythm, proportion, balance, space, cadence, symmetry, harmony, light, shadows, etc.
The movement of our body generates corporal changes of position in a continuous way, creating a plastic representation of its changing postures. The body as a systemic and integral whole, conducts itself in its movements in a balanced way with its different physical parts that compose it, which, in a harmonic way, respond to the whole body system.
The human body, with its postures and movements, allows us to perceive and understand its general state and in certain occasions, even the particular states of some of its parts that conform to it, and certain affective and physiological aspects of the person.
Body language expresses physical, emotional and psycho-physiological aspects of the human being.
We could say that the physical body of a specific individual is expressed in every movement and every posture (Post LISTENING TO OUR BODY WHILE WE WALK).
There is a biunivocal relationship -of the marginal type- between the different parts of the body, its movements and postures, with the emotions, moods (psychic), mental, spiritual and affective states of the human being. This body language is constituted by general patterns, however, we can observe some differences -marginal- from one person to another.
Each individual could recognize, if he becomes aware of it, his state of mind with the type and form of movement at a precise moment of analysis-evaluation, as well as the postures that his body has externalized and revealed. The language of movement and posture allows us to have a knowledge of the human body, so we could say that to such a posture and movement corresponds such an emotional state. Thus, our emotions can be expressed through the body, across body language (Post LISTENING TO OUR BODY WHILE WE WALK). Through body language we can perceive, in a permanent way, a mental image, clear and specific, of what we feel, suffer, our afflictions, sadness, joys, emotions, sufferings, etc., all the emotional and affective states that the human being can embody. The body language is a first quality “actor-performer” that characterizes our personality (Future Post THE PERSONALITY DEFINED BY THE RHYTHM OF WALKING).
This language, as a whole, constituted by the different body positions, expresses both the conscious and the unconscious part of the character and personality of the individual.
We can also expand on the latter, saying that the body language of an individual transmits his psychological type, or his character and personality, including fundamentally his temperament. This could be supported with a deeper analysis on the state of relationship that keep certain parts of the body with each other, according to the topic that is being analyzed and evaluated, the psychological type.
During the development of the dance, the analysis must be taken to the context of the movement and of the dynamic optics -if it can be said this way-, that is to say, the cadence, the symmetry, the rhythm, and other more variables, are put in a plastic representation, responding to the artistic and also aesthetic aspect, with the concrete objective that the observation (contemplation) is carried out in a marginalist way (minimal body positions) and of the discrete type (not continuous), to highlight each instant where the body parts execute their dynamics in harmony and to observe them as a continuum of the body in movement.
I must be more explicit of what I wish to mean by the marginal aspect in the movement of the body: The human body when put into movement implies a displacement, at least of a small part of it (of the body). For this, it is necessary that some other parts of it remain static, which will serve as support to the part that is in movement. That is to say, while one part of the body is static, it will serve the other part to impel itself and set itself in a stable and balanced movement. Every marginal movement that develops in the dance – as well as any other spatial physical change of the body – is composed of this relationship – trinomial – of support, impulse and movement. To which we could also add that in this process there is no synkinesis (Sincinesia): involuntary movements associated with other voluntary ones. In dance, this trinomial is aesthetically realized in a complete harmony of movements generated by the human body, where a very small marginal movement is followed by another concatenated one.
In this brief way, we realized the importance of moderate, harmonious and balanced movement in the full development of the human body, and dance is an activity that is generated with pleasure and comfortably (placidly), with these special characteristics.
What we essentially wanted to convey is that these fundamental characteristics of dance are the same that we find in the activity of walking and that are vital for the unfolding, development and growth of the human being, in the conscious and unconscious aspects, both physical, mental, psychological, spiritual and emotional:
Dancing and walking are natural activities for the human being.
Dance and walking place the being in general, in healthy movement.
Dance and walking allow us to communicate directly with our bodies.
Dance and walking are symbolic languages.
Dance and walking use the human physical body as a means of expression.
Dance and walking, with their postures and movements, allow us to perceive and understand the general state of the body, as well as the specific parts that compose it.
Dance and walking also allow us to realize the emotional, psychic, spiritual and physiological states of being.
Dance and walking allow us, through their respective expressive languages, to perceive the psychological type of the performer, that is, to know faithfully his character and personality, including temperament.
In general, we can affirm that the body language experienced by dancing and walking, expresses the different physical, emotional, spiritual and psycho-physiological states of the human being.
When we find ourselves walking, let’s observe the way we do it and try to understand what the encrypted data and resonances that our body wants to transmit to us: if it is thanking us for exercising it, or even if there is some claim. What we will never be able to infer or assume is that it is (is found) at any moment keeping silent.
