DANCE, or DANCING (Fr. danser; Teut. dantzen), as at present practised, may be defined to be a graceful movement of the body, adjusted by art to the measures or tones of instruments, or of the voice. But according to what some reckon more agreeable to the true genius of the art, dancing is the art of expressing the sentiments of the mind, or the passions, by measured steps or bounds made in cadence, by regulated motions of the figure and by graceful gestures; all performed to the sound of musical instruments or of the voice.
There is no account of the origin of the practice of dancing amongst mankind. It is found to exist amongst all nations whatever, even the most rude and barbarous; and, indeed, however much the assistance of art may be necessary to make any one perfect in the practice, the foundation must certainly lie in the human constitution itself.
As barbarous people are observed to have the strongest passions, so they are also observed to be the most easily affected by sounds, and the most habitually addicted to dancing. Sounds to us the most disagreeable, the drumming of sticks upon an empty cask, or the noise made by blowing into reeds incapable of yielding one musical note tolerable to us, is agreeable music to them. Much more are they affected by the sound of instruments which have anything agreeable in them. M. Gallini informs us that "the spirit of dancing prevails almost beyond imagination among both men and women in most parts of Africa. It is even more than instinct, it is a rage, in some countries of that part of the globe. Upon the Gold Coast especially, the inhabitants are so passionately fond of it, that in the midst of their hardest labour, if they hear a person sing, or any musical instrument played, they cannot refrain from dancing. There are even well attested stories of some negroes flinging themselves at the feet of an European playing on a fiddle, entreating him to desist, unless he had a mind to tire them to death; it being impossible for them to cease dancing while he continued playing."
The same thing is found to take place in America; though, as the inhabitants of that continent are found to be of a more fierce and barbarous nature than the African nations, their dances are still more uncouth and barbarous than those of the negroes. "In Mexico," says Gallini, "they have also their dances and music, but in the most uncouth and barbarous style. For their symphony they have wooden drums, something in form of a kettle drum, with a kind of pipe or flageolet made of a hollow cane or reed, but very grating to an European ear. It is observed they love everything that makes a noise, how disagreeable soever the sound is. They will also hum over something like a tune when they dance thirty or forty in a circle, stretching out their hands, and laying them on each other's shoulders.