The world’s oldest dance
QUESTION What is the world’s oldest dance that is still performed today? EvIdEnCE from illustrated ancient pottery fragments suggests that dance originated 6,000 to 9,000 years ago in early agricultural cultures in the Middle East.
By the third millennium BC, the ancient Egyptians were using dance as an integral part of their religious ceremonies.
Many tomb paintings depict Egyptian priests using harps, lyres, lutes and percussion instruments accompanied by dancers often miming stories of gods and cosmic patterns of moving stars and sun.
This tradition continued in ancient Greece and was an integral aspect of early Greek theatre and the olympic Games.
dance was not necessarily ritualised; ordinary people used dance for celebration, entertainment, seduction and to induce a mood of frenzied exhilaration.
The annual celebration in honour of the Greek god of wine dionysus (and later the roman god Bacchus) lasted for several days and included dancing and drinking.
A 1,400 BC Egyptian painting showed a group of scantily dressed girls who danced for the wealthy male crowd, supported by several musicians.
This has led many to suggest that ‘belly dancing’, possibly as part of a fertility rite, might be dance’s oldest form. Modern belly dance can only really be traced to 19thcentury Egypt and possibly the travelling dancers or chengis of 15th-century Turkey.
A far more substantial claim can be made for the formal Hindu dances of southern India. The Bharatanatyam (the dance of Bharata) is the oldest documented classical dance form in the world, dating back to 1,500 BC. It originated in Tamil nadu, India, spread to the neighbouring areas and developed into a national form.
The Bharatanatyam evolved from three fundamental concepts i. e. bhava (expressions), raga (melody) and tala (rhythm). A highly developed classical dance, Bharatanatyam blends pure lyric movement and pantomime drama. Modern performances sometimes last two hours without interruption and are performed by a single dancer or a group. Its rigid rules mean it has remained relatively unchanged to this day.
Asa Corbett, Cambridge. QUESTION Our cuckoos spend the winter in sub-Saharan Africa. How long does it take them to get there and back? THE number of cuckoos in Britain has declined by 70 per cent in the past 20 years, and since 2011 the British Trust for ornithology ( bto.org) has been satellitetracking cuckoos to find out why. It’s currently tracking 31 birds on their extraordinary journey.
Generally speaking, cuckoos arrive in Britain towards the end of April and beginning of May and many leave again during June and early July.
They make a four to eight-week stop at feeding grounds in Spain or Italy before setting off on their remarkable two- day, 1,500-mile journey across the Sahara, arriving at their destination in September or october.
They then spend the winter in central Africa, mainly in and around the Congo rainforest, before departing for Britain again the following April. This means a cuckoo spends roughly 47 per cent of its time in Africa, 38 per cent in migration and just 15 per cent in Britain. Cuckoos take just under two months to complete the journey from their wintering locations to England. This is compared to the four or so months it takes them to reach their wintering locations on their autumn migrations. Their arrival back to the UK is important because they need to find a mate and ensure there is plenty of food by the time youngsters hatch and are reared by host species. The total round trip is about 15,000 miles.
I’ve sponsored several cuckoos over the years; each can be individually tracked on the BTo website, a remarkable resource.
J. T. Brown, Ross-on-Wye, Herefordshire. QUESTION Does the original Rank gong still exist? FUrTHEr to an earlier answer, when at an all-girls high school in the late Fifties/ early Sixties, we were told the man who struck the gong before every rank organisation film would be visiting that afternoon to give a performance. We were all excited and looked forward to seeing the hunky male we’d seen in the cinema.
We were bemused when on to the stage walked a little, old (or so he seemed to us) man and thought they must have the wrong person.
However, he explained that, in fact, the gong we saw was just a prop and the sound was made by him — and proceeded to demonstrate it to us.
That supremely talented man was James Blades, the renowned percussionist, and we enjoyed a most memorable afternoon of delightful entertainment.
Mrs P. Davies, Cardiff.
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