Jasmine Washington: Van Der Leeuw ~ Dance and Culture~

In this section Van Der Leeuw states that dance is the most universal of the arts. I absolutely agree with this statement. Dance is important is many cultures, some just for religious purposes. Overall dance is like the gateway to several other arts forms. It enables, in turn, other arts to come into being: music, song, drama. Particularly in American pop culture dance is often seen as a form of expression. So many emotions can be put into dance. Another significant point about dance is that it requires nothing except the movement of the human body. We can sway our body in any direction and make a dance out of it. God forbid it but there was a dance called the "stanky leg!". People can take the simplest body movement and turn it into a dance. Over time we have adopted new dances and others phase out do to the rapid change in our culture. What once was cool to do i.e the "twist" and "locomotion" have been replaced with dances like "the Dougie" and the "jerk!" I honestly feel that dance is no longer as conservative as it once was. We still do have our classical forms of dance and of coarse the fine arts but I am just speaking in reference to my generation, particularly African culture.