THE EXPRESSION OF POPULAR DANCE

1. What is expressed in the activity of popular social dance? After examining the testimony of objective witnesses, you should be able to answer this question. POPULAR SOCIAL DANCE includes ballroom dances of couples and disco. It takes in all American teenage dances, whether done in ballrooms and discotheques, school proms, private parties, or elsewhere.

2. The sources quoted here, other than those defining biblical words, are students of the history of dance and instructors in dance. They are not preachers or prudes, just objective writers relating what they understand about the subject. (All emphases in the quotations in this study were supplied by the compiler, Steve D. Walker)

1. "Make No Provision for the Flesh," Rom. 13:12-14 A. Among "works of darkness" is "lewdness," Greek *aselgeia*; in Rom. 13:13 and Gal. 5:19 means lasciviousness, wantonness, shamelessness, sensuality, excess, etc. 1. In the plural (as in Rom. 13:13), it refers to "wanton [acts or] manners, as filthy words,

INDECENT BODILY MOVEMENTS, UNCHASTE HANDLING OF MALES AND FEMALES, etc." [Thayer's Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament, pp. 79, 80]

2. This term, which in classical Greek expresses insolent contempt for public opinion, denotes in the New Testament

SHAMELESS OUTRAGES ON PUBLIC DECENCY--a fit climax to fornication and uncleanness." (Expositor's Greek New Testament, vol. 3, p. 187)

B. Forbids lascivious apparel, pornography, lewd TV and movies, petting, etc. What about dancing?

II. All Dancing Is Physical Expression of Something. A. "Dance is an EXPRESSION in rhythmic movement of an intensified sense of life, arising from an inner perception that stimulates both mind and body." ..."simple emotional expression develops into a design..." (Grolier's Academic American Encyclopedia, vol. 6, pp. 21,22)

B. "...the dance has served many purposes: EXPRESSIONS of superstition, prayer, ritual, ceremony, social pleasure, entertainment, and art." (ibid.)

C. "It is an idea both reasonable and acceptable that, when primitive man had satisfied his basic need for food and shelter, he should EXPRESS HIS EMOTIONS through the most natural and immediate channel of expression--his body." (The History of Dance, by Mary Clark and Clement Crisp, 1981, p. 7) [HD] D. "In dancing, the ordering of movement, gesture, and rhythm are the means whereby FEELING IS EXTERIORIZED, MESSAGES CONVEYED, today as in the very earliest times." (HD, p. 7) "Dance evolved as an EXPRESSION OF EMOTION..." (HD, p. 13)

E. All dancing expresses something. POPULAR SOCIAL DANCING IS AN EXPRESSION OF________________??? [This is a good graphic--put the question on the board or a transparency, leave it up and refer to it throughout the lesson.]

III. Modern Social Dance History A. The waltz, appearing in Europe in the 1780's, "...witnessed the beginning of our modern ballroom dancing...the coming of the modern 'closed couple' dance." [The History of Dance, p. 101]

1. As the waltz crossed national boundaries and moved into France and England, it met with considerable opposition. Decent men "...bitterly reprobated it as leading to most LICENTIOUS CONSEQUENCES." A Danish ballet master (1829), "only 24 years old and no prude, could remark about the waltz: 'One might overlook its violence, which causes the blood to race, and the disarray it causes in dress, yet I believe that as more cultured society...differs from the lower classes in language, custom, and dress as in all pleasures, it also ought to make its dance a little less accessible to those whose minds and manners are lacking in the requisite grace, because I consider that IT IS IMPOSSIBLE TO DISCERN A DEGREE OF PROPRIETY IN WALTZES." (HD, p. 102)

2. "a dance filled with the Dionysian spirit" [Encyclopaedia Britannica (EB)] (Dionysus was the Greek god of fertility, ritual dance, and mysticism. Identical to Bacchus, the Roman god of wine and revelry. [Grolier's] See a dictionary for meaning of "Dionysian.")

3. Waltz is an expression of __________.

B. Next major era was the age of the cancan in France. "The tradition of public balls exemplified in France in the 18th century by the Balls de Opera, reaches a high point of exuberance and, indeed, of IMMORALITY in the pleasure gardens of Paris in the mid-19th century." "...These public balls...were occasions of CONSIDERABLE SEXUAL LICENSE..." (HD, pp. 104, 105)

C. Then Latin dancing became very popular, beginning with the tango (early 20th century). 1. Tango "provided an excuse, as had the waltz, for close contact with a single partner." [EB] 2. "To many, the stirring, driving rhythm of the tango is associated with one of the most sensuous, torrid dances ever to scorch a ballroom floor." In Argentina, where it originated, "...it had the reputation of an EROTIC DANCE performed in seedy clubs..." (Official Guide to Latin Dancing, by Dow, 1980, p. 71) 3. "By no means respectable, [the tango] was introduced into Europe at the beginning of the 20th century, and in France was transformed into a more polite form." From the caption of a drawing: "The women's backless dresses and the soft fabrics made the dance both more RISQUE and more enjoyable." (HD, p. 106) 4. Many other Latin American dances followed the tango: maxixe, rumba, samba, mambo, merengue, conga, cha-cha, paso doble. Encyclopaedia Britannica describes these as "passionate social dances" that "all emphasized strongly the erotic element." D. The Jazz Age 1. The charleston was extremely popular. This dance is viewed by many as a stage dance, but in the 1920's it was also a couples dance. "One dance in particular seems to epitomize the freedom and wildness of the 1920's. This was the charleston." "The newspapers indulged in fulminations...against this ORGIASTIC EPIDEMIC." (HD, pp. 107,108) 2. The jitterbug was the rage of the 1930's and 1940's a. Clark and Crisp make reference to "...the OVERT SEXUALITY of jitterbugging..." (HD, p. 11), and call it an "...athletic and FRANKLY SEXUAL DANCE..." (HD, p. 1 ) b. [of the jitterbug] "...the entire aspect of popular dancing was there after to bear the imprint of this demanding and provocative display." (HD, p. 1 ) 3. Dancing the jitterbug is an expression of ____.

E. Rock 'n' roll took over in the '50's. 1. "With the massive social and psychological upheavals which were to be felt among the young people of the post-war years, there emerged an even more strongly youth-oriented form of music and dance [than the jitterbug]. This was exemplified by rock 'n' roll, introduced to delighted teenagers by the film Rock Around the Clock, made in 1956, which featured Bill Haley and his Comets. His music was a derivation from the blues, and its pounding beat, simplicity of form, and the insistent, blatant sound of the newly-developed electric guitar began a new cult which was to find its greatest hero in Elvis Presley. Presley's numbers had a hypnotic force over the young and they also typified the physical response to this music, with PELVIC THRUSTS THAT GAVE SUCH FRANK EXPRESSION to the basic drive behind rock 'n' roll. The SEXUAL IMPULSE implied in the very words 'rock' and 'roll,' which featured in the lyrics of so many of its songs, the rebellious extravagance of the movement, the basic emotion of the lyrics, were all examples of a specifically teenage culture. At a time when television and popular music had discovered how to communicate instantly, world-wide, with the young, rock 'n' roll became a fever which effectively isolated a generation from the rest of society. It was the music of the young, it was their dance, and MUCH OF THE REST OF SOCIETY FELT BOTH ALIENATED AND SHOCKED BY THIS UNCONTROLLED HYSTERICAL MANIFESTATION." (HD, p. 1 ) (The term "rock 'n' roll" was used in the lyrics of black rhythm and blues singers to refer to sexual intercourse for several years before a white disc jockey used it to describe the new music of the '50's. Thus, he was calling it "sex music." The name stuck.) 2. Rock 'n' roll dancing is an expression of ______.

F. The twist was introduced about 1961. 1. "In rock 'n' roll as in jitterbug boys and girls were still dancing together, even if the dancing allowed them either to lose contact or indulge in such bizarre antics as THE GIRL EMBRACING THE MAN'S WAIST WITH HER LEGS. But the next craze, the twist, went to the other extreme. For the first time in centuries dancers abandoned physical contact. Sparked off by the appearance of a singer called Chubby Checker, who sang and danced on an American television program, the twist owed much of its appeal--and the appeal was to all age groups, all strata of society--to its very simplicity. It amounted to little more than PELVIC GYRATIONS 'as if drying your back with a towel' accompanying a foot movement that resembled the treading of a cigarette-end into the ground." (HD, p. 110) 2. What does the twist express? (Twist has many variations--jerk, watusi, frug, dog, funky chicken, swim, etc.)

G. The most popular dance of the '80's is called disco, also derived from the twist. Today's craze is the macarena. Are disco, macarena, etc., different in nature from jitterbug, rock 'n' roll, and twist? Have they turned around 200 years of social dance history, so that it now expresses something other than what every popular social dance since the waltz has expressed?

1. "Among the young in every community, DANCE REMAINS A MEANS OF SEXUAL DISPLAY." (HD, p. 9) Do those words apply to ballet? folk dancing? primitive dancing? religious dancing? No, the young in every community have little or no interest in these. They apply to popular teenage social dance. 2. "The end product [of young dancers dancing apart or their elders waltzing] is doubtless the same--physical pleasure in the activity of dancing and SEXUAL AWARENESS of a partner, whether embraced or half-consciously observed." (Encyclopaedia Britannica, 1977, vol. 5, p.456.) 3. "Unfailingly, the dances of an epoch faithfully reflect the spirit and structure of that epoch--its class distinctions, its SEXUAL ATTITUDES, its level of technology, and its social customs and predominant ideologies." (AAE, vol. 6, pp. 29, 30) What sexual attitudes are reflected in today's teenage dancing? Our culture is characterized by a decline in family values, open non-marital cohabitation and marital infidelity, and all-time highs in sexually-transmitted diseases and unwed pregnancy, etc. 4. Why are skin-tight pants, skirts slit up the thigh, tube tops, spaghetti straps, and scooped-out bust-lines considered proper dance attire? What exactly is being expressed?

POPULAR SOCIAL DANCE IS AN EXPRESSION OF _____________.

Conclusion:

1. How is the expression of popular social dance made? By BODILY MOVEMENTS and HANDLING OF ONE ANOTHER! Considering what is being expressed, can there be any doubt that these are *aselgeia*?

2. "This term, which in classical Greek expresses insolent contempt for public opinion, denotes in the New Testament SHAMELESS OUTRAGES ON PUBLIC DECENCY--a fit climax to fornication and uncleanness." [Expositor's Greek New Testament, vol. 3, p. 187] New dances throughout history have brought about "outrages on public decency," and continue to do so!

3. Galatians 5:19-21 indicate that we must not regard such activity lightly. Those who love righteousness will not engage in these activities, and will not be present where they are being practiced.

4. "Make not provision for the flesh!"