Dance

Dance from Old French dancier, perhaps from Frankish generally refers to human movement either used as a form of expression or presented in a social, spiritual or performance setting.Dance is also used to describe methods of non-verbal communication between humans or animals bee dance, mating dance, motion in inanimate objects the leaves danced in the wind, and certain musical forms or genres.Choreography is the art of making dances, and the person who does this is called a choreographer. Definitions of what constitutes dance are dependent on social, cultural, aesthetic artistic and moral constraints and range from functional movement to codified, virtuoso techniques such as ballet. In sports, gymnastics, figure skating and synchronized swimming are dance disciplines while Martial arts 'kata' are often compared to dances.

Unlike some early human activities such as the production of stone tools, hunting, cave painting, etc., dance does not leave behind physical artifacts for immediate evidence. Thus, it is impossible to say with any certainty when dance became part of human culture. However, dance has certainly been an important part of ceremony, rituals, celebrations and entertainment since the birth of the earliest human civilizations. Archaeology delivers traces of dance from prehistoric times such as gyptian tomb paintings depicting dancing figures from circa 3300 BC and the Bhimbetka rock-shelter paintings in India.