[The Kinesthetics of Dance as an Allegory of Immanence:] 

 Johann Gottfried Herder's Adrastea, II.9 [Introduction] (1801-02)

[translated from the German by ChatGPT 4.0 according to instructions, with brief annotations, by Douglas B. Olds]

Issue II. Früchte aus den sogenannt goldnen Zeiten des achtzehnten Jahrhunderts ["Fruits from the so-called golden times of the eighteenth century"]

#9. Dance. Melodrama.

The most expressive allegory (Allegorie [qua imaging of immanence]) we know is humanity. The forces, inclinations, thoughts, and passions of the soul are not merely hinted at by their exterior, the body, but are revealed to the discerning (Verständigen) observer. Constantly, individuals bear the visible expression of what they are inside or wish to be, i.e., their character (Charakter), with them; but in every, especially passionate and unexpected moment, they also temporarily reveal what stirs within them. They are a walking painting of themselves, a mirror in which their spiritual form inadvertently appears. Since feelings, drives, and affections are the more active part of our nature, which are only silently accompanied or guided by thoughts, and the former express themselves most powerfully through gestures, while language essentially only denotes thoughts and barely comments on feelings: thus, especially in passionate instances, the gesture disdainfully dismisses the word as alien and useless; an exclamation, an interjection is preferred. Nothing dilutes the emotion more than talking about it; with pretenders and deceivers, i.e., with posers and dissemblers, words often say the exact opposite of what the gaze conveys; or even if the gaze is deceitful, the whole heart often betrays itself – through a gesture.

One should indeed trust the natural mirror that eternal truth itself has set up for us! It cannot lie. Only look into it with a clear mind and an unbiased heart, not fleetingly, but attentively.

How powerful a gesture is! Convincing, stirring, lasting. When we think of someone absent, a [danced] gesture of theirs is the first thing that comes to mind, or rather they themselves characteristically in their gestures. Thus, moments of trust and love as well as revulsion and disgust are immortalized in us. Think of a person: as their image first comes to mind in gesture, so they are inscribed in your heart.

In both tender and fiery emotions, everything hinges on the gesture; often we even escape the word of the lips, as if it weakened or desecrated that inner expression. "Don't speak," we say; "give me your gaze, your hint, for the soul itself is inexpressible." In the most soulful expressions of theater, we hang on a gesture and gladly overlook the word. "Why," we ask, "is it necessary when the gesture says everything?"

But if the gesture dismisses words of emotion, won't it have another friend in nature to accompany it? It's music; tones naturally support the gesture. Not only do both rely on timing, on modulation; in gestures, in gait, in the eyes, in expression and action, movement and the measure of movement speak the most. Nothing, for example, disturbs us more than an uneven gait, a faltering false voice, etc., they throw us completely out of the rhythm of our soul.

But not just movement, tones are to one sense what gestures are to another, expression of the mobile nature, elastic oscillations, a direct language of the heart.

Like attracts like, one calls the other and takes it along. With the recurring gesture of the absent one, often even without words, the sound of their voice returns to us. In an enchanting posture, we wish it would turn into a tone. When, on the speaking stage, noble or gentle emotions rise to their highest, i.e., simplest height, they either lift themselves to tone or we painfully miss and lack the analogous tones that nature itself linked to them according to our feeling.

Among all the peoples of the earth, tones and gestures have been paired. The dances of the so-called savages are mimetic, whether they are war or peace, joy, mockery or love dances. Joy and love, the sweetest emotions of the human heart, are however the soul of the dance; even hate and mockery must, in it (e.g., in the war and mockery dances of the savages), if they are to be danceable, turn to joy.

And how the dance captures all natural humans! How it displays the inner and outer elasticity, the character! Hence the vast differences in national dances, which all aim at a single purpose and show a human figure. Under favorable climates, well-organized nations live and weave in these pleasures, in which the soul and body, rejoicing together, become one. Individuals forget burdens and whips when they jump on festival days. The future life to these natural humans is an ever-changing chain of dances of love and joy.

Have you ever seen human nature more alive than in a soulful dance? Does one of the so-called fine arts act more vividly, often dangerously vividly, on the heart of youth? There is grace in language, magic in tones and gestures.

It was, therefore, inevitable that every nation formed for joy and love would turn the spiritual bond between sounds and gestures into a kind of fine art, each in its own way. [S. Cahusac's "History of Dance Art," translated in the "Collection of Miscellaneous Writings" (Berlin, by Nicolai), in which Lucian's essay "On Dance", Vossius' "De poet. Graec.", the 23rd chapter of Meiners' "History of the Origins of Fine Arts in Greece", where one can also find further particulars on this subject.] 

The more mature and original a nation, the more its dances will be related to its language and customs; however, with modern commercial nations, i.e., nations that are no longer original but only a copy of others, the dances will be universal.

However, not all individuals are formed for joy and love; many are rough, cold, and joyless, to which the spirit of the dance must seem as a new element. Even the most spiritual of all, the Greeks, were not entirely susceptible to it, because with them everything concentrated itself on the mind, and the heart was left too much out.

Therefore, the dance of love could only have originated in the east, where tenderness and gentleness sprout from every bush. It was invented by the more intelligent Hindus, which, as spiritualized as they were, could not long retain it. They had to pass it on to the Persians, and these, in turn, to the Greeks. One should read what has been written about it, especially in Plutarch's piece on music, and on the effects and powers of melodies contained in the work titled "On the Education of Children."

 The Romans had no spiritual dance art. Not that they couldn't dance, on the contrary, they were enthusiastic dancers, but it was only a hopping and twisting around without inner sensation, without the proper combination of sounds and gestures, without a spirit. The refinement, the development of the spirit, was the work of the Greeks, who also, without a doubt, introduced the dance art of the Greeks and Egyptians into Rome, the elegant part of which was called pantomime by the Romans, while the clumsy, crude part of the dance was called chorus.

However, how significant is the difference between the Greek chorus and the Roman pantomime! As is the case with everything Roman, the latter was only a rough caricature of the former. In Greece, dance art never became a separate thing; in Rome, on the other hand, it became a specific art, because every art has its childhood, its growth age, and its decay, and the pantomime is the age of growth of the Greek chorus, the final art of an over-ripe, decaying nation. Hence it also had its heyday under the Empire, where it even seems to have become the leading art.

However, just as this art, which was based on the connection of sounds and gestures, arose in the East, developed with the Greeks and reached its climax with the Romans, it then disappeared in the West for a long time, to reappear but differently.

If the dance of love is the beginning of every melodrama, if it originated in the East, if people from the Orient, especially those from the Hindu and Persian cultures, first made the spiritual bond of sounds and gestures into a fine art, then the Italians, who were in connection with the Romans, are to be thanked for having again given it to us, to all of Europe, but in a form that only modern nations can use.

Indeed, one cannot read Italian poetry without simultaneously hearing singing, playing, and acting. I believe that the first opera performers did nothing other than what every passionate Italian naturally does: they sang, played, and acted their roles at the same time. All Italians are natural singers, players, and actors; only the restrained North lacks all of this. When we hear Italian poetry, the gesturing, acting Italian also stands before our eyes.

Therefore, it was natural that the tones and gestures combined again, i.e., the melodrama, reappeared in Italy. It seems to have been the famous Ruggieri who, in 1600, reintroduced the ancient dance of love, the final element of all melodramas, in Rome, from which it spread throughout Italy.

However, even today, this dance art is not in its maturity but in its childhood; and Italy, Germany, France, and all modern nations are still busy with its first elements, with shaping it according to the spirit of the times. Only the English seem to have the true sense of it, and Shakespeare was the first modern poet. Not everything (Alles) can be expressed by dance, nor can every silent gesture, even if accompanied by music (Musik). Music (Musik), when paired with language and then supported by gestures, opens a new field for poetry (Dichtkunst). If dance can be introduced to this, well and good! But then let it work either by itself or led by singing choirs; song (Gesang) and dance in one person hinder each other...

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German Source: Adrastea, J. G. Herder

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ISBN: 9783849627638