O body swayed to music, O brightening glance,
How can we know the dancer from the dance? W B Yeats, Among School Children, 1928
Let us read, and let us dance; these two amusements will never do any harm to the world. Voltaire
Consciousness expresses itself through creation. This world we live in is the dance of the creator. Dancers come and go in the twinkling of an eye but the dance lives on. On many an occasion when I am dancing, I have felt touched by something sacred. In those moments, I felt my spirit soar and become one with everything that exists. Michael Jackson
The desires of the heart are as crooked as corkscrews
Not to be born is the best for man
The second best is a formal order
The dance’s pattern, dance while you can.
Dance, dance, for the figure is easy
The tune is catching and will not stop
Dance till the stars come down from the rafters
Dance, dance, dance till you drop. W H Auden
Jumping from boulder to boulder and never falling, with a heavy pack, is easier than it sounds; you just can’t fall when you get into the rhythm of the dance. Jack Kerouac, The Dharma Bums
The dance can reveal everything mysterious that is hidden in music, and it has the additional merit of being human and palpable. Dancing is poetry with arms and legs. Charles Baudelaire
I have no desire to prove anything by dancing. I have never used it as an outlet or a means of expressing myself. I just dance. I just put my feet in the air and move them around. Fred Astaire
My mother-in-law said, ‘One day I will dance on your grave.’ I said, ‘I hope you do; I will be buried at sea.’ Les Dawson
Do you sing it, and I’ll dance it. William Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing III iv 41, Margaret to Beatrice et al
And David danced before the Lord with all his might. II Samuel 1:26
And David danced before the Lord with all his might; and David was girded with a linen ephod. II Samuel 6:14.
Never give a sword to a man who can’t dance. Confucius, attributed
... The dance it is a great thing,
A great thing to me,
With candles lit and partners fit
For night-long revelry;
And going home when day-dawning
Peeps pale upon the lea:
O dancing is a great thing,
A great thing to me! ... Thomas Hardy, Great Things
The feet have left the wormholed flooring,
That danced to the ancient air,
The fiddler, all-ignoring,
Sleeps by the gray-grassed ’cello player:
Shall I then foot around around around,
As one I footed there! Thomas Hardy, Song to an Old Burden
A brown girl trembled in the centre of the floor. She wore no anklets, or swinging skirt, or tight-drawn bodice. As her naked body moved, the glancing curves of light moved, and Prithvi Chand slept. The outer verges of darkness had swallowed the other dancers. Perhaps they lay beyond the light, locked with soldiers or courtiers, like the spread-eagled women of the temple carvings and the gods who grasped them with many hands – locked, for ever, carved of one stone.
The girl was an arrow, straight and taut. She arched her back and was a bow, bent, straining to let go. The bow released; she was a woman and twisted in slow ecstasy. Her breasts pointed the way for her seeking, hesitant feet; he mouth drooped slack and wet and her eyes were blind. She twined around him, her restless body so slight it could not escape. His hands went out and took hold of her buttocks. He dug his fingers into her flesh; the flesh yielded. John Masters, Nightrunners of Bengal p61
I have been judging troop spectaculars for many years and I’ve seldom been so delighted as I was today by the stunning displays; and it’s so nice to see everybody so nicely groomed. Razzle Dazzle: A Journey into Dance 2007 starring Nick Twiney & Kerry Armstrong & Denise Roberts & Tara Morice & Ben Miller & Jane Hall & Nadine Garner & Toni Lamond & Noeline Brown & Josephine Barwick & Barry Crocker & Damon Gameau & Scott Irwin et al, director Daren Ashton, opening commentary
There are more than 350,000 young dancers and 4,000 dance schools in Australia … Every year they compete in over 700 dance competitions. The most prestigious of these is the Sanosafe Troupe Spectacular. ibid. captions
Who can dance? Hands up who can dance. Well that’s a lot of you, I can’t take you all home, can I? ibid. Happy Valley Foster Home, adopting mother
‘Oppressors – don’t hold back.’ ibid. dance instructor
The theatre is all about bitter disappointment and failure and derision, and Mr Jonathan knows all about that. ibid. judge
Boys always hog centre stage. And they hurt the girls. ibid. grown ups
Do you remember that routine we did about skin cancer? ibid.
There is a music that has soundtracked our era. It has many forms but one beat: ‘Gotta have house music all night long.’ Whether you find your groove in house, techno or electronic dance music, our hedonistic escape into the night has become a priceless commodity. The bedrock of a business worth billions. How Dance Music Conquered the World I: The Beat, BBC 2018
It started on a few dancefloors with a few pioneers. ibid.
To make the dance music we love, technologies have been conquered. To create the sound of the future. ibid.
‘It’s the dominant genre on the planet.’ ibid.
The sound has transformed the lives of countless clubbers and left millions lost in music. ibid.
It all started with a beat: four to the floor. ibid.
Two gifted DJs in two inspirational clubs sparked something special. ibid.
‘Their spirit is feeling something to a higher power.’ ibid. Chicago DJ
To this day, the breathtaking innovation of techno’s pioneers has made Chicago a place of pilgrimage for generations of electronic artists. ibid.
In 1986 Pete Tong put together the album that introduced Chicago house to British music fans. ibid.
UK No. 1: Steve Hurley, Jack Your Body. ibid.
Britain had welcomed house and techno with open arms and they quickly warmed to the next boundary-pushing dance genre from Chicago – acid house. ibid.
The 4/4 beat behind house and techno was now being successfully recreated by British artists. ibid.
Millions of us have spent the biggest and best nights of our life clubbing. How Dance Music Conquered the World II: The Club
Narcotically charged hedonism grabbed the headlines. ibid.
Hacienda: Manchester now the had the most avant-garde nightclub in the world. ibid.
A sudden proliferation of ecstasy pills was an undeniable vital part. ibid.
These fields of Albion offered an escape. ibid.
Clubbing needed to change. To scale up and smarten up. A new generation of entrepreneurs was emerging. ibid.
In Cream, Liverpool now boasted the biggest club in Europe. ibid.
The superclubs had arrived in Britain’s cities. For the next evolution in the club scene came on the very island that had inspired our dance music culture – Ibiza. ibid.