I believe that dance can be a language. If sounds and utterances can be organized in such a way that they become an effective means of communication, who is to say that dance can’t be? The language that we speak of is, at its core, only sounds except that it has been standardized to sound a certain way and to be pieced together in a certain way. Every week my baby sister seem to pick up new sounds and words, however all of this developed from simple grunts. “I won wahte” becomes “I want water.” Dance at its core is a series of movements. If we were mute and the movements involved in dance weren’t so energy intensive then it is likely for it to become a language. After all, sign language is based on movements and gestures.
We also do see dance used as an effective form of communication in nature. Bees returning back to the hive will perform the “waggle dance,” which is a series of movements that will specify the location of a food source, to other worker bees. Animals use a combination of sounds and visual displays that include movements to communicate danger or readiness to mate.
In humans, gestures and expressions are all part of the visual cues that we use to emphasis or subtly communicate a point. They do a big part in communicating emotions. Attraction and anger all can be recognized without words being said. In many cases, it is these visual clues that initiate a spoken conversation. The problem with using movement and possibly dance as a language comes from the fact that it becomes complicated and tedious. It isn’t that movements and dance absolutely cannot describe an object that may not be in the immediate vicinity or an abstract concept. The Alvin Alley Dance Theater was able to tell real and imagined events in the life of the renowned Haitian painter, Hector Hyppolite, simply through dance and movement. There was no narration or words on the stage to describe what was happening. In theory dance can be used as a language, however in reality it is simply too time consuming and energy intensive to dance out a story.
