Dance doesn’t have the same prose that a normal language has. It doesn’t have an alphabet. It doesn’t have any grammatical rules. It doesn’t have a specific name for it. But it’s still a language. Like sign language, dance movements can represent letters and words. However, there would just never be a limit to the number of ways to express a single word, like love. How can you express that in one single movement? Dancers take an entire choreography to express an emotion. Is it still expressed? Yes. Hence, I feel that because dance is a form of body speech that expresses an emotion or words, it is a language in itself.
Dance isn’t the most practical way to say something. However, dance, like English and French and many other languages, is a beauty in itself. It can emit emotions, stir up feelings and thoughts, and change an entire view on something through one choreograph. There is so much to dance that being a language isn’t enough. Dance wouldn’t reach its full potential if it had to stop at just being a language.
In my opinion, dance is another realm of expression. Its difficult to categorize if it should be a language or not but based on a simple definition that language is a way of expressing something then yes dance is a language. But, I still feel like if we took dance more seriously, it shouldn’t be limited to just a language or just an art form. There are many different alphabets and languages in the world. Similarly, there are many different dance styles and dances in the world. In fact, both are countless and still developing. If we wanted to create an alphabet for ballet or for jazz, we can. Each movement can represent a letter or a word. Then, full sentences, and even more, complete essays can be “danced.” But why hasn’t dance taken that form? Because then it limits its infinite ways of interpretation. Dance, like art, is open to interpretation and it should affect someone by reflecting the emotions they feel towards it. It shouldn’t have to be told to you.
Hence, whenever people ask, “Can dance say “pass the salt?” Yes, it can if it wanted to, and if that was its purpose. But its not. Dance is an amazing form of art that is still in the works, so let’s not limit it by being grammar nits at it.
