We often take for granted the notion that some people are insiders, while others are outsiders. But such a notion is a social contrivance, that, like virtually every public construct, is a legacy of a primordial and tribal mentality.

What dance achieves, what play and sex achieve are the same thing that poetry achieves. They transform the ordinary into the extraordinary.

At the root of all the varied manifestations of dancing, lies the common impulse to resort to movement to externalize emotional states which we cannot extemalize by rational means.

The nobility danced for the sake of social grace, to exhibit their finery...peasants danced to make themselves happy, to escape the routine of their life, and to meet their future wives and husbands.

In the New Hebrides, any dancer making a mistake was assaulted, wounded, and possibly killed by bowmen posted to keep careful watch for inaccuracies in rituals.

The story of dance in the Western world is as much an alternative vision of the events of history as is the folk history told for generations by primal people.

Some of the most popular discos in America and Europe were started as gay establishments, which began to open their doors to anyone who wanted to dance.