The East Delivers a Spiritual Message in Movement

In the year 1000, the most highly evolved dances on the planet arguably could be found in Asia--with those genres that were linked to religious ritual already far older and destined to be more enduring than the court entertainments or social dances of the period.

Of course, our millennium meant nothing to ancient Asian cultures that counted the centuries without reference to the birth of Christ, but one surviving Far Eastern idiom did emerge close enough to AD 999 for us to consider it Y1K-compliant: Japanese Bugaku. Incorporating influences from China and Korea, this austere, all-male Shinto rite evolved into its present form between the 10th and 12th centuries complete with a distinctive style of ornate, multilayered robes and deeply carved wooden masks.

You and I wouldn’t have been allowed to watch Bugaku a millennium ago--it was forbidden to the general public until 1873--and today, despite its gestural refinement, it looks almost postmodern in its emphasis on the exhaustive investigation of logical choreographic structures. However, its sense of body weight driven into the floor conveys an unyielding, elemental power enhanced by the unearthly blare of reeds and the rhythmic pulse of plucked strings and treble drums.

If Bugaku provides a definitive statement of masculine authority, the classical dances of Cambodia offer a sublime feminine alternative. As it happens, the advent of our first millennium coincides with the beginning of the golden age of Khmer culture--and the building of the great Angkor monuments--in that Southeast Asian kingdom, with the carved images of celestial dancers (apsaras) serving as models for the thousands of temple dancers of the time.

Despite catastrophic cultural upheavals beginning in the 15th century and culminating in our own, Cambodian classicism retains its connection to Angkor sculptural values, enforcing a ravishing curvature of limb and stance along with an awesome delicacy of gesture. And, of course, the rippling, chime-like percussion music only adds to the sense of unearthly lightness: the illusion that Khmer angels are among us, hovering above the floor.

Ancient spirituality also gilds the dances of the Indonesian island of Java. Although the nation is now predominantly Muslim, the Central Javanese monuments of Borobudur (Buddhist, eighth century) and Prambanan (Hindu, ninth century) suggest the rich overlap of traditions in this complex and invigorating culture.

Early in the 10th century, a power shift led to the growing prominence of East Java and the lessening of influences from India. And from a little later, just before the dawning of the millennium, we find the first known references to wayang topeng, a form of masked Javanese dance drama that evolved from shamanistic burial rites and ancestor worship.

Shamanistic influences still give village topeng performances an earthier edge than the aristocratic court versions, with those in West Java especially vital. The performing style is further modified by the influence of traditional puppetry, so the dancer is at once playing a character, evoking a puppet stylization of that character and invoking a guardian-spirit. Accompanied by metallic percussion, the result reminds us of how vividly Asian dance can bring the past alive in the present, the spiritual alive in the physical.

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In India, the dances on view at the beginning of the first millennium would probably seem technically primitive compared to the dazzling virtuosity of their 20th century descendants. But then, of course, no taint of Victorian morality would have compromised their emotional expression and you wouldn’t have had trouble finding them: They were presented as daily offerings to the gods, sometimes performed by men but most often by women.

A cornucopia of theater-dance idioms derives from regional specialties of that age and earlier, some reaching us in 20th century reconstructions. But, in addition, India has given the world a primal image defining dance itself--an image already ancient in AD 1000, but capable of renewing its power for thousands of years to come and inspiring idioms yet unborn. It is the Hindu icon of the Nataraj: divine Shiva as lord of the dance.

There he stands in great sculptures created century after century: a supremely balanced young god bearing a cleansing fire, his thick, matted hair reminding us that true power transcends fashion or conventional elegance just as his two different earrings symbolize his embodiment of male and female energies.

Crushed under his right foot is a dwarf representing ignorance or lack of perception, and in the finest stone or bronze effigies you can feel the pulse of the dance-rhythm he generates--the rhythm of existence informed by the highest principle of consciousness.

Some traditional South Indian prayers to the dancing Shiva emphasize his role as a redeemer, “who calls by beat of drum all those who are absorbed in worldly things” and then reconnects them to the universal life-force. Even for those who worship other gods, this vision of the prime spiritual function of dance serves as a goal and a test.

Ask yourselves, which dancers or dances take an audience beyond the material world? Which connect us to the deeper parts of ourselves or reveal anything like a dimension of soul?

The question of what dance is for looms large in 20th century Euro-American performance, and perhaps the image of Shiva’s creative omnipotence can not only suggest an answer but even a sense of direction in the century to come.