DANCE. - 1. It consists of a complex of ordered movements of the body, and especially of the feet, according to the musical time marked by singing or by instruments. It can be an artistic representation, like the ballet, or a popular exercise.
Among primitive peoples the use of dance, a manifestation of physical order observable when certain rhythmic factors concur, is widely diffused, with the determining motives varying among peoples of nature. Among these, ethnologists distinguish first of all male, female and mixed dances; collective and individual; occasional and periodic. All of which, again, with some rare exception, find their deepest meaning in religion (v. PRIMITIVI, RELIGIONE dei). Usually the dances are not accompanied by music, but are nonetheless rhythmically marked by crude instruments or by clapping of hands or snapping of fingers, by stamping or by guttural cries.
The frenetic dances of the sorcerers of various tribes of Australia and of the dervishes have the purpose of creating a veritable self-intoxication (which gives Testasi), in which the dancer reaches the capacity to do things beyond the normal (e.g. to prophesy), and a like will to excitement underlies various types of war dances: on the one hand the desire to exalt courage, on the other the performance of a kind of symbolic combat against supposed adverse supernatural forces. Nor is the intimate meaning of agricultural dances different, directed at facilitating the development and growth of seeds, and of magical dances in general, by which, through mimesis, one seeks to implore something necessary (e.g. rain). Within the framework of the religious phenomenon understood in the broadest sense are placed certain types of initiatory dances (in which the death and ritual rebirth of the initiate are represented), while outside this field are the love dances that preside over betrothals and marriages, and which often have the purpose of exalting the fertility of the woman. In Sacred Scripture, dance occurs as a collective manifestation of joy (Ex. 15, 20; Judg. 11, 34; I Sam. 18, 6), as an act of festivity (Judg. 21, 21) and as a sign of honor to God (Ps. 67, 26; 149, 3). In the episode of the golden calf, the Hebrews sin by dancing around it, and thus Moses finds them (Ex. 32, 19). The best-known passage of the Old Testament on dance is that of David and the Holy Ark (II Sam. 6, 14). On the whole, dance appears rather a spontaneous phenomenon than a fixed element of ritual.
At the beginning of this century, owing to a progressive laxity of morals, there were in fact introduced certain systems of dance originating from the native customs of the Negroes of South America, in which, because of the varied way of moving the feet and the various positions of the persons, even the lower parts of the body of the members of the couple easily meet. Because of the diversity of certain movements in the dance, these modern dances have various names: one-step, two-steps, turquey-trot, pas de l'ours, tango, spirù, charleston, foxtrot, rumba, carioca, boogie-woogie, samba, raspa, etc.
2. In any case dancing in itself is not an illicit act: it is a manifestation and almost an explosion of joy; the enjoyment is realized in seeing one's own body and that of others respond with rhythmic movements, synchronizing with the notes of the music. Malice is not intrinsic to dancing, unless it prescribes deliberately obscene acts, but it can be added by whoever performs it; favored by circumstances, often, today in particular, perfidiously studied and combined by designers, composers and organizers, so that they facilitate and render
From these solemn dances the drawing-room dance developed as early as the Renaissance, and in the following centuries it became increasingly impoverished of folklore and increasingly individualized between the single cavalier and the single lady. From the moral point of view, moreover, the great revolution came in the 18th and 19th centuries, under the influence of a liberalism that made itself felt also in customs: from the dance in which the cavalier touched only the lady's hand, one came to the embrace of the upper part of the body of the couple moving in continuous turns (dances tournantes). The dances thus performed took different names according to the various movements of the body: waltz, polka, galop, mazurka, rédova, scottish, caucan, cotillon, cake walk, etc.
From that time one also notes the interest of ecclesiastical authority in dancing, as a moral problem, in the decrees of the Sacred Congregations and in the letters of the pontiffs, both as universal pastors and as sovereigns of the pontifical territory, not to mention the pastoral measures taken by bishops.
Indeed, strong warnings against dancing are not lacking even in patristic literature (St. Peter Chrysologus, Serm. 127, 174: PL 52, 452, 654; St. Ambrose, De Elia et ieiunio, chap. 12; In Ps. 40, 24: PL 14, 711, 1078; St. Jerome, Ep. 70 ad Heliodorum: PL 22, 601, etc.) and in the conciliar legislation of the Middle Ages. However, those writings reflect a different situation. While the Fathers have before them dancing as a remnant of paganism (Arnobius, Adversus gentes, chap. 6: PL 5, 1118) and often, as even the pagans themselves testify, as a diversion of revolting obscenity (Ammianus Marcellinus, XIV, chap. 5, 6), the councils of the Middle Ages condemn the dances that took place in cemeteries and churches more than anything else ratione loci.
almost inevitable sin. The very movements of the body that are prescribed are at times almost an expression of arousal and of sexual acts.
When the dance openly degenerates it is no longer a dance; it is an obscene act or a series of obscene acts which as such must be evaluated. Thus one must say, for example, of the so-called "angelic dance," in quo nuditas est totalis, and of certain entr'actes in which the dance is a pretext. If it still preserves the appearance of a dance, the dance remains an occasion of sin, proximate or remote, depending on subjective and objective circumstances.
Setting aside subjective circumstances, which vary according to the sex, age and education of each person, and the care taken in observing the rules of the dance, the objective circumstances that carry the greatest weight in the moral judgment are the following: a) the greater freedom of women in dress; b) the manner of conversing, often free and provocative; the ease of daring certain more or less libidinous acts, especially during the rest intervals; c) the appearance of the other dancers, which can at times be more provocative than the very moments of active participation in the dance; d) the often lascivious music, as jazz frequently is, to which not rarely in origin was joined an obscene song text, evoked by the notes themselves; e) the use of intoxicating or overly stimulating drinks; f) the lack of light, especially in certain corners set aside for the rest of couples, when there are not added to this sudden interruptions of light that are foreseen or arranged; g) finding oneself together after the dance solus cum sola and the consequent excitations that can be provoked in the imagination.
These circumstances, in whole or in part, can be more easily eliminated in private dances than in public halls, given that in the former admission is by invitation, ordinarily entrusted to persons who are, at least externally, honest.
3. To say when dancing is a proximate or remote occasion of sin cannot be determined a priori, with fixed rules, but only reconstructed on the basis of experience, that is, on the frequency or otherwise of falls, and according to these the confessor must regulate himself with penitents. Collective experience shows that very often (not always, of course) the more modern dances, of which mention was made above, are a proximate occasion of sin. Hence the frequent pastorals of bishops against dancing, and the strong warning of Benedict XV in the encyclical Sacra propediem of 6 January 1921, which classifies modern dances as "barbarous, one worse than the other" and of them asserted that "no means more suited could be found for removing every remnant of modesty" (AAS, 13 [1921], p. 39). A warning repeated by Pius XI in the encyclical Ubi arcano Dei of 23 December 1922 (ibid., 14 [1922], p. 679), where he laments the frivolity of women "in dress especially and in dances."
In practice, when dancing is for the individual a proximate occasion of sin, it must either be avoided or, if necessity leads one to make an appearance, attended while arming oneself with all natural and supernatural safeguards; when it is a remote occasion, participation is conditioned on the application of certain precautions that prevent the occasion from becoming proximate instead of remote.
The frequent practice of dancing, especially of the more modern types, is in any case to be combated, because it promotes frivolity of morals and has a deleterious influence even on psychic health, given the excessive excitation of the nerves.
The principles of morals that we have been expounding hold for all. As for clerics, in chap. 140 it is forbidden not only to attend dances that are unbecoming in themselves, but also those in which the presence of an ecclesiastic would in any case give scandal.
After what has been said, supposing further that the dances are in themselves honest, to promote them even for charitable purposes is unbecoming to the priest and to Catholic works, and the Church has sought to remove this abuse where it had taken root (cf. Acta et decreta Concilii plenarii Baltimorensis III, Baltimore 1886, n. 290; Sacred Congregation of the Consistory, decree of 31 March 1916, in AAS, 9 [1916], pp. 147-48; decree of 10 December 1917, ibid., 10 [1917], p. 17).