Abstract
IN another column of this issue of NATURE (see p. 154) there appears a brief account of the conference, which formed part of the International Folk Dance Festival held in London last week. Lack of space for fuller reference does less than justice to a kaleidoscopic spectacle, of which the interest to students of the development of social custom and religious belief, more particularly in Europe, was profound. In its general results, the conference on the scientific aspect of the folk dance has made a very appreciable con tribution to the advancement of this branch of the study of the art and life of the ‘primitive’ element in European populations, both of to-day and in the past. In its effect on future development, it should stimulate the application of that study to the revival and extension of the practice of folk dancing, as well as, possibly, lead to restoration of forgotten or neglected elements where traditional dances and customs are still a living factor in peasant life, as has already happened in certain of the dances which appeared at the festival. On the other hand, the references of many speakers to the obsolescence of traditional customs and dances among the folk and the contrast in the spirit of such dances as those of eastern Europe—for example, the hobby horse dance of the Calusari from Rumania—when the dance is a living functioning element, integral in rural life, argues that the folk dance as a revived art can become a factor in communal life once more only as an attenuated and, to a considerable degree, sophisticated form of expression. Its essential meaning vanishes with the fading away of its economic and magical background.
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International Folk Dance Conference. Nature 136, 135 (1935). https://doi.org/10.1038/136135b0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/136135b0