Publisher's Synopsis
This chapter depicts the background on which the premise of the topic of the present study depends and explains the different aspects like culture of dance in India, the relevance of dance to human existence, the required components for dance like fitness. This also tries to signify the essence of how the fitness got entwined into dance in a serious note. The major area of discussion certainly revolves around the Indian classical dances and some forms of folk dances. Discussion on the popular dances and the hybridization of dances may also be in the scope of this research. The presentation in this part of the study explains the significant importance that is attached for selection of the present topic. The discussion encompasses several arguments and counter arguments that might contribute for further research in this area.
Since time immemorial, the human beings have been very keen in indulging in some form of dance, and markedly the dance been considered as assimilated and inseparable aspect of human culture. Several civilizations existed on this earth before the present human era, and several authentic archeological and rhetorical evidences are available as testimony that dance is an important aspect of human culture. Some of such civilizations which contributed dance to the world are Egyptian, Hellenic, Peruvian, Indian etc. Authentic evidences available in Greece about the Pan-Hellenic dances are noteworthy and belonged to thousands of years ago. Evidences show that dance has been instrumental in religious rituals and initially most of the dance forms of the human civilizations were rudimentary and limited for religious expressions and invocations. Even African ethnic groups had their own forms of dances for several occasions and most of these ethnic dances were for invocations of gods. Steadily the dance forms were evolved into highly matured and intricately structured too. Specially, the Indian classical dances have been very systematically structured and preserved for centuries. There may be other such dances belonging to several other regions.
