Dancing is one of the oldest arts. The drawing of a sorcerer in deer dance appeared on the wall of the Lascaux Cave in France approximately 20,000 years ago. Dance was born of the magic ritual—just as the
Dancing is one of the oldest arts. The drawing of a sorcerer in deer dance appeared on the wall of the Lascaux Cave in France approximately 20,000 years ago. Dance was born of the magic ritual—just as the pantomime. The assumption that dancing was originally a syncretic unity with poetry and music is hardly plausible. Dancing existed even during the Upper Palaeolithic, long before verse and music, as archaeological data bear out. In times immemorial, dancing accompanied man from birth to death. The workday opened with a ritual dance. Primitive man imitated hunting in a dance preceding actual hunting to bring it luck. Land-tilling works also started with seasonal dancing, and later songs.
The shamanic quack, wizards’ sorcery and Sufi meditations are, in fact, dances.
The dance and the pantomime told about past events and human feelings. The primitive dance evolved from pantomime imitating animals and elements. Though the dance and the pantomime are independent performing arts now, the pantomime still remains an essential part of dancing—especially traditional dancing.
The syncretic unity of dance, music and verse emerged far later, when the aesthetic function came into the foreground in dancing to oust the magic ritual into the backdrops. Certain nations preserve such unity to this day. Thus, the traditional Indian dancer follows the song rhythm and plot with great precision.
Chechen dancing ascends to the archaic times. Bronze cult figurines of the 3rd millennium B.C., unearthed in Chechnya, give an idea of certain ritual dance movements alongside conventionalised human figures represented on the slabs of ancient structures. Metal figurines of tiptoeing men (cf. Chechen male dancing on tiptoes) are among the finds from the Koban archaeological culture.
Patterns on carpets probably also contain coded information about male and female Chechen dancing.
The earliest written accounts of Chechen dancing belong to 18th century European travellers. As Count Jan Potocki wrote, “When all villagers come together, they make a large circle to sit singing, and challenge young dancers with the music of the oboe, bagpipes and the flute to show off their agility in honour of the festive day. Dancing is accompanied by athletic feats as the performers make dashing leaps one after another, and throw each other down as wrestlers do. The performers next hold hands to sing and dance in long rows. They often spread the circle with great agility, now opening now locking it. The dance finishes with the same leaps as at the beginning”.
Despite the popular belief that Chechens did not know group dancing before their folk song and dance company appeared, the Polish traveller’s account shows that it not merely existed but was also enriched with acrobatics.
Bearing out the archaism of folk dancing and its connection with hunting rites are the names of movements: cha bolar, “bear walk”, ka bolar, “ram walk”, and sai bolar, “deer walk”. The bear, ram and deer were the sacred animals of the Chechen lore. To all appearances, they were totemic in olden times.
Stone sculptures of the ram’s head are to be found on the façade of the dwelling tower in Khimoi in Chechnya’s east, on the Mount Bekhaila combat tower near Kokadoi in the Argun Gorge, and on the façade of the vault sanctuary in Tertie, in the republic’s west.
Chechen mythology treats the bear as an animal endowed with great strength and human reason.
Deer as amulets are conventionally represented on the slabs of many buildings all over Chechnya.
All those facts testify to great archaism of Chechen dancing, and prove its connection with hunting and magic rites.
The movements and figures of Chechen group and pair dances indicate their, now forgotten, link with sun worship. The magical quality ascribed to the circle, pronounced in the symbolism of patterns on Koban and later Alanian pottery, and in mediaeval petroglyphics, is rather visible in Chechen dancing.
Chechen dances divide in group, pair and solo. There are male and female group and solo dances.
According to prominent Chechen ethnologist Said-Magomed Khasiev, folk group dances required four, six or eight pairs (that is, an even number), and their arrangement resembled the classic swastika. Such dances were connected with the solar and various land-tilling cults.
The many genres of Chechen folk dances are rooted in their origin, the milieu in which they appeared, and their semantics. These are ritual (wedding, rain incantation, etc), occupational (war dances, shepherd dances, and others), festive and liturgical dances.
The pair dance of a man and a woman has a ritual nature. Scholars track it down to Chechen cosmogonic ideas—mainly sun worship. The Chechen myth on the origin of Sun, Moon and the stars says: “A skilful blacksmith wooed a fair maiden as he knew not that she was his sister. When she refused the matchmakers he had sent, he came to her d