War, love, music and dance; they go together.

Songs that express a history and be-longing are forged often on the battlefield hence the rootlessness of Modern music, roots in ‘wanting to forget’; so are specific dances forged on the fields of battles that integrate movements of defence and attacks in their expression or is a practise in itself alike martial arts prior any fought wars. When the rhythm of the music, vocals and the instruments used and how they are used lead the dance, as they instigate feelings of joy, rage, nostalgia and so on; you understand the relationship between making and expressing - in one African language they still have no distinct words for ‘’singing’’ and ‘’dancing’’, they use the same word, by common sense of discriminatory clarifications it is unpractical, but if looked at the brains, they react the same upon listening to music, making music and dancing, so in the essence they correlate to each other and the root and reactions are without separation.

A dance of war in itself does not need music from an external performance, the rhythm can be made by stamping feet, cries of rage, chanting mantras and attacking yourself; this is what the Haka of the Maori represents, a possession of madness, to attack your own life to fight as if already dead, wanting to tear yourself a part, to not feel but maddening rage which you have to project upon the enemies.

To dance in certain manner alike a wild predator animal is to ''possess'', to have cultivated, your body into shape, the shape is the expression of strength as organic strength Always pressures plainness into symmetric proportions. Out of shape is out of strength; mentally / physically.

To go, in Nordic terms, Berserk; though it has to do with 'becoming a bear', obtaining its strengths (for in battle), becoming less vulnerable. Just like Hercules had its lion head to be-come the lion.

Wikipedia:’’The name berserker derives from the Old Norse berserkr (plural berserkir). This expression most likely arose from their reputed habit of wearing a kind of shirt or coat (serkr) made from the pelt of a bear (ber-) during battle. The bear was one of the animals representing Odin, and by wearing such a pelt the warriors sought to gain the strength of a bear and the favor of Odin.’’

Source to Varangian guards in Constantinople, Byzantium, tells about Goth dances and group songs as rites to go Berserkgang: http://www.friggasweb.org/dancetxt.html http://knowthyself.forumotion.net/t1394p40-cultural-dances#30814

Beside dance and song, they bit their shields and clashed their swords and axes; becoming animal in movements and behaviour; to attack self is to ignite rage by paining (which you won't feel) and stressing your body parts and jaws in aggressive manners.

Wikipedia:’’To "go berserk" was to "hamask", which translates as "change form", in this case, as with the sense "enter a state of wild fury". One who could transform as a berserker was typically thought of as "hamrammr" or "shapestrong".’’

Odin / Wotan (god with many traits and relations, too related to rage / madness); old-Nordic 'odur', in Dutch 'woede' (rage / fury), in Goth 'wods' (possessed).

Dionysian too is to transform into a state of frenzy, animal-like madness.

Wikipedia: ‘’In Euripides' play and other art forms and works the Dionysiac only needs to be understood as the frenzied dances of the god which are direct manifestations of euphoric possession and that these worshippers, sometimes by eating the flesh of a man or animal who has temporarily incarnated the god, come to partake of his divinity.’’

Wikipedia:’’The Dionysian Mysteries were a ritual of ancient Greece and Rome which used intoxicants and other trance-inducing techniques (like dance and music) to remove inhibitions and social constraints, liberating the individual to return to a natural state.’’

Quote: ‘’askoliazô (dancing as at the Askolia) ; the Athenians had a festival, the Askolia, in which they would hop on wineskins to the honor of Dionysos [Scholiast on Aristophanes, Plutus 1129]. The creature [goat] appears to be a natural enemy of the vine. In any event an epigram appears addressed to a goat that goes like this : `devour me to the root, yet all the same I will bear fruit; enough to pour a libation for you, goat, as you are being sacrificed.' [ Greek Anthology 9.75]

‘Dance on a wineskin' meaning [to dance] on the other [leg]; strictly askôliazein is to hop on wineskins for sport.’’

http://www.theoi.com/Cult/DionysosCult.html

http://www.carnaval.com/greece/dance/http://www.jstor.org/stable/1088242?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents

To dance improvised in aggressive manner and be possessed before battle, to attack self, chant and cry - all is related to becoming an animal or to be possessed by ancestral spirits; to project thoughts and movements upon the enemy prior actual confrontation, making you invulnerable for pain and angst.

"Dance is a way to find yourself and lose yourself, all at the same time!"

Losing one's Self within Self; Self losing itself through honest expression not allowed in the mediocre society where everybody has to wear a mask and walk in a certain manner.

In dance, when you are ''losing'' yourself within it, you can't hide yourself; which truly means 'you are you' in all honesty. Of course, when the dance is just danced due to its popularity / propagation by immediacy, it is a societal consumption / production expression as with any other symbols.

A folk's dance is the dance, or are the dances, evolved within a specific population in correlation with their Inborn-Culture (spiritual / intellectual, emotional, ideological capacities / abilities), its common health (a healthy mind manifests itself throughout the body, reflection / demeanour) and the environment manifested within a population's (d/evolving) essence over time (mountain / ill air / flat land / sea, rough Nature / sheltered, artificial, sterile, man-made environment etc.).

Thus, this is about folk; now about individuals belonging to a distant folk - dancing ''foreign'' dances. The European (wo)man dancing for example a sexual / specialized negro dance, it is foreign to the people as a whole to which s/he belongs, but as an individual s/he exposes his/her tendency of expression in the dance. An attraction towards the primal, Self losing itself in Self by ''letting it all go'' through hedonistic, impulsive Manimal movements resulting in a specific dance type, showing / exposing one's true essence. Like for example a woman covered in a ''modest'' hijab; dancing her folk's dance, and shows she truly belongs to the common by losing herself in Self and the ''whole'' (thus her racial tendencies / averages); and no covering of the body can hide her (or anyone's) true Self from others or Self:

Culture is the emotional, intellectual, historical and continuing expression of a volk (ethnic people). This can be expressed through reciting poetry, specific music compositions, garments, architecture, paintings and - all of it often combined in; folkdance.

The specific dance can represent one's momentarily feelings, but if it is a part of the folk as a whole and they dance that what has been passed on to them - it reflects the 'volks-spirit'. The cultural expressiveness of each people is distinct and unique, but it also shows us a connection between different peoples through common blood, similar environment (the environment shapes the

[collective] mind over time; due to certain requirements needed in order to survive [or simply the most desired] in a particular spherical-environment. Such as mountains, hilly landscapes, flatlands, the sea, or...modern, sterile, artificial environments), trade, migration, spirituality and...war.

War often being terrible; it also strives to hope, survival, beauty, creativity, strength and overall victory. The dance with all its other expressive splendour (music, garments etc.,), often represents as 'being brethren in war', but also individual with an ''imaginary'' enemy which can be linked to actual conflicts in the past.

A dance can tell us what your ancestors have endured, it is a communication with your past to which we all are a part of (genetic / memory legacy). Folkdances tell us about the ancient love stories, conflicts, wars, environmental struggle, celebrations etc., in (y)our ancestors had participated and had to endure.

A dance as a respectable means of communication with the environment and its creatures also is common; such as Lezginka (dances from specifically Chechnya and Dagestan), which represents for an important part, besides ancestral continuity - the Eagle.

The Dagestani lowland dances are described to be more elegant and slow while the dances on the mountains more furious and fast, this relates to the climate reflecting itself in one’s psychology; as in the mountains to walk certain paths to keep in balance for example, you need to walk broadly, arms in sway and legs apart to walk/climb in a steady phase or to have a bigger potential to step on a stable spot and to keep you from falling over.

An overall symbiotic harmony is needed to form a balance between body, mind, head and environment; during spinning for example, your face should turn before the body has made the turn in order to have a focus upon a specific point to not become dizzy, out of balance. To lose focus, or not trust your spin and body - is to fall; though ‘letting go’ is to trust unexpected steps.

Folkdances are representations of climates, emotions, ideals, work, animals, ancestors and monumental feelings; just like symbols are and many other forms of (classical) arts; though in Modern context everything has been degraded, abstractly specialized and incorporated in Modern ideals and mis-understandings, falsified historic perspective (political) with specialized lenses (partialization) and depths (linear thinking and disharmonic connections) and in specific colours (emotional appeals).

The Modern dances, on a jungle beat with Western melodies; a mix of African and Western movements and musical tastes (love for sugar is universal, specific tastes are isolated); though the essence being dominantly African and the technology used European, testify this mongrelisation in society; between the classes, races, perspectives and ‘priorities’. While folkdances are about wholeness, becoming wholly with the enacted animal, with the rhythm and sounds instigating feelings and (intended) movements, with the past, to be possessed by ancestral spirits, environmental phenomena or to honour your sweat and blood spilled during your (non-Modern) work; they have rules, traditions, laws, divine intentions and holy connections – the Modern dances testify the separation between parts, disconnecting the organs, body parts, mind, music and environment from the wholesome symbiotic harmony; specialized intentions for specialized body parts like shaking assess on the rhythm of vile words intended for sexual fetish (specialized) attraction and gratification. A ‘letting go’ without possessing except to possess immediate ‘’pleasure’’ without cost/benefit factors.

Folk and classical dances, arts, crafts, songs are about wholeness which relates to holiness; knowing thyself. A people with warlike folkdances are invulnerable to death and having the odds against them.

~ Sjoerd Heeger