3.4.4 Dance and romantic love

In The Romantic Manifesto Ayn Rand claimed that ballet is suited to the portrayal of spiritual love, and that hindu dance is "eloquent in expressing […] a physicalistic kind of sexuality."

But dance is physical. If dance is going to express any kind of love, it’s going to have to do it physically. The only choice is either to accept the reality of the body and its place in love, or not. It’s not between physicalistic and spiritual, it’s between integrated and real, or platonic and bullshit.

An interesting thing about belly-dancing (and one that contrasts with classical ballet) is its conception of human movement: it is based not on straight lines, but on circles, which, according to some, is the way the human body is really meant to move. So in that sense, it may be more ‘euhomic,’ to coin a term. Perhaps the right word is ‘humanistic’—or ‘ergonomic.’

2004.1
Based on an emails to Steve Clarian