The Art of Stage Dancing

The Art of Stage Dancing is The Story of a Beautiful and Profitable Profession written by Ned Wayburn, a choreographer who was born in Pennsylvania, a grandson of Samuel Fletcher Weyburn.

Excerpts:

Every age has had its ways of dancing; every people has expressed itself in some form of rhythmic motion. The dance originally was the natural expression of the simple emotions of a primitive people. Triumph, defeat, war, love, hate, desire, propitiation of the gods of nature, all were danced by the hero or the tribe to the rhythm of beaten drums.

Over six thousand years ago Egypt made use of the dance in its religious ritual. At a very early period the Hebrews gave dancing a high place in their ceremony of worship. Moses bade the children of Israel dance after the crossing of the Red Sea. David danced before the Ark of the Covenant. The Bible is replete with instances showing the place of the dance in the lives of the people of that time.