Dancing in the Streets
A History of Collective Joy
By Barbara Ehrenreich
Reviewed by Angela Hutchinson
Spirit-Works.net
In modern times it is not an unfamiliar theme to discover individual dreams and to live individual lives. That’s not to say that we don’t care about our fellow man, but it seems that the fate of our neighbor isn’t an innate part of ourselves as it once was. Have you ever wondered what happened to the “village”? How did we transform from an interconnected community to an island of one or two? Author Barbara Ehrenreich takes us on a historical journey back to ancient times and shows the reader an amazingly descriptive and thorough picture of how it used to be and how we thrived with one another instead of in spite of each other. If you like historical sociological topics, you are in for a treat.
In ancient civilizations, there was dancing, celebrations, healing rituals, and community festivals. We lived in a world bigger than ourselves and there was fulfillment in the whole. We were a part of each other and, at times, our spirituality was practiced and known first hand through transcendence. We needed each other to survive and we bonded to evolve and gathered to honor and observe the mere fact that we were alive together. It was a group mentality of the highest order, to experience joy. This “ecstasy” could be found in prehistoric times, ancient Greek communities, indigenous cultures, and even early Christianity. We danced and we feasted and we lived out loud. “To submit, bodily, to the music through dance is to be incorporated into the community in a way far deeper than shared myth or common custom can achieve.”
Ehrenreich continues to share the transformation each century assumed, specifically, how social hierarchy was born and affected the group. “The rise of social hierarchy, anthropologists agree, goes hand in hand with the rise of militarism and war, which are in their own way also usually hostile to the danced rituals of the archaic past.” “To dance-especially ecstatically-in the company of one’s inferiors was to upset the increasingly rigid hierarchy of wealth and status.” The elite grew fearful of the power that festival could generate among the lower class. They stopped participating and eventually introduced obstructions that would lead to the eventual demise of the once popular festival and carnival. Those responsible for the demise of these gatherings ranged from the elite to the Calvinists who must have feared and sensed the inspiring quality of dancing rituals and the empowerment felt by the poor because festival brought a level playing field. Most Europeans believed Native tribal dance to be nothing short of savagery and insanity. I can only assume they must have forgotten their roots, because ignorantly and fearfully they attacked and felt the need to control. They distanced themselves from their own beginnings and soon they could not recognize that from which they came. Early church officials immediately condemned this behavior of transcendence and worship. They could not allow man to believe there was a direct connection between God and himself. This potent belief would render the church powerless really.
Social division, mass control, and intolerance were forces that rippled the waters of ecstasy, but I believe that this communion with the Divine and divinity within us cannot be destroyed. It is in our veins.
Once Christianity followed the Calvinist route, depression rose. The author questions the correlation with good reason. The pleasure of community celebration and becoming part of something larger than yourself was gone and isolation was a permanent state.
Ehrenreich writes we can experience the excitement of group ecstasy in modern times through patriotism, sporting events, rock concerts and even peaceful protests. They are a taste of the villages our ancestors were a part of. This author not only takes you along for an adventure, she brings you to where we began. Dancing in the Streets is how we connected; fear is how we destroyed it. As we gather in groups, may we all take a moment to be conscious of its power and its sheer ecstasy. I hope we recognize the unity that abounds during such times and that we are able to reach out beyond ourselves to notice that we are not alone.