The Song of the Muscles Chapter XNUMX - A Corrupt Dance

In the discussed chapter we will deal with the subject of dance, the biblical dance, which occupied a very important place, among other ancient cultures, in various areas of society

In the discussed chapter we will deal with the topic of dance, the biblical dance, which occupied a very important place, among other ancient cultures, in various areas of society.
The ancient dance found its expression, in most cases and ways, tied in the umbilical cord to religion, faith and worship. The religious ceremonies mainly consisted of diverse and energetic physical movements, in different rhythms, which were intended to bring the entire ritual class to the peak of ecstasy and release, this is the moment of transcendence in which the feeling of the almost unmediated contact with God, with the gods, is masked, and ends in physical and mental purification - the catharsis. The entire ritual was led by men mainly, priests, sorcerers and other shamans, but the dance, which occupied the center of activity, was led by the women, and why? Well, in a woman, unlike a man, the sense of rhythm is prominent, including the refined movements. Also, since a central element of the worship was fertility, it is obvious that the woman is the one who will lead it, and indeed, as in ancient cultures in our region, the place of the woman stands out in the field of biblical dance.

The earliest biblical event that encapsulates a choreographic-dance status is rooted in the period of the judges, after the act of concubine in Gibeah, when the sons of Benjamin slaughtered twenty-two thousand people from Israel in one day, the sons of Israel swore in a binding ritual at a well-known religious center, in the Mitzvah, that they would not give their daughters to the sons of Benjamin as punishment for the terrible bloodshed they caused. Only a very short time passed and the Israelites learned to understand that an entire tribe could be wiped out from among them, that is the tribe of Benjamin, if they do not find an adequate solution, but their oath in the sacred vow cannot be wiped out just like that. The proposal that was accepted in the end was this: "Here is the feast of Jehovah in Shiloh from Meem Yamima, which is from the north of Bethel to the east of the sun to the track that goes up from Bethel to Shechema and sweeps to Lavona. And they commanded the sons of Benjamin to say: Go and lie in wait in the vineyards, and you saw, and lo, if the daughters of Shiloh went out to the sand in the sands, and you went out of the vineyards, and you kidnapped each one of his wives from the daughters of Shiloh, and you went to the land of Benjamin, and it happened that their fathers or their brothers would come to fight with us, and we said to them: Stop them, because we did not take anyone His wife is in the war, because you didn't let them now be blamed. And the sons of Benjamin did so, and they took wives for their number from the women who had plundered, and they went and returned to their inheritance and built the cities and dwelt in them" (Judges 23-19 XNUMX).
The picture revealed before our eyes is undoubtedly instructive and reflects drivers who existed in ancient civilizations, and anthropologically even sometimes in our contemporary world in one form or another. The vow that decreed eternal celibacy for the sons of Benjamin could have been violated by a sacred and mythological alternative, i.e. - "Jehovah's festival at Shiloh". Shiloh was one of the ritual centers at the time, if not the dominant one and by virtue of that it was there to cancel existing vows. Rivas, unmarried girls, were found for a long time, long, long before pop-up Arabs and modern dating sites along the lines of "love me". The sacred place radiated a kind of liberalization of romantic attachments of the ancient era. The abduction is not supposed to be brutal and forced, but rather a kind of game ("foreplay"), in which there was apparent mutual consent between the two parties, and even today dance evenings in couples are built on providing a certain legitimacy and it is acceptable for both parties to create a framework of common touches. The origins of those "physio-romantic" Arabs are rooted in the ancient era, such as the traditional event in Shiloh. It must be assumed that meetings of the above type took place in connection with agricultural events such as the grape harvest.
In any case, and in a very interesting parallel to the living world of courtship dances and courtship contests, when they seek to capture the ideal man, the girls would come prepared to those meetings, each with their own personal choreography, and sort of compete with each other for the beautiful and well-rounded physical display. We can, by the way, parallel this with the historical foundations of belly dancing in the Middle Eastern world.
Worthy of note is the fact that a deep-rooted practice in the field of dance was enough to cancel a sacred, almost royal vow, and this teaches us about the great importance they attributed to dance as a lever for reproductive engagement, along the lines of "And he said to a good stick!"

Interesting is the fact that "kidnapping" myths unfolded throughout history and found expression in different societies, in Africa, among Circassian, Georgian, Bedouin groups and more.

Specularia for the aforementioned specific event is revealed before our eyes in two later compositions, in Jeremiah and in the Song of Songs. Jeremiah gives us the following description on one of the occasions: "Your son is yet to be built and the virgin of Israel is being built." Another drum beat and you went out dancing games. You will also mistake vineyards in the mountains of Samaria. They planted those who planted and blasphemed" (Jeremiah no 3-4). The prophet wishes to present an optimistic vision and uses allegorically the same courtship dance of the virgin girls. These are the ones who go out to "capture" the men in a "game dance" and are accompanied by percussion instruments in connection with the grape harvest period. This allegorization points to the explosiveness of the courtship dance among Israeli society.

The author of the Song of Songs as a parable of moral inhibitions and even in an allegorical display reaches a conclusion similar to the previous text, and thus he states: "The returnees of the Shulamite. Come back and see you. What will you see in Shulamit, like the pain of the hearts" (Song of Songs 1:XNUMX). Beyond the mention of the dancer's name, her attractive, poised appearance is noted, against the background of the suitors' shouts of admiration and encouragement. The second half of the text reflects both substantively and technically the answer dance, that is - question and answer as well as a choreographic performance. We cannot rule out the possibility that the same "Shulami" led the dancing camp/group.

Another evidence of the women's dancing emerges from the text in the Psalms: "Singers advanced after musicians among drumming maidens" (Psalms 26) and can be interpreted in two ways - the status of a festival or it is taken from the atmosphere of the pilgrimage to Jerusalem. In any case, the source points to a human structure consisting of a vocal, instrumental and choreographic aspect.

A historical event earlier than the above, but taken from a story with a different setting, rooted in the great joy that surrounded the camp of Israel after crossing the Red Sea in ruins and drowning Pharaoh's chariots. The book of Exodus opens the celebration of the "Song of the Sea" with a choreographic trailer along the lines of: "And Miriam the prophetess, Aaron's sister, took the drum in her hand and all the women went out after her with drums and dances. And Miriam answered them: Sing to Jehovah, for he is proud, proud, a horse and his rider are high in the sea" (Exodus 21:20-XNUMX).
It is about the celebration of the victory over the Pharaoh's army and his soldiers, in the center of which Miriam and a group of female prostitutes broke out in a response dance, so to speak - the girls danced and Miriam answered them with the words of a song, a song of victory to the God who brought salvation to his people. Presumably, as was customary in ancient cultures, yeast and the women dramatized in an interesting choreographic way the story of the miracle that happened in the Red Sea. It is possible to assume that such a status created a very dramatic effect and a sacred experience among the Israelites.

A similar event is reflected in the well-known story of Yeftah and his daughter. Yeftah, who returned from the battlefield against the Ammonites and vowed to sacrifice the first person who would precede him on his return victorious from the battle, had to accept the evil of the oath when he returned, she was the one who preceded him first, and according to the words of the Bible: "And Yeftah the Mitzpe came to his house, and behold his daughter came out to meet him with drums and in dances" (Judges 34:XNUMX). Here, too, a well-known ritual center is mentioned and it is expected. Here too, a procreative woman appears in connection with a military victory (and perhaps in a kind of reflection of dramatized and sung battle events) and here too the drumming is mentioned in connection with the dance. It was or it wasn't, it's not relevant at all and the attempt to claim that Yiphtah would open a gate because one of his servants would run to him first and not his daughter is nothing more than a desire to literally cleanse Yiphtah of the sin of vow and arrogance. Yeftah failed in his speech because he knew, as is customary, that his daughter would greet him with singing and dancing. The story is intended to dramatize the entire story of the battle and the somewhat problematic personality of Yeftah.

The description of the dancing women leading the warriors on their return from the battlefield appears in 7 Samuel. After David returned from the campaign against the Philistines and he was crowned with the victory wreath, "And the women from all the cities of Israel came out to sing and dance for King Saul with drums, with joy and in tridents. And the dancing women were interested and said to her: "Strike Saul with his fists and David with his clubs" (6 Samuel XNUMX:XNUMX-XNUMX). Even here women sing and dance in the style of response movements, to say - camp against camp and/or the division of the song between "questions" and "answers" in relation to the victory song. It is not impossible that the expression "games" refers to a choreographic, somewhat theatrical display of various battle events as we find in the myths of different cultures such as in the Far East (India for example) or in Latin America. It must be assumed that these songs and dances were prepared in advance and the women performers practiced on them, since this is not some kind of spontaneous event, in the presence of army commanders and kings, but one that was carefully prepared in advance.

In front of the victory dances in the Israeli camp, David laments after the tragic death of Saul and his sons in the battle against the Philistines in Gilboa, in the words of "Do not tell in Gath, do not preach in the streets of Ashkelon, lest you encamp the daughters of the Philistines, lest you make the daughters of the desert be merry" (20 Samuel XNUMX:XNUMX). To say - even there, among the Philistines, the women might break out in victory dances and songs of glory.

Another type of dance was directly associated with worship, and it differed from the victory and fertility dances in that men took a central part in it. The primordial worship rites were accompanied by the dancing of men (in shamanic days), sometimes to the point of loss of consciousness and fainting, a kind of trance, intended to create the middle connection between the audience and the god, and at the end of it a gradual disintegration that was a purification (catharsis). The book of 23 Samuel brings us a very picturesque and passionate description of the return of the Ark of God from the house of Aminadav to the city of David, when the dominant figure in the whole situation was none other than King David himself: "And it came to pass that the bearers of the Ark of the Lord marched six paces, and sacrificed an ox and took off, and David roared with all his strength before Jehovah And David belted a cloth vest. And David and the whole house of Israel raise up the ark of Jehovah with rejoicing and with the sound of a trumpet. And the ark of Jehovah came to the city of David, and Michal the daughter of Saul looked out of the window, and saw King David in a frenzy and groaning before Jehovah... and David sat down to bless his house. And Michal daughter of Saul went out to meet David and said: How honored is the king of Israel today, who will be revealed today to the eyes of the mothers of his servants as one of the empty exiles. And David said to Michal: Before Jehovah, who chose me from your father and all his house to command me, we will speak for Jehovah's people, Israel, and I played before Jehovah" (13 Samuel XNUMX:XNUMX-XNUMX).
David's sarcasm is nothing more than an enthusiastic dance display to the point of ecstasy, when he imagines himself to be a priest (wrapped in a cloth vest), and from this he has the legitimacy to "go wild" near the Ark of the Covenant in the presence of the public of his subjects, and to Michal's astonishment he informs her that it is the sarcasm and the disorientation that present the expression of the holy status in a way Ultimate. Even here the box "And I danced before Jehovah" shows the special dance, also following the victory over the Philistines. And there is nothing like the dance steps to express a mute, primal, primordial language, something and moreover - real. It is not known whether the last sentence was internalized by David in the quasi-provocative answer he gave before Michal, but knowledge and knowledge show that this is indeed what David thought.

The primordial dance therefore reflected the ancient Jewish society, as akin to neighboring cultures and ruling over the other. It was usually conducted by women for reasons of almost natural choreographic and physical abilities and from the connection to the fertility cult. The dance was performed with frenzied ecstatic movements and sometimes the performers reached the verge of fainting. Particularly interesting were the courtship dances, such as the pop meetings in Shiloh.