Dreamed of another song/dance routine the other day. I thought the three teenagers in yellow raincoats were going to jump my boyfriend and me. I was mistaken, they just wanted to perform. Everyone on the street joined in, including my boyfriend, Iceman from X-Men.

The importance of dance as a primal form of ritual enactment is described by the poet Gary Snyder, who states that dance once had a connection with "ritual drama, the miming of animals, or tracing the maze of the spiritual journey." Snyder believes that we have lost touch with this connection and that it is the task of the dancer and the poet to regain it---"to put us in touch with our archaic roots, with the world in its nakedness, which is fundamental to us all: birth---love---death; the sheer fact of being alive." The importance of ritual and the initiation as themes connected to dance is also richly elaborated by Steven Lansdale, who notes that initiatory ceremonies and dances are intended to teach the initiates what they need to survive in harsh environments.

The Black Sun: The Alchemy and Art of Darkness by Stanton Marlan (Texas A&M University Press 2005)