Dance \Dance\, n. [F. danse, of German origin. See {Dance}, v. i.] 1. The leaping, tripping, or measured stepping of one who dances; an amusement, in which the movements of the persons are regulated by art, in figures and in accord with music.
2. (Mus.) A tune by which dancing is regulated, as the minuet, the waltz, the cotillon, etc.
Note: The word dance was used ironically, by the older writers, of many proceedings besides dancing.
Of remedies of love she knew parchance For of that art she couth the olde dance. --Chaucer.
{Dance of Death} (Art), an allegorical representation of the power of death over all, -- the old, the young, the high, and the low, being led by a dancing skeleton.
{Morris dance}. See {Morris}.
{To lead one a dance}, to cause one to go through a series of movements or experiences as if guided by a partner in a dance not understood.
Dance \Dance\, v. t. To cause to dance, or move nimbly or merrily about, or up and down; to dandle.
To dance our ringlets to the whistling wind. --Shak.
Thy grandsire loved thee well; Many a time he danced thee on his knee. --Shak.
{To dance attendance}, to come and go obsequiously; to be or remain in waiting, at the beck and call of another, with a view to please or gain favor.
A man of his place, and so near our favor, To dance attendance on their lordships' pleasure. --Shak.
Dance \Dance\ (d[.a]ns), v. i. [imp. & p. p. {Danced}; p. pr. & vb. n. {Dancing}.] [F. danser, fr. OHG. dans[=o]n to draw; akin to dinsan to draw, Goth. apinsan, and prob. from the same root (meaning to stretch) as E. thin. See {Thin}.] 1. To move with measured steps, or to a musical accompaniment; to go through, either alone or in company with others, with a regulated succession of movements, (commonly) to the sound of music; to trip or leap rhythmically.
Jack shall pipe and Gill shall dance. --Wither.
Good shepherd, what fair swain is this Which dances with your daughter? --Shak.
2. To move nimbly or merrily; to express pleasure by motion; to caper; to frisk; to skip about.
Then, 'tis time to dance off. --Thackeray.
More dances my rapt heart Than when I first my wedded mistress saw. --Shak.
Shadows in the glassy waters dance. --Byron.
Where rivulets dance their wayward round. --Wordsworth.
{To dance on a rope}, or {To dance on nothing}, to be hanged.
So in a dance studio Thursday night, remembering the glory days, they practiced their jitterbugs and coffee-grinding and listened to Bobby Darin, Frankie Avalon and Neil Sedaka.
"Nearly everyone in Bali is an artist," Birch said. "They dance or paint or play a musical instrument.
"She'll be able to do everything, including dance," Neuwirth told reporters at Manhattan's Institute Hospital for Joint Diseases.
In coastal Salvador, 1,120 miles northeast of Brazil, millions of costumed revelers packed city squares and streets to dance to highly-amplified samba bands perched atop lavishly decorated trucks.
"I get to sing and dance a little," said McShane. "I do a thing with the cane and hat.
Just before the close of the second act of "Joe Turner," the people in the boarding house hold a "Juba": an ecstatic religious outpouring of song and dance.
Moments later, he began lurching back and forth in a unique twist-style dance step.
Will Baby and Johnny get it on before Penny gets Baby? Shut up and dance.
"They're cute and they dance good," she says.
The 50-year-old Sloan says his troupe dances a different style than amateur square dance clubs around the country.
They come from all 50 states and 26 foreign countries to spend a summer of intensive study in music, dance, drama and the visual arts.
Faint, evocative burblings and tickings as accompaniment from Matteo Fargion. The dance curves and surges through the bodies, pivots at arm or shoulder, drives onward in kicks, draws the cast together or separates them.
As soon as it is over, the teen-agers crowding the back of the church kneel, cross themselves and head for the basement to dance.
A hand grenade exploded early Sunday on the crowded dance floor of a nightclub, killing one man and wounding 37 people, police said.
Dorothy Lamour, Alice Faye, Vincent Price, Tony Cyd Charisse and Charles "Budrs were among the Hollywood pioneers ready to sing and even dance a few steps.
They found rental sources for a large tent with a dance floor, tables and chairs, dishes, glasses and silver, tablecloths and portable toilet facilities.
In the East room ceremony, Bush watched a group of children from Toledo, dressed in traditional Spanish colonial garb, dance to mariachi music.
Most recurrent dance routine: The Rockettes-like line of kickers.
About 250 people turned out at a school board meeting in 1986, most favoring the dance ban.
The Dance Theater of Harlem prides itself on preserving American dance repertory, and does an excellent job of presenting works that otherwise would disappear because they are not performed.
Renoir's depiction of an open-air dance hall in Montmartre, "Au Moulin dela Galette," is to be auctioned at Sotheby's.
Apparently not fully stretched in his role scrutinising the glamorous world of building societies, Robert Villiers, analyst at UBS, has released a dance CD single and video.
Tom West, a sophomore sports medicine major from West Long Branch, N.J., taped feet, iced ankles and treated blisters from a trainer's table off the dance floor.
His first Monday there, he called his former dance instructor in New Jersey, who set up a meeting that day with an agent.
Roche coordinates an annual multiethnic festival at her school and organized the first racially integrated student dance at a rural Maryland high school.
In the past, its meetings have been open to the public except for sessions devoted to reviewing grant applications recommended by the NEA's panels of outside arts experts on theater, dance, music and other disciplines.
In keeping with its expanding role as a suburban cultural center, the mall stages frequent entertainments, from aerobic dance competitions to performances by the Rockettes.
Not the transformed body of academically virtuoso dance, but ordinary mortal flesh.
Flee into the night, certainly - which is what I did after 85 minutes of tenth-rate rock, frenetically silly movement, and even more desperate inadequacy of dance ideas.
Some slow dance at the mini-dances that spring up spontaneously, swaying to drippy instrumental tunes from cassette players set on the ground.