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| The Cultural Learning of Greek Dances
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Normally when learning a dance, one thinks of the steps and the physical succession of movements. Dance researchers of Greek dance differentiate here between the authentic dance and the folklore dance. In authentic dance, already as children, inhabitants in a village learn the dances danced there through the practice of them. People dance until an advanced age, whereby these dances are stylistically refined and the basic step is improvised in free variations according to the dancer's ability. In addition to the physical side of the dance, there is also the precise knowledge of the music, the content of the songs (as sung poetry), the tradition of the dances in the village context, as well as the local costumes, which symbolize certain social as well as personal aspects. The milieu of the dance is passed down through its practice and oral tradition. We speak of folklore when the oral factors of the style and context are erased, i.e., through a concentration on the mechanics and rather than learning from various sources, only one source is present. Although dance belongs widely to cultural identification in Greece, and dancing is taught in elementary schools, this “authentic” culture is disappearing, especially the culture from the former regions of Asia Minor.
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