Luke Jeffery - Expression in Van Der Leeuw

Van Der Leeuw, in his section on the dance, discusses how expression has been lost in the arts. Once, in the time of primitive man, dance, poetry and other arts were a means of expression for man's "feelings and thoughts" (36); however, they have now degraded into entertainment. Instead of dancing ourselves or singing ourselves, we will watch others sing and dance. This, however, does not fulfill the deep desire in our heart for expression that the arts are able to give. We were made to express ourselves and when this ability has not been tapped into, our thoughts and feelings get trapped inside of ourselves. We bottle up the life that is inside of us and slowly but surely we forget how to be alive. This slow digression can be seen in many modern children's journeys into adolescence and then adulthood. Their means of expression gets lost somewhere along the way and they begin to fill this lack of expression with entertainment, ultimately losing touch with means of expression that they once had. We must come back into an understanding of the expression that we lost and begin to practice it again, in order to release our thoughts and feelings.