"The great difficulty, indeed the tragedy of our modern life, lies in the fact that we differentiate between the things which concern us and things which do not concern us. We are musical or we are not; we are religious or we are not; we are concerned with economic affairs or we are not...In a word, we have lost the unity of life." -Van Der Leeuw (33)
This quote appears in the dance section of Van Der Leeuw's work. He discusses the origin of the dance, remarking that it is the most primitive of the arts. This quote underlies the unity that is found in the primitive man, who has not become so disconnected from different spheres of life as modern man has. He asserts that the dance reflects an inner unity one's entire being, stating, "The more one becomes conscious of the unity of body and soul, the more the dance will again achieve its rightful position as a function of life" (35). This idea well reflects the dance itself. Many of us today feel stupid dancing or concerned about what others think about us. We say that dancing "is not our thing." Yet, what has happened is that we have disconnected ourselves from the dance and have therefore lost a unity inside of ourselves. This promotes insecurity which we see so much today.
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