Published May 19, 2021 at 10:12 AM EDT Listen • 50:25 / Professor Thomas DeFrantz, Duke University, Department of African and African American Studies; Program in Dance, SLIPPAGE@Duke Humans dance. The purpose varies: invoking the power of the gods, expressing deep or transcendent emotion, connecting socially, resisting the power structure, developing a future identity, but at its root, whatever the reason, exploring the depth and breadth of human creativity is inseparable from the act of dance. In her book, Exuberance, the Passion for Life, Kay Redfield Jamison writes, “Over fifty thousand years ago, Neanderthals made flutes from the bones of bears; long before that, mothers sang to their infants and, through that song, parent and child were brought closer together still. Music, the gods knew, transforms. Orpheus sang and turned the course of the rivers; trees stirred from their rootings. Sisyphus took leave of his labors…