The origins of dance can't be separated from "body music" - stomping, clapping hands, snapping fingers. Enjoying the movement of one's body is part of the earliest form of religious feelings.

Imitating their movements was intended to make the prey animals easy to catch. Experiences of successful hunt, danger, weather, material processing were imitated and internalized by rhythmic movements.

In chain dances paths and archetypical forms were laid down onto the earth - waves, spirals, labyrinths. Round dances imitated the course of the stars and the movements of sun and moon and made them comprehensible. It makes a difference whether the movement proceeds with the course of the sun like the course of nature, or against it, approaching the light. The feet touch, stroke and shake the earth, face and hands are lifted to heaven, to sun and moon, to the gods. Codified positions of the body and hand signals form a sign language uttered to the gods or telling stories

Archaic symbols like circle, cross, star, wave, spiral, are set into movement, made experienced in the body and drawn into the earth with the feet. The origin of rhythm is the beat of the human heart; slower or faster rhythms can have a healing or disturbing impact on the human organism.

The oldest pictures of presumably dancing women are evident on stone carvings found near Neuwied /Rhine and shown in the Ice Age Museum at Monrepose Castle, Germany.

Numerous prehistoric iconographical sources give just a faint impression of dance and often suggest religious scenes. Archaic paths, forms and steps preserved in today’s folklore dances of various countries allow the conclusion that already our prehistoric ancestors have moved in similar ways, following a natural feeling of and for the body