Skip this Advertisement

A-Z Browse

  • Damoh (India)
    town, central Madhya Pradesh state, central India. An agricultural trade centre, it has industries that include oilseed milling, handloom weaving and dyeing, and the manufacture of bell-metal vessels and pottery. The town has a weekly cattle market. Damoh rose to importance in the 14th century when occupied by the Muslims and was the seat of Marāṭhā governors. It was constitu...
  • damoiseau (title)
    ...not only in military subjects but also in the ways of the world. During this period of his apprenticeship he would be known as a damoiseau (literally “lordling”), or varlet, or valet (German: Knappe), until he followed his patron on a campaign as his shieldbearer, écuyer, or esquire, or as the bearer of his weapons (armiger). When he was adjudged......
  • Damon (Greek music theorist)
    The only name associated with his early education is that of the musical theorist Damon, whose influence, it is said, was not just confined to music. The arrival of the Sophist philosophers in Athens occurred during his middle life, and he seems to have taken full advantage of the society of Zeno and particularly Anaxagoras, from whom he is said to have learned impassivity in the face of......
  • Damon, Matt (American actor, screenwriter, and producer)
    American actor, screenwriter, and producer, who was noted for his clean-cut good looks and intelligent performances. He won an Academy Award for best original screenplay for Good Will Hunting (1997)....
  • Damon, Matthew Paige (American actor, screenwriter, and producer)
    American actor, screenwriter, and producer, who was noted for his clean-cut good looks and intelligent performances. He won an Academy Award for best original screenplay for Good Will Hunting (1997)....
  • “Dämonen, Die” (novel by Doderer)
    Austrian novelist who achieved international fame with his novel of post-World War I Vienna, Die Dämonen (1956; The Demons), on which he had worked since 1931. It explores the society and mood of Vienna in 1926–27 in a many-layered web of detail and complex characters....
  • Damophon (Greek sculptor)
    ancient Greek sculptor of Messene, who executed many statues at Messene, Megalopolis, Aegium, and other cities of the Peloponnesus. Soon after 183 bc he repaired Phidias’ sculpture of Zeus at Olympia, which had been damaged by an earthquake. Considerable fragments, including three colossal heads from a group sculpted by Damophon and representing Despoina, De...
  • damoz (type of marriage)
    Descent is reckoned patrilineally, and married couples usually reside near the husband’s home. The Amhara practice three types of marriage: kal kidan, qurban, and damoz. Kal kidan (also called serat or semanya [“eighty”]) is marriage by civil contract. It is by far the most common form, though a great percentage of such unions end in.....
  • damp (mining)
    any of various harmful vapours produced during mining operations. The gases are frequently called damps (German Dampf, “vapour”). Firedamp is a gas that occurs naturally in coal seams. The gas is nearly always methane (CH4) and is highly inflammable and explosive when present in the air in a proportion of 5 to 14 percent. White damp, or ...
  • damp-fold drapery (painting)
    ...artists to a more organic, if expressively attenuated, conception of the human body. Drapery is now stretched and gathered, with sinuous folds isolating curving islands of taut cloth (so-called damp-fold drapery) to describe three-dimensional forms in torsion. Faces are more heavily modeled than before, and glances and gestures are even more piercing and insistent. This is first seen about......
  • damped oscillation
    The simple harmonic oscillations discussed above continue forever, at constant amplitude, oscillating as shown in Figure 3 between A and −A. Common experience indicates that real oscillators behave somewhat differently, however. Harmonic oscillations tend to die away as time goes on. This behaviour, called damping of the oscillations, is produced by forces such as friction......
  • damped vibration
    The simple harmonic oscillations discussed above continue forever, at constant amplitude, oscillating as shown in Figure 3 between A and −A. Common experience indicates that real oscillators behave somewhat differently, however. Harmonic oscillations tend to die away as time goes on. This behaviour, called damping of the oscillations, is produced by forces such as friction......
  • damper (keyboard instrument)
    ...are therefore much louder than were those of the 18th century, an increase in loudness necessitated in part by the size of 19th-century concert halls. Of the three pedals found on most pianos, the damper pedal on the right lifts all the felt dampers above the strings, allowing them all to vibrate freely; the left pedal shifts the keyboard and action sideways to enable the hammer to strike only....
  • damper winding (electrical engineering)
    This additional rotor winding is usually referred to as a damper winding because of its additional property of damping out any oscillation that might be caused by sudden changes in the load on the rotor when in synchronism. Adjustment to load changes involves changes in the angle by which the rotor field lags the stator field and thus involves short-term changes in instantaneous speed. These......
  • Dampier (Western Australia, Australia)
    town and port in Roebourne shire, northwestern Western Australia, on Nickol Bay (an inlet of the Indian Ocean). Beginning in 1965, it was built to handle iron ore mined at Mount Tom Price (182 miles [293 km] south) and Paraburdoo in the Hamersley Range. The port takes its name from the offshore archipelago, named after William Dampier (a British buccaneer who ...
  • Dampier Archipelago (archipelago, Australia)
    ...He sailed from England on Jan. 14, 1699, rounded the Cape of Good Hope, and reached Shark Bay off western Australia on July 26. After exploring the coast northward to what was thereafter called Dampier Archipelago, he went on to New Guinea and, passing around the north of the island, reached New Britain. With a deteriorating ship and a discontented crew, he then continued to Batavia, Java......
  • Dampier, William (British explorer)
    buccaneer who later explored parts of the coasts of Australia, New Guinea, and New Britain for the British Admiralty. A keen observer of natural phenomena, he was, in some respects, a pioneer in scientific exploration....
  • Dampierre, Château de (château, France)
    ...sophistication, it remained an inward-looking, essentially medieval garden. The first sign of prolongation and calculated extension of vision beyond the garden proper appeared in the grounds of Dampierre. Here the moat that formerly surrounded French castles became an ornamental body of water on one side and a decorative canal on the other. Both aspects of the new garden......
  • Dampierre, Gui de (count of Flanders)
    count of Flanders (from 1278) and margrave of Namur (Namen). He was the son of Margaret, countess of Flanders and Hainaut....
  • damping (physics)
    in physics, restraining of vibratory motion, such as mechanical oscillations, noise, and alternating electric currents, by dissipation of energy. Unless a child keeps pumping a swing, its motion dies down because of damping. Shock absorbers in automobiles and carpet pads are examples of damping devices....
  • damping capacity (physics)
    Magnesium applications are motivated by the light weight, high strength, high damping capacity, close dimensional tolerance, and ease of fabrication of its alloys. Applications include hand tools, sporting goods, luggage frames, cameras, household appliances, business machines, and automobile parts. The aerospace industry employs magnesium alloys in the manufacture of aircraft, rockets, and......
  • damping-off (plant disease)
    disease of plant seedlings, caused by such seed- and soil-borne fungi as Rhizoctonia solani, Aphanomyces cochlioides, and species of Pythium, Phytophthora, Botrytis, Fusarium, Cylindrocladium, Diplodia, Phoma, and Alternaria. There are two types of damping-off: preemergence, in which sprouting seeds decay in soil and young seedlings rot before emergence; and postemergence, in...
  • Damqog Kanbab (river, China)
    ...flows west to become the Sutlej River in western India; the K’ung-ch’üeh River flows into the Kauriālā to eventually join the Ganges River; and the Ma-ch’üan River (Tibetan Damqog Kanbab: “Out of the Horse’s Mouth”) flows east and, after joining the Lhasa (La-sa) River south of Lhasa, forms the Brahmaputra River....
  • Dâmrei Mountains (mountains, Cambodia)
    north-south-trending range of high hills, an offshoot of the Krâvanh Mountains, southwestern Cambodia. Extending 70 miles (110 km) north from the Gulf of Thailand, they reach a high point in the Bok Koŭ ridge at Mount Bokor (3,547 feet [1,081 m]). The densely wooded hills receive rainfall of 150–200 inches (3,800–5,000 mm) annually on their western slopes (which are sub...
  • Damrong Rajanubhab (Thai prince)
    Thai prince, son of King Mongkut and brother of King Chulalongkorn. He was the founder of modern education and provincial administration and was Thailand’s leading intellectual of his generation....
  • Damrosch, Walter (American musician)
    Prussian-born American orchestral conductor and composer whose activities spanned more than half a century of American musical life....
  • damsel bug (insect)
    any predacious insect in the true bug order, Heteroptera, that feeds on insect eggs, aphids, and small caterpillars. Damsel bugs are generally divided into two types. One is about 8 mm (0.3 inch) long and yellow-brown in colour with well-developed wings, and the second is larger, shiny black, and usually has very short wings....
  • damselfish (fish)
    any of about 250 species of small, primarily tropical marine fishes of the family Pomacentridae (order Perciformes) found in the Atlantic and Indo-Pacific oceans. Damselfishes are deep-bodied and usually have forked tails. They resemble the related cichlids and, like them, have a single nostril on each side of the head and have interrupted lateral lines. Damselfishes have two anal spines. Many spe...
  • damselfly (insect)
    any of a group of predatory, aerial insects that are in the order Odonata. Damselflies are found mainly near shallow, freshwater habitats and are graceful fliers with slender bodies and long, filmy, net-veined wings. Damselflies are generally smaller, more delicate, and fly weakly in comparison with dragonflies (suborder Anisoptera). Their colours can be stunningly vivid. Wingspans among the 2,600...
  • Damson plum (plant)
    ...Sea. According to the earliest writings in which the plum is mentioned, the species is at least 2,000 years old. Another Old World plum species, probably of European or Asiatic origin, is the Damson plum (Prunus institia). Ancient writings connect early cultivation of these plums with the region around Damascus. It is not known when European plums were introduced into North......
  • Damu (ancient god)
    in Mesopotamian religion, Sumerian deity, city god of Girsu, east of Ur in the southern orchards region. Damu, son of Enki, was a vegetation god, especially of the vernal flowing of the sap of trees and plants. His name means “The Child,” and his cult—apparently celebrated primarily by women—centred on the lamentation and search for...
  • Damu (ancient goddess)
    The cult of Damu influenced and later blended with the similar cult of Tammuz the Shepherd, a Sumerian deity. A different deity called Damu was a goddess of healing and the daughter of Nininsina of Isin....
  • damyan (musical instrument)
    ...specific instruments and repertoire. There appears to be a great deal of both Indian-related and indigenous folk music in the three Himalayan kingdoms. Varieties of lute, such as the long-necked damyan of Nepal and its Sikkimese relative, may be linked to a similar instrument of the Pamir Mountains, while a Sikkimese flute having an outside air duct (in contrast to the inside duct of a.....
  • Dan (people)
    an ethnolinguistic grouping of people inhabiting the mountainous west-central Côte d’Ivoire and adjacent areas of Liberia. The Dan belong to the Southern branch of the Mande linguistic subgroup of the Niger-Congo language family. They originated somewhere to the west or northwest of their present lands, perhaps among the Malinke (Mandingo). The Dan are closely related to the Gere (al...
  • dan (unit of weight)
    the basic unit of weight in ancient China. The shi was created by Shi Huang Di, who became the first emperor of China in 221 bc and who is celebrated for his unification of regulations fixing the basic units. He fixed the shi at about 60 kg (132 pounds). The modern ...
  • Dan (Hebrew tribe)
    one of the 12 tribes of Israel that in biblical times comprised the people of Israel who later became the Jewish people. The tribe was named after the first of two sons born to Jacob (also called Israel) and Bilhah, the maidservant of Jacob’s second wife, Rachel. Nine of the other 11 tribes were also named after sons of Jacob, while two bear the names of Jacob’s grandsons, children ...
  • Dan Dare (comic strip)
    ...and the aforementioned The Beano, both of which offered innocent fun for younger children. For older children there was The Eagle, with “Dan Dare” (begun 1950; strip killed and relaunched a number of times, most recently in 2007) by Frank Hampson and the Reverend Marcus Morris, based on “healthy” Christian principles....
  • Dan Flavin Art Institute (building, Bridgehampton, New York, United States)
    ...and scale of his pieces depending on the space. From 1983 to 1988 he renovated a former firehouse and church in Bridgehampton, N.Y., as a permanent site for his work. The building, known as the Dan Flavin Art Institute, is now maintained by the Dia Art Foundation....
  • Dan Patch (racehorse)
    (foaled 1896), American harness racehorse (Standardbred), a nearly legendary horse in his time, who established in 1905 a world pacing record of 1:55 14 that endured for 33 years. (In 1906 he paced a mile in 1:55 flat—Billy Direct’s record-breaking time in 1938—but this feat was not officially recognized.) He paced a mile in 2 minutes or les...
  • Dan River (river, Middle East)
    ...which rises in Lebanon, near Ḥāṣbayyā, at an elevation of 1,800 feet (550 metres). From the east, in Syria, flows the Bāniyās River; between the two is the Dan, the waters of which are particularly fresh. Just inside Israel, these three rivers join together in the Ḥula Valley. The plain of the Ḥula Valley was formerly occupied by a lake......
  • Dan Takuma (Japanese industrialist)
    manager of the giant Mitsui zaibatsu, the greatest of the family-owned combines in pre-World War II Japan. A graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and an important member of Japan’s business elite, Dan was assassinated by right-wing nationalists who regarded him as a symbol of the evil power of high finance in government. ...
  • Dana (Celtic war goddess)
    in Celtic religion, one of three war goddesses; it is also a collective name for the three, who were also referred to as the three Morrígan. As an individual, Macha was known by a great variety of names, including Dana and Badb (“Crow,” or “Raven”). She was the great earth mother, or female principle, and a great slaughterer of men, as was another of the trinity...
  • dāna (Buddhism)
    ...appear independently within the tradition. The veneration of the Buddha or Buddha figure is a common ritual often practiced independently of other rituals. Moreover, the dana (Pali: “gift-giving”) ritual of the Theravada tradition and similar exchanges between monks and laypersons are performed independently of other rituals. Both of these......
  • Dana (Celtic goddess)
    in Celtic religion, the earth-mother goddess or female principle, who was honoured under various names from eastern Europe to Ireland. The mythology that surrounded her was contradictory and confused; mother goddesses of earlier peoples were ultimately identified with her, as were many goddesses of the Celts themselves. Possibly a goddess of fertility, of wisdom, and of wind, she was believed to h...
  • Dana, Charles A. (American journalist)
    American journalist who became a national figure as editor of the New York Sun....
  • Dana, Charles Anderson (American journalist)
    American journalist who became a national figure as editor of the New York Sun....
  • Dana, Francis (American diplomat)
    In 1781, at age 14, Adams accompanied Francis Dana, United States envoy to Russia, as his private secretary and interpreter of French. Dana, after lingering for more than a year in St. Petersburg, was not received by the Russian government, so in 1782 Adams, returning by way of Scandinavia, Hanover, and the Netherlands, joined his father in Paris. There he acted, in an informal way, as an......
  • Dana, James D. (American geologist and mineralogist)
    American geologist, mineralogist, and naturalist who, in explorations of the South Pacific, the U.S. Northwest, Europe, and elsewhere, made important studies of mountain building, volcanic activity, sea life, and the origin and structure of continents and ocean basins....
  • Dana, James Dwight (American geologist and mineralogist)
    American geologist, mineralogist, and naturalist who, in explorations of the South Pacific, the U.S. Northwest, Europe, and elsewhere, made important studies of mountain building, volcanic activity, sea life, and the origin and structure of continents and ocean basins....
  • Dana, Richard Henry (American author)
    American lawyer and author of the popular autobiographical narrative Two Years Before the Mast....
  • Danae (work by Gossart)
    Sculpturesque nudes become common in Gossart’s later paintings, but they seldom avoid the stiff quality of his earlier figures. In his Danae, Gossart employs an elaborate architectural setting as a foil for the seminude figure, a device he frequently used. Throughout his life, he retained the lapidary technique and careful observation that were traditional in......
  • Danaë (painting by Rembrandt)
    ...with the stadholder’s court. In view of the measurements documented, the painting concerned could have been either the Blinding of Samson or the Danaë (both from 1636) in its original form. It seems that Huygens did not accept the gift....
  • Danaë (Greek mythology)
    in Greek mythology, the slayer of the Gorgon Medusa and the rescuer of Andromeda from a sea monster. Perseus was the son of Zeus and Danaë, the daughter of Acrisius of Argos. As an infant he was cast into the sea in a chest with his mother by Acrisius, to whom it had been prophesied that he would be killed by his grandson. After Perseus had grown up on the island of Seriphus, where the......
  • Danae with Nursemaid (painting by Titian)
    ...artist to the king, it is clear that he planned the paintings in pairs, but otherwise they do not constitute a comprehensive iconographic program. The first pair (still in Madrid) consists of the Danae with Nursemaid and the Venus and Adonis. The magnificent nude Danae lies upon her couch, knees raised, as Jupiter descends to her in......
  • Danaea (plant genus)
    ...eusporangiate, in sori, or more or less coalescent in synangia (clusters); homosporous; mostly massive, fleshy ferns; 4 modern genera (Angiopteris, Christensenia, Marattia, and Danaea) with about 150 species, widely distributed in tropical regions.Class Polypodiopsida (also kno...
  • Danaïd (Greek mythology)
    in Greek legend, son of Belus, king of Egypt, and twin brother of Aegyptus. Driven out of Egypt by his brother, he fled with his 50 daughters (the Danaïds) to Argos, where he became king. Soon thereafter the 50 sons of Aegyptus arrived in Argos, and Danaus was forced to consent to their marriage with his daughters. Danaus, however, commanded each daughter to slay her husband on the......
  • Danaidae (insect group)
    any of a group of butterflies in the brush-footed butterfly family, Nymphalidae (order Lepidoptera). Some authorities consider this group to be at the family level (Danaidae). The majority of species are found in both Old and New World tropics. However, some well-known members such as the monarch butterfly and the queen butterfly live in temperate regions. The...
  • Danainae (insect group)
    any of a group of butterflies in the brush-footed butterfly family, Nymphalidae (order Lepidoptera). Some authorities consider this group to be at the family level (Danaidae). The majority of species are found in both Old and New World tropics. However, some well-known members such as the monarch butterfly and the queen butterfly live in temperate regions. The...
  • Danakil (people)
    a people of the Horn of Africa who speak Saho, a language of the Eastern Cushitic branch of the Afro-Asiatic (formerly Hamito-Semitic) family. They live in northeastern Ethiopia and in Djibouti, where, with the Issas, they are the dominant people. It is thought that the Afars were the first of the present inhabitants of Ethiopia to elaborate their pastoral life into full-scale n...
  • Danakil Plain (region, Ethiopia)
    arid lowland of northern Ethiopia and southeastern Eritrea, bordering Djibouti. It lies at the northern extreme of the Great Rift Valley and the Awash River. Live volcanoes (often called the Denakil Alps) separate it from the Red Sea. Any water that comes into the plain evaporates there; no streams flow out from it. The Kobar Sink, a huge basin in the northern part of the plain,...
  • Danao (Philippines)
    city, eastern Cebu island, Philippines, about 17 miles (27 km) northeast of Cebu City. It was founded in 1844 and is a port on the Camotes Sea for nearby coalfields. It is also a service centre for the coastal agricultural area that produces rice and corn (maize). Its name is derived from danawan, a local word meaning “shallow lagoo...
  • Danapur (India)
    town, northern Bihār state, northeastern India, on the Ganges River. It is a major road and rail junction and agricultural trade centre. Industries include printing, oilseed milling, and metalworks. There is a college affiliated with Magadh University and an army cantonment. Dānāpur was constituted a municipality in 1887. Pop. (1981) 58,684....
  • Danau-Danau Wissel (lakes, Indonesia)
    chain of three highland lakes located in the Sudirman Range of Irian Jaya provinsi (province), Indonesia, western New Guinea. They comprise Paniai, the largest and northernmost; Tage, to its south; and Tigi, the southernmost. Situated at an elevation of about 5,750 feet (1,750 m), they were created by tectonic damming of the Arabu River. The lake shores support one of the densest concentrat...
  • Danaus (Greek mythology)
    in Greek legend, son of Belus, king of Egypt, and twin brother of Aegyptus. Driven out of Egypt by his brother, he fled with his 50 daughters (the Danaïds) to Argos, where he became king. Soon thereafter the 50 sons of Aegyptus arrived in Argos, and Danaus was forced to consent to their marriage with his daughters. Danaus, however, commanded each daughter to slay her hus...
  • Danaus gilippus (insect)
    Research has revealed that olfactory displays are widespread in insects. The sex attractants for this purpose are usually volatile pheromones. Among certain species of butterflies, such as the queen butterfly (Danaus gilippus), the males possess “hair pencils” that project from the end of the abdomen and emit a scent when swept over the female’s antennae during courtshi...
  • Danaus plexippus (insect)
    familiar member of the milkweed butterfly group, known for its large size, its orange and black wings, and its long annual migrations. Monarchs are concentrated in North, Central, and South America but can also be found in Australia, Hawaii, India, and other locations, albeit intermittently in some....
  • Danbury (Connecticut, United States)
    city, coextensive with the town (township) of Danbury, Fairfield county, southwestern Connecticut, U.S. It lies along the Still River in the foothills of the Berkshire Hills. Settled in 1685, it was named in 1687 for Danbury, England, and was incorporated as a town in 1702. The municipality within the original town tract became a borough in 1822 and a city in ...
  • Danbury Hatters’ Case (law case)
    U.S. Supreme Court case in which unions were held to be subject to the antitrust laws. In 1902 the United Hatters of North America, having failed to organize the firm of D.E. Loewe in Danbury, Conn., called for a nationwide boycott of the firm’s products. The firm brought suit under the Sherman Anti-Trust Act, and in 1908 the union was assessed triple damages. The case was a severe setback ...
  • Danby (Illinois, United States)
    village, DuPage county, northeastern Illinois, U.S. It is a suburb of Chicago, lying 23 miles (37 km) west of downtown. Glen Ellyn’s phases of development were marked by seven name changes: Babcock’s Grove (1833), for the first settlers, Ralph and Morgan Babcock; DuPage Center (1834); Stacy’s Corners (1835); Newton’s Station (1849);...
  • Danby, Ken (Canadian painter)
    Canadian painter who was best known for paintings that featured brilliant colours and were emblematic of Canada, notably At the Crease (1972), which depicted a masked hockey goalie, Lacing Up, which showed a hockey player tying his skates, and The Great Farewell (2001), Wayne Gretzky’s official retirement portrait from the National Hockey League. Although Danby’s...
  • Danby, Kenneth Edison (Canadian painter)
    Canadian painter who was best known for paintings that featured brilliant colours and were emblematic of Canada, notably At the Crease (1972), which depicted a masked hockey goalie, Lacing Up, which showed a hockey player tying his skates, and The Great Farewell (2001), Wayne Gretzky’s official retirement portrait from the National Hockey League. Although Danby’s...
  • Danby, Thomas Osborne, Earl of (English statesman)
    English statesman who, while chief minister to King Charles II, organized the Tories in Parliament. In addition he played a key role in bringing William and Mary to the English throne in 1689....
  • dance (animal behaviour)
    The highly integrated activities of the Hymenoptera colony require sophisticated methods of passing information among its members. The so-called dance of the honeybee is perhaps the most remarkable demonstration of methods of communication in insects....
  • dance (performing arts)
    the movement of the body in a rhythmic way, usually to music and within a given space, for the purpose of expressing an idea or emotion, releasing energy, or simply taking delight in the movement itself....
  • dance, African
    performing art deeply woven into the social fabric of Africa and generally involving aspects of music and theatre as well as rhythmic bodily movement. See also African music and mask....
  • dance company
    performing art deeply woven into the social fabric of Africa and generally involving aspects of music and theatre as well as rhythmic bodily movement. See also African music and mask.......
  • dance drama
    Some theatrical traditions incorporate dance to such an extent that they are typically termed “dance-dramas.” Of these traditions, the wayang wong and wayang topeng (masked theatre) of Java and Bali, as well as the Balinese plays recounting the tale of the witch Calonarang, are among the most widely known. Since independence, Indonesian.....
  • dance fly (insect)
    any member of a family of insects in the fly order, Diptera, that are named for their erratic movements while in flight. Dance flies are small with a disproportionately large thorax and a long tapering abdomen. In males, the abdomen usually bears conspicuous genitalia at the posterior end....
  • Dance, George, the Younger (British architect and artist)
    British architect who was responsible for extensive urban redevelopment in London. He was a founding member of Great Britain’s Royal Academy of Arts....
  • Dance II, The (painting by Matisse)
    ...City and San Francisco, in 1930. During 1933 he visited Venice and Padua (Italy), and in Merion, Pennsylvania, completed and installed the final version of his large mural, The Dance II (Barnes Foundation)....
  • Dance Index (magazine edited by Kirstein)
    ...and Metaphor (1970); The New York City Ballet (1973); Nijinsky Dancing (1975); and Thirty Years with the New York City Ballet (1978). From 1942 to 1948 he edited Dance Index, a magazine that published scholarly, illustrated, and annotated monographs on the entire spectrum of dance topics. In bound form (seven volumes), Dance Index became a......
  • dance music (popular music)
    ...and Metaphor (1970); The New York City Ballet (1973); Nijinsky Dancing (1975); and Thirty Years with the New York City Ballet (1978). From 1942 to 1948 he edited Dance Index, a magazine that published scholarly, illustrated, and annotated monographs on the entire spectrum of dance topics. In bound form (seven volumes), Dance Index became a.........
  • Dance Naked (album by Mellencamp)
    ...a series of albums that were generally successful commercially and critically though not as well received as his work from the mid-1980s. The most notable of these included Dance Naked (1994), which went gold on the strength of its cover version of Van Morrison’s Wild Night; Mr. Happy Go Lucky (1996),......
  • dance notation
    the recording of dance movement through the use of written symbols....
  • dance, Oceanic
    the music and dance traditions of the indigenous people of Oceania, in particular of Melanesia, Micronesia, Polynesia, New Zealand, and Australia. Music and dance in Polynesia and Micronesia are audible and visual extensions of poetry, whereas in Melanesia they are aimed more at spectacular display during times of life crises and as a part of secret-society rituals. The arts of......
  • Dance of Death (series by Holbein the Younger)
    ...active in designing woodcuts for title pages and book illustrations. The artist’s most famous work in this area, a series of 41 scenes illustrating the medieval allegorical concept of the “Dance of Death,” was designed by him and cut by another artist as early as about 1523 to 1526 but was not published until 1538. Its scenes display an immaculate sense of order, packing mu...
  • Dance of Death, The (play by Auden)
    ...1936) his verse became more open in texture and accessible to a larger public. For the Group Theatre, a society that put on experimental and noncommercial plays in London, he wrote first The Dance of Death (a musical propaganda play) and then three plays in collaboration with Christopher Isherwood, Auden’s friend since preparatory school: The Dog Beneath the Skin (1935),......
  • Dance of Death, The (play by Strindberg)
    ...Strindberg produces a kind of tragicomedy peculiarly his own, one that takes the form of bourgeois tragedy; it lacerates its principals until they become a parody of themselves. Strindberg’s Dance of Death (1901), with its cruelty and pain dispensed with robust pleasure by a fiercely battling husband and wife, is a significant model of the grotesque in the modern theatre; it is......
  • Dance of the Chosen (dance by Humphrey)
    After the essentials of her dance form had been successfully established, Humphrey’s work grew more complex, eventually developing into a full theatrical art. Dance of the Chosen (1931; later and better known as The Shakers) added drums, accordions, and incoherent speech to portray the ecstatic nature of the Shakers’ religious fervour. Her trilogy known as New Dance...
  • Dance of the Forests, A (play by Soyinka)
    ...graduating in 1958 with a degree in English from the University of Leeds in England. Upon his return to Nigeria, he founded an acting company and wrote his first important play, A Dance of the Forests (produced 1960; published 1963), for the Nigerian independence celebrations. The play satirizes the fledgling nation by stripping it of romantic legend and by showing.....
  • Dance of the Happy Shades (work by Munro)
    ...of God, 1966; The Diviners, 1974) explored their heroines’ rebellion against a constricting small-town heritage. Munro’s short stories—in collections ranging from Dance of the Happy Shades (1968) to The View from Castle Rock (2006)—depict the domestic lives and relationships of women in Toronto, small-town Ontario, ...
  • Dance of the Magdalene (engraving by Lucas van Leyden)
    ...(c. 1512), cluttered with awkward figures and architectural backgrounds, indicate a decline in conceptual power that lasted until about 1519, when he engraved the Dance of the Magdalene. This work also has a large number of figures, but they are tranquil and are lucidly composed in small groupings....
  • Dance of the Red Tiger Devil (Tibetan play)
    In Tibet, sacred dramas are performed by masked lay actors. A play for exorcising demons called the Dance of the Red Tiger Devil is performed at fixed seasons of the year exclusively by the priests or lamas wearing awe-inspiring masks of deities and demons. Masks employed in this mystery play are made of papier-mâché, cloth, and occasionally gilt copper. In.....
  • dance paddle
    ...stand out. Among the items carved were mortars and spatulas used to prepare betel nut; long, flat war clubs; splashboards and decorative panels attached to the prow and stern of seagoing canoes; and dance paddles (two semicircular panels connected by a handhold bar). Dance paddles were sometimes painted, but, in general, painting of wooden objects was minimal. Painting was mainly used to......
  • Dance Repertory Theatre (American dance company)
    ...began to develop her own approach and in 1927 made her concert debut. She toured Europe in 1928 and in 1930 founded her own company and school, which she directed until 1945. She also organized the Dance Repertory Theatre (1930–32), which produced concerts jointly with such modern dance choreographers as Martha Graham, Doris Humphrey, and Charles Weidman. She encouraged the inclusion of....
  • dance suite (music)
    in music, a group of self-contained instrumental movements of varying character, usually in the same key. During the 17th and 18th centuries, the period of its greatest importance, the suite consisted principally of dance movements. In the 19th and 20th centuries the term also referred more generally to a variety of sets of instrumental pieces, mainly in forms smaller than those...
  • Dance, The (work by Carpeaux)
    ...(1861), a dramatic bronze for the Tuileries Gardens, Paris, and won favour at the court of Napoleon III, receiving many commissions for portrait busts. His most famous work, The Dance (completed 1869), a sculptural group for the facade of the Paris Opéra, created a sensation and was attacked as immoral. His works were the subject of some of the most......
  • Dance Theatre of Harlem (American ballet company)
    ...areas, often without music. Her later work melded classical ballet and jazz with modern dance. A different perspective was offered by Arthur Mitchell, who left the New York City Ballet to found the Dance Theatre of Harlem, a company with strong roots in classical ballet....
  • Dance to the Music of Time, A (novel by Powell)
    English novelist, best known for his autobiographical and satiric 12-volume series of novels, A Dance to the Music of Time....
  • dance, Western
    history of Western dance from ancient times to the present and including the development of ballet, the waltz, and various types of modern dance....
Skip this Advertisement

Link to this article and share the full text with the readers of your Web site or blog-post.

If you think a reference to this article on "" will enhance your Web site, blog-post, or any other web-content, then feel free to link to this article, and your readers will gain full access to the full article, even if they do not subscribe to our service.

You may want to use the HTML code fragment provided below.

copy link

We welcome your comments. Any revisions or updates suggested for this article will be reviewed by our editorial staff. Contact us here.

Regular users of Britannica may notice that this comments feature is less robust than in the past. This is only temporary, while we make the transition to a dramatically new and richer site. The functionality of the system will be restored soon.

The Britannica Store
A-Z Browse

Image preview