Dance has been defined as a motion that arises from emotion. The human body has a natural appetite for rhythm, and while dancing, not only does the dancer's body vibrate, but by its rhythmic character, also spurs the viewers to a vibrating response. Dance is an ancient and instinctive expression of the life force, and probably predates drawing and painting as a form of creative activity. It is a form of magic: the dancer becomes amplified into a being endowed with supra-normal powers, and her personality is transformed. Dance is also an act of creation. It brings about a new situation and summons into the dancer a new and higher personality.
The metaphor of dance also lies at the heart of many creation myths. The life force expressed in the act of movement becomes a symbol of creation. Through the medium of dance, a woman embodies the progenitive powers of cosmic energy, through whom, according to an ancient dance treatise 'the entire phenomenal world is kindled into life.'
It does not come as a surprise therefore that in ancient times, a woman dancer was considered an inseparable part of any ritual worship in temples. Every temple of consequence had attached to it one or more dancers. Such women were known as Devadasis. Dance is potentially both sensual and hypnotic. Its passioned performance helped to evoke the atmosphere of the temple as a place removed from the mundane world, the temple as a celestial abode of the deity.