ABSTRACT
The mirror function can be precisely located in the brain: the mirror neurons are responsible for mimetic desire: the desire to mime, imitate, 'copy' and identify with the other. They constitute, in other words, the neurological substrate of the inter-human relation. The chapter focuses on extend to which dance is deeply rooted in the body, to which it is indeed located on the interior frontier between human and animal. The human is, indeed, particularly fond of appearing to be other than who he or she is and the theatre and carnival give him the perfect opportunity to do this, as does dance, which Pierre Legendre tells us, is driven by the 'passion for being an other'. Rhythm is not only an agent of regression and its capacity is recalled to awaken genetically programmed patterns by resonating with their internal sequences, culminating in a discharge in which excitation is linked to motor forms.
