monkey god9 to the name Hanuman, which name has more associations with being a devotee of Rama or the son of Vayu than with explicitly simian qualities. When we overexplain the obvious we give away our orientation towards the outsider, an orientation that only encourages us to regard our dances as epiphenomena that are unrelated to our everyday lives. We have too long defined ourselves in terms of the rest of the modern world, thereby seeking acceptance in terms of other peoples5 values and norms. It is time we reevaluated our own myths about ourselves and our culture. I have, in this paper, dealt with a few that relate to our attitudes towards dance, not with the intention of providing solutions, but in order to provoke thought. The issues I have raised are addressed to both the performer and the spectator of dance, for the latter too is an integral part of the system of artistic communication, and so help to form it. 32 April-June 1983