I recently had the opportunity to reread Allegra Fuller Snyder's “The Dance Symbol” (1974), in which she claimed a central role for dance in non-literate cultures:
It is my observation that dance is most significant in societies that are least literate, i.e. non-literate… and it is least significant in societies, such as our own, which are highly literate.… I feel that there is something about this pairing or counterbalance of dance and literacy which may offer us some insights. I am implying that dance functions in some cultures, the non-literate cultures, with as broad a spectrum of functions as the written word includes for others.
Snyder explained that dance is able to occupy this all-inclusive, central role in maintaining and transmitting knowledge within such cultures because it communicates through what she calls the “dance symbol”. The dance symbol is the outer and observable aspects of the dancer (movement, costume, and paraphernalia) which are, in turn, both derived from and stand in relation to and for a culturally-specific environment, subsistence pattern, and mythic complex.