dances are a kind of language

Observe how people dance. Each nationality has its own way of dancing. You can always tell the nationality by the way a man dances. In the East, where traditions are much stronger, you can even tell which tribe or village people come from by the way they dance. In this way dances become like a kind of language by which people - unconsciously, of course - tell us about themselves. It is the same with everything. Each nation has a limited repertoire of movements which come from the impressions of childhood.

from a Gurdjieff Talk in London 1922 
(The Study of Psychology)