"Ellen Dissanayake argues for the joint evolutionary origin of art and intimacy, what we commonly call love. Because humans are born predisposed to respond to and use rhythmic-modal signals, societies everywhere have elaborated them further as music, mime, dance, and display, in rituals which instill and reinforce valued cultural beliefs. Just as rhythms and modes coordinate and unify the mother-infant pair, in ceremonies they coordinate and unify members of a group.

If we are biologically predisposed to participate in art-like behavior, then we actually need the arts. Even - perhaps especially - in our fast-paced, sophisticated modern lives, the arts encourage us to show that we care about important things."--BOOK JACKET.