Dance may be described simply as ordered bodily expression, often with musical accompaniment, sung or instrumental. Apart from its physical aspect, the rhythmic movements, steps, or gestures of dance often serve to express a sentiment or mood or to illustrate a specific event or daily act, such as religious dances or those depicting hunting, warfare, or even sexual activities.

Traditional theatre performances often combine acting, singing, dance and music, dialogue, narration or recitation, but also include puppetry of all kinds as well as pantomime. These arts should perhaps not only be thought of as "performances" like those on a stage. In fact, many traditional music practices are not carried out for an external audience, such as songs accompanying agricultural work or music that is part of a ritual. In a more intimate setting, lullabies are sung to help a baby sleep.

In its definition of intangible heritage, the Convention includes the instruments, objects, artefacts and cultural spaces that are associated with intangible expressions and practices. In the performing arts, this includes for example musical instruments, masks, costumes and other body ornaments used in dance, and the scenery and props of theatre. Performing arts are often performed in specific places; when such spaces, built or natural, are closely linked to those expressions, we may speak of cultural spaces in the Convention's terms.

3. Social practices, rituals and festive events

Social practices, rituals and festive events are habitual activities that structure the lives of communities and groups and that are shared by and relevant for large parts of them. They take their meaning from the fact that they reaffirm the identity of practitioners as a group or community. Performed in public or private, these social, ritual and festive practices may be linked to the life cycle of individuals and groups, the agricultural calendar, the succession of seasons or other temporal systems. They are conditioned by views of the world and by perceived histories and memories. They vary from simple gatherings to large-scale celebratory and commemorative occasions. While each of these subdomains is vast in and of itself, there is also a great deal of overlap between them.

Rituals and festive events, which usually take place at special times and places, often call a community's attention to worldviews and features of past experience. Access may be limited in the case of certain rituals; many communities know initiation rites or burial ceremonies of this sort. Festive events often take place in public space without limitations on access-carnivals are a well-known example, and festivities marking New Year, the beginning of Spring or the end of harvest are common in all regions of the world.

Social practices shape everyday life and are known, if not shared, by all members of a community. In the framework of the Convention, attention may be paid to social practices that have a special relevance for a community and that are distinctive for them, providing them with a sense of identity and continuity. For instance, in many communities greeting ceremonies are casual, but they are quite elaborate in others, serving as a marker of identity. Similarly, practices of giving and receiving gifts may vary from casual events to important markers of authority, dependence or allegiance.

Social practices, rituals and festive events involve a dazzling variety of forms: worship rites; rites of passage; birth, wedding and funeral rituals; oaths of allegiance; traditional legal systems; traditional games and sports; kinship and ritual kinship ceremonies; settlement patterns; culinary traditions; designation of status and prestige ceremonies; seasonal ceremonies; gender-specific social practices; hunting, fishing and gathering practices; among others. They also encompass a wide variety of expressions and material elements: special gestures and words, recitations, songs or dances, special clothing, processions, animal sacrifice, special foods.

4. Knowledge and practices concerning nature and the universe

"Knowledge and practices concerning nature and the universe" include knowledge, know-how, skills, practices and representations developed and perpetuated by communities in interaction with their natural environment. These cognitive systems are expressed through language, oral traditions, attachment to a place, memories, spirituality, and worldview, and they are displayed in a broad complex of values and beliefs, ceremonies, healing practices, social practices or institutions, and social organization. Such expressions and practices are as diverse and variegated as the sociocultural and ecological contexts from which they originate, and they often underlie other domains of ICH as described by the Convention.