The dance, at its core, represents life. The dance is culture, history, customs, and identity. Achebe establishes this at the beginning of the poem when he says his people “measure out / [their] joys and agonies / too, our long, long passion week / in paces of the dance” (Lines 2-5). Throughout the poem, he argues that these men must not give up their dance—they must not give up their lives, thus sacrificing the music and the rhythm that they are responsible for continuing.

Later in the poem, he warns them to take care against ending the dance with a “lame foot in the air” (Line 35). To do this, he argues, would lead to a loss of inheritance, meaning they would give up the dance in the face of those who wish to end the music. This is not an option for Achebe because the dance is not something only one person does; it is the connection between everyone within the culture, so it is a collective activity that all must perform to stay alive and to keep the culture from vanishing.