The development of Altai dance is closely related to the history of the Altai people. Modern Altai people, like other Turkic peoples of Southern Siberia, have not preserved traditional dances in the form in which they were performed in everyday life. The reason for this was that the art of dance has a spatially – temporal character and it is difficult to record it. It is necessary in the analysis of folk dance to use the instrumentation of all fields of art science, to apply a systemic and interdisciplinary approach. It is in this that the authors see a further research horizon. In modern conditions, when the self-consciousness of each people increases, choreographic art, as part of the spiritual culture of the people, responds to all the events of life. The relevance of this study is due to the modern trend of the revival of the national and cultural heritage of the Altai Republic. One of the pressing problems of modern choreography, its theoretical understanding, is the study of the origins of folk stage dance. The fact that lacunae exist in this area of historical and cultural knowledge is evidenced by the lack of textbooks, incomplete complexes of educational and methodological literature. Choreographers, both in the educational process and in staging practice, are faced with the need for a clear theoretical design, the development of a scientific apparatus in this matter. In folk dance, closely connected with the life and life of the people, the peculiarities of its character, feelings, temperament, manner of artistic thinking are especially pronounced, that is, a kind of “choreographic portrait of the nation” is created. Folk dance, plastically expresses ethnic historical experience, is a kind of artistic embodiment of the historical memory of the nation, and thus affects the strengthening of national identity. The importance of the theoretical understanding of folklore in the development of choreography (as in musical or decorative art) is difficult to overestimate. He is a source of ideas, expressive means, often becomes an aesthetic standard in the creative activities of the modern choreographer. The national identity of the dance culture of the people is connected with the stable historical community of language, territory, economic life, psychological warehouse, culture of life, customs and traditions. National art bears both the originality of what it reflects and how it reflects. All this is reflected in folk dance, affects the nature of plastic. From here, the dances of one people are not similar to those of another, and even one ethnic group, divided geographically, dances differ. For example, Russian folk dance has common features characteristic of Russian dance in general, but at the same time it also has bright regional features. Dance culture in geographically distant territories varies in character, manner of performance, and originality of drawing, and subject matter. The main difficulty in studying this issue is the difficulty of “translating” the plastic language into speech discourse. Hence the difficulty in fixing and writing the description of choreography. There may be discrepancies and misinterpretations of the records of researchers of the past due to the lack of an agreed methodology and categorical apparatus.