Dance Styles of Today

Styles/Genres of Dance

• Classical Ballet - a very popular form of dance, which involves quite rigorious training of the body. It originates in France, thus the French name for the style. Ballerinas typically wear tight fitting leotards with flowing skirts or tutu's for females, whilst males wear tights and shirts of varying styles. Pointe is also another significant aspect of ballet, involving a specially designed pointe shoe that lifts a ballerina up off the floor, and onto the tips of her toes. This form of dance is studied and practiced all over the world, and varying performance groups travel to theatres and performance centres globally. The dancers themselves are typically very flexible and of a certain body shape and size that is quite tall and thin, but very strong. Competitions for this style are held globally.

        CHECK IT OUT HERE: VIDEO 1 VIDEO 2. VIDEO 3.

• Contemporary/Modern - this is often described as very 'interpretive'. The movements of the body are not always symmetrical or systematic and vary from very flowy, to sharp and very controlled. The style involves leaps, turns, isolations, body rolling, floorwork, and often very independant body movements. Music for this style is typically eclectic and revolves more around breaking dance and music moulds, whilst telling a story or meaning.

• Jazz Ballet - often associated with popular culture songs or music and is slightly less rigorious than ballet, but non-the-less requires lots of energy and stamina. It involves movements such as turning, skipping, leaping, jumping, floorwork, isolations, and co-ordinated arm and leg choreography. Females and males participate in this style, no matter what body shape or fitness level you are. This is a very popular style of dance as the movements are not difficult, but when performed are impressive, fast, sharp or flowy, energetic and entertaining. This style derives a few steps from ballet such as particular turns or leaps. Competitions for this style are held globally.

• Lyrical Jazz - is an appropriation of ballet and jazz ballet, and can carry influences from contemporary or modern styles of dance. The steps and movements are that of the ballet and jazz styles, but are used to reflect meaning represented in the music itself, or a story being told. Quite often the lyrics of a song, not the actual music, are most important throughout performances of this style. The movements link together incredibly strongly - in an almost liquid way.

        CHECK IT OUT HERE: VIDEO 1. VIDEO 2. VIDEO 3.

• Tap - involves creating rhythms and sound with metal taps attached to the bottom of a shoe. These shoes come in varying designs, colours and sizes, and the type of taps you can purchase are even more varied depending on the sound you would like. Tap steps include brushes, turns, stamps, toes, heels, pick-up's and shuffles, which are joined together to create what we call combinations - such as a basic time step. These various steps can be swapped, changed or arranged in any order one wishes depending on the beat one desires. Canons/rounds are often seen in tap performances, involving one or more steps that begin at different times (depending on the group) to create an interesting combination of rhythms and sounds. Competitions for this style are held gloablly.

        CHECK IT OUT HERE: VIDEO 1. VIDEO 2. VIDEO 3.

• Hip hop/street/street funk - this group is often described as 'urban', and is influenced by many different cultures and histories. Steps are sometimes similar to that seen in jazz, but slightly altered again to create a new form of the step. These styles are typically performed with RnB/Hip-Hop/Rap styles of music with heavy beats. Dance crews are typicaly of these genres, as groups compete against each other formally and on the street to see which crew has fresh moves or a better performance generally. The style involves lots of body isolations, continuous change in level (height level) and is a very athletic form of dance. It's also a very free form of dance, allowing the heavy beats to move your body as it wishes. Formal and informal competitions for this style are held globally.

        CHECK IT OUT HERE: VIDEO 1. VIDEO 2. VIDEO 3.

• JFH (Jazz-Funk-Hip Hop) - this is a fusion of jazz, funk and hip-hop, and is typically performed to RnB/Hip-Hop/Rap and pop music. It's a very energetic style of dance that requires lots of energy and stamina. This is a quite recent genre of dance, as the three genres were typically separate, but have now been combined to form a new style. Competitions for this style are held globally.

        CHECK IT OUT HERE: VIDEO 1. VIDEO 2. VIDEO 3.

• Pop and Lock - often associated with hip hop/street/street funk but involves very strong and controlled movements of the body. Isolation is vital in this genre. One almost freezes the entire body and then pops differents parts of the body, loosening it, before locking it back in place again. A very simple image of this is the classic "Robot" move - as one example (examples continue on and on - the list is never ending!). It is often performed to hip-hop/RnB/Rap music. Competitions for this are held globally.

        CHECK IT OUT HERE: VIDEO 1. VIDEO 2. VIDEO 3.

• Breakdancing - this style requires lots of physical strength, particularly strength to hold your own weight and often keep your entire body up off the ground. Floorwork is quite prominent in this style, and the steps themselves are quite gymnastic. Some common steps include flaring, munchmilling, headspinning, windmilling, swiping, flashkicking, rubberband, air baby and six-step. Breakdancing is often associated with hip-hop, pop and lock, street and street funk - often mixing between all of these styles - and is typically performed to hip-hop/RnB/Rap music, although these moulds are always there to be broken!

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