Dance Style Resource

Check here for brief overviews and definitions of everything from acro to zumba!

Middle Eastern Dance Tradition

Encompassing a wide variety of dance styles, Middle Eastern dances share a history of strong folk roots. They also were strongly influenced by Muslim religion, and were therefore often bound to spiritual and mystical practices.

Modern and Contemporary Western Dance

The dance aesthetics that developed in the West in the early decades of the twentieth century embraced an anti-traditionalist response to the balletic practices of the time. The early experimenters, such as Isadora Duncan, proposed ‘naturalness’, demonstrated through the use of bare feet, free-flow movement responses to the pure classical music. This contrasted with the big and ornate story ballets of the time, as well as the balletic principles of balance, long lines and bound, structured movement.
While the early modernists rebelled against codified technique and the prescribed routine, they also established some of the universal stylistic attributes of the genre that would become known as ‘modern dance’. Modern dances began as grass-roots, independent small productions as opposed to the larger institution-supported creations. The movement style was based on the employment of the body weight in harmony with gravity, and not in opposition to it, as is the case in ballet. The horizontal body positions, falls and broken body lines as well as turned-in, flexed and bare feet were in contrast with the poised ballerina bodies, balancing sur pointes and in turned-out feet. During the course of the twentieth century several dominant schools and techniques emerged, and are today regarded as the foundations of contemporary Western dance aesthetics and training.
Sources: International Encyclopedia of Dance. (1998) Selma
Jeanne Cohen (ed.). Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press
and
Modern Dance in The Canadian Encyclopedia Historica www.thecanadianencyclopedia.com

Mambo

Merengue

Musical Theatre