DANCE GENRE INDEX
FREESTYLE DISCO DANCE
COMING SOON...
CONTEMPORARY DANCE
Contemporary dance is a genre of concert dance that employs compositional philosophy,
rather than choreography, to guide unchoreographed movement. It uses dance techniques
and methods found in ballet, modern dance and postmodern dance, and it also draws
from other philosophies of movement that are outside the realm of classical dance
technique.
The term "contemporary dance" is sometimes used to describe dance that is not classical
jazz or traditional folk/cultural dance. The hallmark of contemporary dance is an
awareness of the limitations of form. Sub-genres recently defined by dance critics
include non-dance, conceptual dance and pedestrian contemporary.
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HIP-HOP
Hip-hop dance refers to dance styles primarily danced to hip-hop music or that have
evolved as part of hip-hop culture. This includes a wide range of styles notably
breaking, locking, and popping which were developed in the 1970s by Black and Latino
Americans. What separates hip-hop dance from other forms of dance is that it is
often freestyle (improvisational) in nature and hip-hop dancers frequently engage
in battles—formal or informal freestyle dance competitions. Informal freestyle sessions
and battles are usually performed in a cipher, "a circular dance space that forms
naturally once the dancing begins." These three elements—freestyling, battles, and
ciphers—are key components of hip-hop dance.
More than 30 years old, hip-hop dance became widely known after the first professional
breaking, locking, and popping crews formed in the 1970s. The most influential groups
are the Rock Steady Crew, The Lockers, and the Electric Boogaloos who are responsible
for the spread of breaking, locking, and popping respectively. Parallel with the
evolution of hip-hop music, hip-hop dancing evolved from breaking and the funk styles
into different forms: moves such as the "running man" and the "cabbage patch" hit
the mainstream and became fad dances. The dance industry in particular responded
with a studio based version of hip-hop—sometimes called new style— and jazz funk.
These styles were developed by technically trained dancers who wanted to create
choreography for hip-hop music from the hip-hop dances they saw being performed
on the street. Because of this development, hip-hop dance is now practiced at both
studios and outside.
Internationally, hip-hop dance has had a particularly strong influence in France
and South Korea. France is the birthplace of Tecktonik, a style of house dance from
Paris that borrows heavily from popping and breaking. France is also the home of
Juste Debout, an international hip-hop dance competition. South Korea is home to
the international breaking competition R16 which is sponsored by the government
and broadcast every year live on Korean television. The country consistently produces
such skillful b-boys that the South Korean government has designated the Gamblerz
and Rivers b-boy crews official ambassadors of Korean culture.
To some, hip-hop dance may only be a form of entertainment or a hobby. To others
it has become a lifestyle: a way to be active in physical fitness or competitive
dance and a way to make a living by dancing professionally.
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STREET DANCE
Street dance, more formally known as vernacular dance, is an umbrella term used
to describe dance styles that evolved outside of dance studios in any available
open space such as streets, dance parties, block parties, parks, school yards, raves,
and nightclubs, etc.
They are often improvisational and social in nature encouraging interaction and
contact with spectators and the other dancers. These dances generally evolve out
of urban and suburban spaces in some form of underground culture or region; they
are a part of the vernacular culture of that geographical area (as if they were
folk dances; although since the advent of the internet, the dances seem to be shared
amongst people with the same musical interest worldwide). Therefore, street dance
refers to modern folk dance with the term 'street' being more accurate since much
of the modern world is now urbanized.
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MUSICAL THEATRE
Musical theatre is a form of theatre combining songs, spoken dialogue and dance.
The emotional content of the piece – humor, pathos, love, anger – as well as the
story itself, is communicated through the words, music, movement and technical aspects
of the entertainment as an integrated whole. Although musical theatre overlaps with
other theatrical forms such as opera, it may be distinguished by the equal importance
given to the music as compared with the dialogue, movement and other elements of
the works. Since the early 20th century, musical theatre stage works have generally
been called, simply, "musicals".
Musicals are performed all around the world. They may be presented in large venues,
such as big budget West End and Broadway theatre productions in London and New York
City, or in smaller fringe theatre, Off-Broadway or regional theatre productions,
on tour, or by amateur groups in schools, theatres and other performance spaces.
In addition to Britain and North America, there are vibrant musical theatre scenes
in many countries in Europe, Latin America, Australasia and Asia.
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ROCK 'N' ROLL
Rock and roll (often written as rock & roll or rock 'n' roll) is a genre of popular
music that originated and evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and
early 1950s, primarily from a combination of the blues, country music, jazz, and
gospel music. Though elements of rock and roll can be heard in country records of
the 1930s, and in blues records from the 1920s, rock and roll did not acquire its
name until the 1950s. An early form of rock and roll was rockabilly, which combined
country and jazz with influences from traditional Appalachian folk music and gospel.
The term "rock and roll" now has at least two different meanings, both in common
usage. The American Heritage Dictionary and the Merriam-Webster Dictionary[11] both
define rock and roll as synonymous with rock music. Encyclopaedia Britannica, on
the other hand, regards it as the music that originated in the mid-1950s and later
evolved "into the more encompassing international style known as rock music." For
the purpose of differentiation, this article uses the latter definition, while the
broader musical genre is discussed in the rock music article. In the earliest rock
and roll styles of the late 1940s and early 1950s, either the piano or saxophone
was often the lead instrument, but these were generally replaced or supplemented
by guitar in the middle to late 1950s. The beat is essentially a boogie woogie blues
rhythm with an accentuated backbeat, the latter almost always provided by a snare
drum. Classic rock and roll is usually played with one or two electric guitars (one
lead, one rhythm), a string bass or (after the mid-1950s) an electric bass guitar,
and a drum kit.
Rock and roll began achieving wide popularity in the 1960s. The massive popularity
and eventual worldwide view of rock and roll gave it a widespread social impact.
Bobby Gillespie writes that "When Chuck Berry sang 'Hail, hail, rock and roll, deliver
me from the days of old,' that's exactly what the music was doing. Chuck Berry started
the global psychic jailbreak that is rock'n'roll."
Far beyond simply a musical style, rock and roll, as seen in movies and on television,
influenced lifestyles, fashion, attitudes, and language. It went on to spawn various
sub-genres, often without the initially characteristic backbeat, that are now more
commonly called simply "rock music" or "rock."
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