The Different Styles Of Dance

There are many styles of dance. Each style expresses an emotion and shows feeling to the song that is being played.

Contemporary/Lyrical:

Contemporary/Lyrical is a slow, intense, and very emotional dance. It expresses how a person feels in the song. The songs are usually slow with no beat, but sometimes it can have a beat. The beat is usually very low and shallow. Dancers often cry to this because this type of dance is really sensitive and they get the emotion that the dancers that are preforming it are feeling. It also combines a lot of dance genres. Contemporary/Lyrical tell a story. From love to heart break, each move should show what the person is feeling and the face should show the feeling too. Foot-paws, foot-undies, and foot-thongs are used for this style. However, you can dance in bare feet. An example of a song is Stay With Me by Jasmine Thompson. Yes, it is a cover of the original song by Sam Smith. 

Ballet:

Ballet is the most peaceful dance of all, however it can become fast and alarming. By alarming, I mean that the music goes really slow and soft to fast and upbeat. For example, The Nutcracker. Dance Of The Sugar Plum Fairy is a slow and steady song with a small beat to it. While, March on the other hand is upbeat and kind of fast. Ballet doesn’t mean you wear only tutus and tights with really pretty make up and hair for girls and tight-leggings and whatever top for boys, sometimes depending on the show, the can be dressed as an ugly witch or an animal.

 

 

Pointe:

Just like Ballet, the music is same. However, the shoe is different. The Ballet shoe is soft and smooth and makes the dancers look weightless when preforming on stage. While Pointe shoes make the dancer look taller and have more of a point in their foot. The shoes comes in a variety of colors such as rainbow and the shades like black, grey, and white. Pointe is more difficult then you think. The causes after dancing in the Pointe shoes are broken toes nails, and sometimes damaged toes. This could lead to a broken foot if you twist it or fall in it or a break from the dance. The break is usually a minimum of two to three weeks off.

 

Jazz

This type of dance is sassy and has a lot of attitude. Facial expressions are used a lot in this style. From smiling to duck faces, jazz is a high-energy in the face, but mostly in the body. Hips, pointed feet, sharp arms, and straight legs are part of this type of dance. Jazz focuses more on technique. It also helps develop flexibility, strength, endurance, and control. Shoes are usually an all black or nude slip on or an all black or nude shoe with laces. The one color that is very rare and you can only tie them up is a white shoe. An example of a song is On Broadway by Jennifer Hudson featuring Katherine Mcphee. This is my Jazz song for this year. It’s fast but not too fast, so therefore, it’s at a good tempo to dance to.

 

Musical Theatre

Some people may think that Musical Theatre is going on stage and preforming a play. This is totally different. It’s a combination of dance, lip-syncing, theatrics, and drama. Dancers would focus more on the theatre based skills and concentrated work on who their character is. This is called Character Skills. The dance has to have a story to it. Most of the songs usually come from musicals, plays, or movies. for example, this year i’m doing the introduction the the five kids who got the golden tickets. Therefore, my song is from the hit musical Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

 

Hip Hop

This style will make you sweat like there’s no tomorrow. It is a structured form of street dancing. Hip Hop shows off a lot of attitude and and is a high-energy type dance. Sharp movements are needed for this style. Don’t be sloppy or you will look bad. You need control of your movements, agility, coordination, dynamics, and precision. Formation by Beyonce and One Woman Army by Ciara are my songs this year for Hip Hop. These two songs are very upbeat and very fast. at times it is very difficult to dance if you mess up to a move if the song is really fast or some what fast.

 

Tap

Yes, Tap is very loud and can give you a headache. This is one of the reasons why people don’t enjoy doing Tap as much. The song choices are mostly chosen from Broadway, to classical, to modern funk styles. This style focuses more on timing because everyone has to be on time with each other. If one person is off the beat or is off timing, then the rest of the dance will look sloppy and messy. In my own opinion, In my own perspective, Tap I think is one of the hardest dances to keep in time with because you have all the other dancers around you and it sometimes gets you really confused on when to do this move or when to do that move. The shoes for Tap comes in only three colors and three styles. First set of shoes are slip-on’s. They come in beige, black, and sometimes white. Second kind are tie-up’s. They come in the same colors as the slip-on’s. The third and final pair are heels. Now I know you’re thinking “heels for Tap shoes?” well yes their are heels as Tap shoes. However, they’re much harder to dance in. The colors are the same as the first and second pair of Tap shoes.

Acrobatics

Are you flexible? Do love doing cart-wheels? Well this style is perfect for you. Acrobatics (aka Acro) needs and has a lot of balance in order to do tricks and flips. You don’t need experience from gymnastics. Its not really needed for this style, but it’s good if you do have to experience from gymnastics. However, the most needed thing, is muscle strength. Jazz in kind of involved but not really. You’re not only doing tricks, you’re also dancing. Everyone thinks Acro is only tricks and flips. Well it can have dancing too.

See every style of dance is different. The only two that are the same as you just read is Contemporary and Lyrical. If we were to combine all of these styles together, this type of dance would be called, Conlyrbalpoijazmusitheathiphopacro. The you would have all eight dance styles but into one category. I only dance five of these styles of dance. They are Lyrical, Jazz, Hip Hop, Musical Theatre, and Ballet. Down below is a video of some of the students from my studio preforming “Proud Mary”. This dance is a combination of Jazz and Acro.   

I hope you guys enjoyed my second blog! Have a good time blogging and once again, thank you for reading my blog on Different Styles of Dance! I really hope you learned something from this:)!