Ballet, Hip-Hop & More Dance Classes for Adults, In Seattle & Shoreline, Washington 

Ballet (French: [balɛ]) is a type of performance dance that originated during the Italian Renaissance in the fifteenth century and later developed into a concert dance form in France and Russia. It has since become a widespread and highly technical form of dance with its own vocabulary. Ballet has been influential globally and has defined the foundational techniques which are used in many other dance genres and cultures. Various schools around the world have incorporated their own cultures. As a result, ballet has evolved in distinct ways.    

A ballet as a unified work comprises the choreography and music for a ballet production. Ballets are choreographed and performed by trained ballet dancers. Traditional classical ballets are usually performed with classical music accompaniment and use elaborate costumes and staging, whereas modern ballets are often performed in simple costumes and without elaborate sets or scenery.

Etymology

Ballet is a French word which had its origin in Italian balletto, a diminutive of ballo (dance) which comes from Latin ballo, ballare, meaning "to dance",^[1][2] which in turn comes from the Greek "βαλλίζω" (ballizo), "to dance, to jump about".^[2][3] The word came into English usage from the French around 1630.

In French, the word refer to a ballet performance, a ballet work, and possibly to the dance genre itself, although the expression danse classique also exists for the latter meaning, is less equivocal and is more commonly used when referring to the learning of this dance.                          

Tap dance (or tap) is a form of dance that uses the sounds of tap shoes striking the floor as a form of percussion; it is often accompanied by music.^[1] Tap dancing can also be a cappella, with no musical accompaniment; the sound of the taps is its own music.

It is an African-American artform that evolved alongside the advent of jazz music.^[2][3] Tap is a type of step dance that began with the combination of Southern American and Irish dance traditions, such as Irish soft-shoe and hard-shoe step dances,^[4] and a variety of both slave and freeman step dances. The fusion of African rhythms and performance styles with European techniques of footwork led to the creation of tap dance.^[5] This fusion began in the mid-17th century but did not become popular until the mid-19th century.^[6

There are two major versions of tap dance: rhythm (jazz) tap and Broadway tap. Broadway tap focuses on dance; it is widely performed in musical theater. Rhythm tap focuses on musicality, and practitioners consider themselves to be a part of the jazz tradition.

The sound is made by shoes that have a metal "tap" on the heel and toe. Different shoes may differ in their sound.

American Dance Institute: Dance classes for all ages, Seattle & Shoreline.

Jazz dance is a performance dance and style that arose in the United States in the mid 20th century.^[1][2] Jazz dance may allude to vernacular jazz, Broadway or dramatic jazz. The two types expand on African American vernacular styles of dance that arose with jazz music. Vernacular jazz dance incorporates ragtime moves, Charleston, Lindy hop and mambo. Popular vernacular jazz dance performers include The Whitman Sisters, Florence Mills, Ethel Waters, Al Minns and Leon James, Frankie Manning, Norma Miller, Dawn Hampton, and Katherine Dunham. Dramatic jazz dance performed on the show stage was promoted by Jack Cole, Bob Fosse, Eugene Louis Faccuito, and Gus Giordano.

The term 'jazz dance' has been used in ways that have little or nothing to do with jazz music. Since the 1940s, Hollywood movies and Broadway shows have used the term to describe the choreographies of Bob Fosse and Jerome Robbins. In the 1990s, colleges and universities applied to the term to classes offered by physical education departments in which students dance to various forms of pop music, rarely jazz.^[3]

Swing dancing

In 1917, jazz pianist Spencer Williams wrote a song called "Shim-Me-Sha-Wabble" which inspired a jazz dance called the shimmy. The shimmy is done by holding the body still "except for the shoulders, which are quickly alternated back and forth". The dances that emerged during this period were the Charleston and the Lindy hop.The Charleston is "characterized by its toes-in, heels-out twisting steps".^[4] It can be done as a solo or with any number of people.

The Lindy hop was a wild and spontaneous partner dance that was extremely rhythmically conscious. When the Great Depression began in October 1929, many people turned to dance. Because of this, the Aubrielle and the Lindy hop are now considered to be under the umbrella term "swing dance stylized, continuously flowing movements that developed the technique and style for the combinations that followed".^[1] Cole's style has been called hip, hard, and cool".^[5] Fosse combined "vaudeville, striptease, magic shows, nightclubs, film and Broadway musicals".^[6]

Pop music and television

Contemporary jazz became well known because of its television shows unlike So You Think You Can Dance. Mia Michaels's earlier work exemplifies this style. Some other companies and choreographers that create contemporary jazz dance are Sonya Tayeh, Mandy Moore, and Hubbard Street Dance Chicago. Commercial jazz, which has been popular since the 1980s, combines aspects of hip hop and jazz and is often done to pop music. This style can be seen in the music videos of Janet Jackson and Paula Abdul. Commercial jazz often includes more "tricks." Commercial jazz and contemporary jazz are both seen at dance competitions. Another variety of jazz is Latin jazz. "Maria Torres developed and popularized the fusion at Broadway Dance Center".^[7] Latin jazz has an emphasis on the movement of hips and isolations. It can be seen in the films El Cantante and Dance with Me, as well as on TV dance shows.

Dancers, directors, choreographers

• Jack Cole influenced Matt Mattox, Bob Fosse, Jerome Robbins, and Gwen Verdon, and is credited with popularizing the theatrical form of jazz dance with his great number of choreographic works on television and Broadway.^[8]
• Katherine Dunham is an anthropologist, choreographer, and pioneer in black theatrical dance who introduced isolations jazz dance.
• Eugene Louis Faccuito also known as Luigi, was an American jazz dancer, teacher, choreographer, and creator of the first codified jazz technique, the Luigi Technique.^[1]
• Bob Fosse, choreographer and film director, revolutionized jazz dance with his sexually suggestive movements. His choreography is very recognizable and can be found in the musicals and films that he has choreographed, such as Cabaret and Chicago.
• Gus Giordano was a jazz dancer and choreographer in Chicago known for his clean, precise movement.
• Patsy Swayze, choreographer and dance instructor, combined jazz and ballet, founded the Houston Jazz Ballet Company, and served as its director.^[9]
  

American Dance Institute: Dance classes for all ages, Seattle & Shoreline.

Contemporary dance^[1] is a genre of dance performance that developed during the mid-twentieth century and has since grown to become one of the dominant genres for formally trained dancers throughout the world, with particularly strong popularity in the U.S. and Europe. Although originally informed by and borrowing from classical, modern, and jazz styles, it has come to incorporate elements from many styles of dance.^[2] Due to its technical similarities, it is often perceived to be closely related to modern dance, ballet, and other classical concert dance styles.

In terms of the focus of its technique, contemporary dance tends to combine the strong but controlled legwork of ballet with modern that stresses on torso. It also employs contract-release, floor work, fall and recovery, and improvisation characteristics of modern dance.^[3] Unpredictable changes in rhythm, speed, and direction are often used, as well. Additionally, contemporary dance sometimes incorporates elements of non-western dance cultures, such as elements from African dance including bent knees, or movements from the Japanese contemporary dance, Butoh.^[4][5]

History

Contemporary dance draws on both classical ballet and modern dance, whereas postmodern dance was a direct and opposite response to modern dance. Merce Cunningham is considered to be the first choreographer to "develop an independent attitude towards modern dance" and defy the ideas that were established by it.^[5][6] In 1944 Cunningham accompanied his dance with music by John Cage, who observed that Cunningham's dance "no longer relies on linear elements (...) nor does it rely on a movement towards and away from climax. As in abstract painting, it is assumed that an element (a movement, a sound, a change of light) is in and of itself expressive; what it communicates is in large part determined by the observer themselves." Cunningham formed the Merce Cunningham Dance Company in 1953 and went on to create more than one hundred and fifty works for the company, many of which have been performed internationally by ballet and modern dance companies.

Cunningham's key ideas

Cunningham's key ideas include-

• Contemporary dance does refuse the classical ballet's leg technique in favour of modern dance's stress on the torso
• Contemporary dance is not necessarily narrative form of art
• Choreography that appears disordered, but nevertheless relies on technique
• Unpredictable changes in rhythm, speed, and direction
• Multiple and simultaneous actions
• Suspension of perspective and symmetry in ballet scenic frame perspective such as front, center, and hierarchies
• Creative freedom
• Independence between dance and music
• Dance to be danced, not analyzed
• Innovative lighting, sets, and costumes in collaboration with Andy Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg, and Jasper Johns^[5]

Other pioneers of contemporary dance (the offspring of modern and postmodern) include Ruth St. Denis, Doris Humphrey, Mary Wigman, Pina Bausch, Francois Delsarte, Émile Jaques-Dalcroze, Paul Taylor, Rudolph von Laban, Loie Fuller, José Limón, Marie Rambert, and Trisha Brown.

"Musical Theater". Dance With Me Studios. 2017-08-14. Retrieved 2022-12-30.

The dance industry responded with a commercial, studio-based version of hip-hop—sometimes called "new style"—and a hip-hop influenced style of jazz dance called "jazz-funk". Classically trained dancers developed these studio styles in order to create choreography from the hip-hop dances that were performed on the street. Because of this development, hip-hop dance is practiced in both dance studios and outdoor spaces.

The commercialization of hip-hop dance continued into the 1990s and 2000s with the production of several television shows and movies such as The Grind, Planet B-Boy, Rize, StreetDance 3D, America's Best Dance Crew, Saigon Electric, the Step Up film series, and The LXD, a web series. Though the dance is established in entertainment, including mild representation in theater, it maintains a strong presence in urban neighborhoods which has led to the creation of street dance derivatives like Memphis jookin, turfing, jerkin', and krump. What distinguishes hip-hop from other forms of dance is that it is often "freestyle" (improvisational) in nature and hip-hop dance crews often engage in freestyle dance competitions—colloquially referred to as "battles".

Films, television shows, and the Internet have contributed to introducing hip-hop dance outside the United States. Since being exposed, educational opportunities and corporate dance competitions such as World of Dance and Hip Hop International have helped maintain its presence worldwide. Hip-hop dance can be a form of entertainment or a hobby. It can also be a way to stay active in competitive dance and a way to make a living by dancing professionally.