Jazzy Dance

The History

Jazz dance originated from the African American vernacular dance of the late 1800s to the mid-1900s. An early popular "jazz dancer" was vaudeville star Joe Frisco who, in the 1910s, danced in a loose-limbed style close to the ground while juggling his derby, hat and cigar.
Until the mid 1950s, the term "jazz dance" often referred to tap dance, because tap dancing (set to jazz music) was the main performance dance of the era. During the later jazz age, popular forms of jazz dance were the Cakewalk, Black Bottom, Charleston, Jitterbug, Boogie Woogie, Swing dancing and the related Lindy Hop.

After the 1950s, pioneers such as Katherine Dunham took the essence of Caribbean traditional dance and made it into a performing art. With the growing domination of other forms of entertainment music, jazz dance evolved on Broadway into the new, smooth style that is taught today and known as Modern Jazz, while tap dance branched off to follow its own, separate evolutionary path. The performance style of jazz dance was popularized to a large extent by Bob Fosse’s work, which is exemplified by Broadway shows such as Chicago, Cabaret, Damn Yankees, and The Pajama Game.

Today, jazz dance is present in many different forms and venues. Jazz dance is commonly taught in dance schools and performed by dance companies around the world. It continues to be an essential element of musical theater choreography, where it may be interwoven with other dance styles as appropriate for a particular show. Jazz dancing can be seen in music videos, in competitive dance, and on the television show, So You Think You Can Dance.

Ballroom Dance

Definition 'n History

The term "ballroom dancing" is derived from the word ball, which in turn originates from the Latin word ballare which means "to dance". In times past, ballroom dancing was "social dancing" for the privileged, leaving "folk dancing" for the lower classes. These boundaries have since become blurred, and it should be noted even in times long gone, many "ballroom" dances were really elevated folk dances.

The definition of ballroom dance also depends on the era. Balls have featured Minuet, Quadrille, Polonaise, Pas de Gras, Mazurka, and other popular dances of the day, which are considered to be historical dances.

Today, the term applies to any one of the several dances in which two individuals, a "leader" and a "follower," dance with physical contact through their upper or lower bodies, or simply their arms depending on the particular variety of dance. Since most social dancing is unchoreographed, this contact is necessary for the leader to communicate the next dance move to the follower, and for the follower to respond to this insinuation.

This stands in stark contrast with the style(s) of dance seen in clubs and other social gatherings where physical contact tends to be optional and the individuals in question can move freely without any such restraints imposed by firm physical contact or by the necessity to follow the rhythmic pattern present in the music.

Some knowledge of known step patterns is essential for both the leader as well as the follower for ballroom dancing. As most ballroom style dances require some knowledge and practice, they have lessened in popularity among the public in the recent decades. Dance historians usually mark the appearance of the twist in the early 1960s as the end of social partner dancing.

Royal Ballet School

http://www.royal-ballet-school.org.uk

MISSION AND PURPOSE

Their mission is to train and educate outstanding classical ballet dancers for The Royal Ballet, Birmingham Royal Ballet and other top international dance companies, and in doing so to set the standards in dance training, nationally and internationally.

The School offers an eight-year carefully structured dance course, aligned with an extensive academic programme, giving the students the best possible education to equip them for a career in the world of dance.

THEIR GOALS are to:

• Provide, in a caring environment, artistic and academic training of the highest possible calibre, offering all students of the School a positive learning experience which is constantly monitored for potential improvement.


• Achieve recognised accreditation for the vocational curriculum


• Offer students as many performing opportunities as possible


• Ensure that the students have close practical and artistic access to Royal Ballet companies


• Maintain a high employment rate of graduating dancers, with many being recruited to The Royal Ballet or Birmingham Royal Ballet


• Expand the international exposure of the students of the School by participating in international competitions and festivals


• Develop new state-of-the-art, purpose built facilities which will enhance the teaching and learning opportunities for the students.


• Conduct an extensive Audition and Outreach programme

SYSTEM OF TRAINING

The aim of The Royal Ballet School is to produce dancers possessing a strong, clean classical technique with great emphasis on artistry, musicality, purity of line, co-ordination and a quality of movement that is free of mannerisms. The intent is to produce graduates who are capable of integrating effortlessly into The Royal Ballet, Birmingham Royal Ballet and other top professional dance companies.To this end, a System of Training has been developed to encompass the eight years of full-time training offered at The Royal Ballet School. It draws upon the valuable traditions from different schools of classical ballet, retaining the best that was created by our predecessors while embracing the demands of classical dance technique as is required of professional artists today.At all times when utilising the System and training the dancer, emphasis must be placed on natural flow of movement, musicality, the joy of dance and the development of the dancer as an artist.

Salsa Steps

Origin of the salsa steps

The dance steps currently being danced to salsa music come from the son, but were influenced by many other Cuban dances such as Mambo, Cha cha cha, Guaracha, Changuí, Palo Monte, Rumba, Abakuá, Comparsa and some times even Mozambique. Solo salsa steps are called "Shines", a term taken from Tap dancing. It also integrates swing dances. Salsa can be a heavily improvised dance, taking any form the interpreter wishes. Modern Salsa has elements of Jazz, funk reggae, hip-hop and samba

Sexy Salsa

Sexy Salsa

The history of "Salsa" dance is peppered with hearsay and contradiction. Although few would disagree that the music and dance forms originate largely in Cuban Son, most agree that Salsa as we know it today is a North American interpretation of the older forms. New York's Latino community had a vibrant musical and dancing scene throughout the '50s but found limited success with the 'Anglo' mainstream. In the 1970s, adoption of the term "Salsa" reduced the linguistic and cultural barriers to mainstream adoption of Latin music and dance[2].

The modernization of the Mambo in the 1950s was influential in shaping what would become salsa. There is debate as to whether the dance we call Salsa today originated in Cuba or Puerto Rico. Cuba's influence in North America was diminished after Castro's revolution and the ensuing trade embargo. New York's Latino community was largely Puerto-Rican. Salsa is one of the main dances in both Cuba and Puerto Rico and is known world-wide.

Tango at The Beginning

History of Tango

The dance originated in lower-class districts of Buenos Aires. The music derived from the fusion of various forms of music from Europe.[1] Jorge Luis Borges in "El idioma de los argentinos" writes:"Tango belongs to the Rio de la Plata and it is the son of Uruguayan "milonga" and grandson of the "habanera". The word Tango seems to have first been used in connection with the dance in the 1890s. Initially it was just one of the many dances, but it soon became popular throughout society, as theatres and street barrel organs spread it from the suburbs to the working-class slums, which were packed with hundreds of thousands of European immigrants.

In the early years of the twentieth century, dancers and orchestras from Buenos Aires and Montevideo travelled to Europe, and the first European tango craze took place in Paris, soon followed by London, Berlin, and other capitals. Towards the end of 1913 it hit New York in the USA, and Finland. In the USA around 1911 the name "Tango" was often applied to dances in a 2/4 or 4/4 rhythm such as the one-step. The term was fashionable and did not indicate that tango steps would be used in the dance, although they might be. Tango music was sometimes played, but at a rather fast tempo. Instructors of the period would sometimes refer to this as a "North American Tango", versus the "Rio de la Plata Tango". By 1914 more authentic tango stylings were soon developed, along with some variations like Albert Newman's "Minuet" Tango.

In Argentina, the onset in 1929 of the Great Depression, and restrictions introduced after the overthrow of the Hipólito Yrigoyen government in 1930 caused Tango to decline. Its fortunes were reversed as tango again became widely fashionable and a matter of national pride under the government of Juan Perón.

Tango declined again in the 1950s with economic depression and as the military dictatorships banned public gatherings, followed by the popularity of Rock and Roll. The dance lived on in smaller venues until its revival in 1983 following the opening in Paris of the show Tango Argentino created by Claudio Segovia & Hector Orezzoli. This show made a revolution worldwide, and people everywhere started taking tango lessons.

In 1990, dancers Miguel Angel Zotto and Milena Plebs founded the "Tango X 2" Company , generating novel spectacles and that a great current of young people incline for the dance of the tango, an unusual thing at the time. They created a style that recovered the traditional tango of the milongas, renewed it and placed it as central element in its creations, doing an archeological search of the diverse styles of the tango.
Many shows toured around the world, such as Broadway Musicals Tango Argentino & Forever Tango, Tango X 2, and Tango Pasion among others.

Dynamic Tango Dance

Tango is.....

Tango is a musical genre and its associated dance forms that originated in Buenos Aires, Argentina and Montevideo, Uruguay and spread to the rest of the world soon after that.

Early tango was known as tango criollo, or simply tango. Today, there are many tango dance styles, including Argentine Tango, Uruguayan Tango, Ballroom tango (American and International styles), Finnish tango and vintage tangos. What many consider to be the authentic tango is that closest to that originally danced in Argentina and Uruguay, though other types of tango have developed into mature dances in their own right.

About Classical Ballet

So Classic.........

Classical ballet is the most formal of the ballet styles; it adheres to traditional ballet technique. There are variations relating to area of origin, such as Russian ballet, French ballet, and Italian ballet.

The five most well-known styles of ballet are:

• the Vaganova method, or Russian Method, after Agrippina Vaganova,
• the Cecchetti method, or Italian Method, after Enrico Cecchetti,
• the Bournonville Method, or Danish Method, after August Bournonville,
• the Balanchine Method, or ABT Method, after George Balanchine,
• and the Royal Academy of Dance Method, or R.A.D. Method, created in England.
  

Let's Start w/ Ballet

.... Ballet ....

Wikipedia.org says that

"Ballet is a formalized form of dance with its origins in the Italian Renaissance court, further developed in France and Russia as a concert dance form. It is a highly technical form of dance with its own vocabulary. It has been influential as a form of dance globally and is taught in ballet schools around the world which use their own culture and society to modernize the art.

Ballet dance works (ballets) are choreographed, and also include mime, acting, and are set to music (usually orchestral but occasionally vocal). It is best known in the form of classical ballet, notable for its techniques, such as pointe work and turn-out of the legs, its graceful, flowing, precise movements, and its ethereal qualities. Later developments include neoclassical ballet and contemporary ballet."

Do you think it's sound hard to learn? I think so...But, don't you see that someone who can dance ballet have a good body appearance.They always walk or stand with sturdy body.

I really love it :)

Hi guys!

It's really interesting if we know how to make our day happier and colorfull, right? Like me. I really love to dance. Although i'm not a professional dancer, i like to spent my spare time to dance.


Lets check.. Ballet, salsa, tango, modern dance, and more and more.. So many name of dance. (Which is sound of pity that i never get chance to learn salsa and tango..)

What about you? Do you like dancing same as me? If so, let's begin to surf here.

Enjoy!