Styles of Dance

Recognised for the beauty and elegance of wearing a tutu, classical ballet is a widespread dance style that appeals to young girls who imagine themselves dancing on their tippy toes. Ballet is a highly technical form of dance using its own vocabulary based on French terminology.   It requires high level thinking and develops excellent physical control and coordination. Ballet technique underpins all other dance styles.  The strongest jazz, tap, contemporary and acrobatic performers all have a solid foundation in ballet technique.

A combination of Ballet and Contemporary, lyrical is a very emotive dance style that interprets the lyrics of songs through movement to evoke an emotional response from the audience.  It is characterized by fluidity and grace, with the dancer flowing from one move to another.

Contemporary dance is a strong dynamic dance style and very expressive style of dance that utilizes unconventional movements from styles around the world. Strong Ballet and Jazz technique is needed for contemporary dancers to provide the ease, flow and incredible coordination required in this dance form

Jazz incorporates a broad range of dance styles. Prior to the 1950s, jazz dance was a style that originated from African American dance, with roots in Caribbean traditional dance. Jazz is now a form of dance that requires the dancer to be highly skilled.  Two main styles of jazz are Urban/ Commercial and Traditional Broadway.  Jazz dance uses popular music and creates very powerful athletic dancers.  It requires incredible flexibility and agility to perform high kicks and strong mastery of turns.

Young children love to tap and hear the sounds of the metal plates on their shoes. Tap shoes are like a percussion instrument for the feet. Tap dance teaches musicality, rhythmic knowledge, syncopation and improvisation skills for the dancer. At the higher levels, dancers require extreme skill and dexterity.

Character dancing is a selected borrowing of folk dance movements and styles to provide divertissements for story ballets. It is a specialised element taught as part of the classical ballet curriculum.   Character dance develops leg, back and upper body strength. It also teaches musicality in our students with strong bold musical rhythms. Character roles are often a part of the story plot within the ballet.

Click below for a video of character dancing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9e7hnoZ2qXU

Hip Hop dance includes a wide range of "street dance" styles that are associated with the Hip Hop culture born in New York City in the mid-'70s. It is very popular with both boys and girls. The entertainment industry introduced hip-hop dance to the world with the release of films such as “Wild Style”, “Beat Street,” and “Breakin”. Some popular hip-hop styles are breaking, locking, popping, krumping, robot/mannequin, and harlem shake.

This style of dance combines classical dance technique with precision acrobatic elements. It is defined by its athletic character.  iIs unique choreography blends ballet and jazz style dance movements with acrobatics skills.  At the intermediate & advanced levels, Acro Dance requires a solid ballet foundation to develop the strength and control required to progress to the higher levels.