Ballroom dance is a set of partner dances, which are enjoyed both socially and competitively around the world. Because of its performance and entertainment aspects, ballroom dance is also widely enjoyed on stage, film, and television.
Dance is a performing art form consisting of purposefully selected sequences of human movement. This movement has aesthetic and symbolic value, and is acknowledged as dance by performers and observers within a particular culture. Dance can be categorized and described by its choreography, by its repertoire of movements, or by its historical period or place of origin.
A folk dance is developed by people that reflect the life of the people of a certain country or region. Not all ethnic dances are folk dances. For example, ritual dances or dances of ritual origin are not considered to be folk dances. Ritual dances are usually called "Religious dances" because of their purpose.
The terms "ethnic" and "traditional" are used when it is required to emphasize the cultural roots of the dance. In this sense, nearly all folk dances are ethnic ones. If some dances, such as polka, cross ethnic boundaries and even cross the boundary between "folk" and "ballroom dance", ethnic differences are often considerable enough to mention.
Eugene Curran Kelly was an American dancer, actor of film, stage, and television, singer, film director, producer, and choreographer. He was known for his energetic and athletic dancing style, his good looks, and the likable characters that he played on screen.
Jennifer Lynn Lopez is an American singer, actress, dancer and producer. In 1991, Lopez began appearing as a Fly Girl dancer on In Living Color, where she remained a regular until she decided to pursue an acting career in 1993. For her first leading role in the 1997 Selena biopic of the same name, Lopez received a Golden Globe nomination and became the first Latin actress to earn over US$1 million for a film. She went on to star in Anaconda (1997) and Out of Sight (1998), later establishing herself as the highest-paid Latin actress in Hollywood.
Ballet 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, highly technical form of dance with its own vocabulary based on French terminology. It has been globally influential and has defined the foundational techniques used in many other dance genres and cultures. Ballet has been taught in various schools around the world, which have historically incorporated their own cultures and as a result, the art has evolved in a number of distinct ways. See glossary of ballet.
Bharatanatyam also historically called Sadir, is a major genre of Indian classical dance that originated in Tamil Nadu. Traditionally, Bharatanatyam has been a solo dance performed exclusively by women, and it expressed South Indian religious themes and spiritual ideas, particularly of Shaivism, Vaishnavism and Shaktism.
Fred Astaire was an American dancer, singer, actor, choreographer and television presenter. He is widely regarded as the most influential dancer in the history of film.
Salsa is a popular form of social dance originating from Cuban folk dances. The movements of Salsa are a combination of the Afro-Cuban dances Son, cha-cha-cha, Mambo, Rumba, and the Danzón. The dance, along with salsa music, saw major development in the mid-1970s in New York. Different regions of Latin America and the United States have distinct salsa styles of their own, such as Cuban, Puerto Rican, Cali Colombia, L.A. and New York styles. Salsa dance socials are commonly held in night clubs, bars, ballrooms, restaurants, and outside, especially when part of an outdoor festival.
A stripper or exotic dancer is a person whose occupation involves performing striptease in a public adult entertainment venue such as a strip club. At times, a stripper may be hired to perform at a bachelor party or other private event.
The Nutcracker is a two-act ballet, originally choreographed by Marius Petipa and Lev Ivanov with a score by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. The libretto is adapted from E. T. A. Hoffmann's story "The Nutcracker and the Mouse King".
Dance-pop is a pop and dance subgenre that originated in the early 1980s. It is generally uptempo music intended for nightclubs with the intention of being danceable but also suitable for contemporary hit radio. Developing from a combination of electronic dance music and pop music, with influences of disco, post-disco and synth-pop, it is generally characterised by strong beats with easy, uncomplicated song structures which are generally more similar to pop music than the more free-form dance genre, with an emphasis on melody as well as catchy tunes. The genre, on the whole, tends to be producer-driven, despite some notable exceptions.
Wade Jeremy William Robson is an Australian dancer and choreographer. He began performing as a dancer at the age of five. He has directed music videos and world tours for pop artists such as NSYNC and Britney Spears. Robson was the host and executive producer for The Wade Robson Project, which aired on MTV in 2003. In 2007, he joined the Fox television dance series So You Think You Can Dance as a judge and choreographer.
A ballet dancer is a person who practices the art of classical ballet. Both females and males can practice ballet; however, dancers have a strict hierarchy and strict gender roles. They rely on years of extensive training and proper technique to become a part of professional companies. Ballet dancers are at a high risk of injury due to the demanding technique of ballet.
Strictly Come Dancing is a British television dance contest in which celebrities partner with professional dancers to compete in mainly ballroom and Latin dance. Each couple is scored out of 10 by a panel of judges. The format has been exported to over 40 other countries, licensed by BBC Worldwide, and has also inspired a modern dance-themed spin-off Strictly Dance Fever. The Guinness Book of Records has named Strictly to be the world’s most successful reality TV format. The show is currently presented by Tess Daly and Claudia Winkleman.
Indian classical dance, or Shastriya Nritya, is an umbrella term for various performance arts rooted in religious Hindu musical theatre styles, whose theory and practice can be traced to the Sanskrit text Natya Shastra.
Dancing with the Stars is an American dance competition television series that premiered on June 1, 2005, on ABC. It is the US version of the UK series Strictly Come Dancing. The show is hosted by Tom Bergeron, alongside Erin Andrews, who became co-host in season eighteen. Lisa Canning was co-host in the first season, Samantha Harris co-hosted seasons two through nine and Brooke Burke-Charvet in seasons ten through seventeen. The twenty-seventh season premiered on September 24, 2018, and its spin-off Dancing with the Stars: Juniors premiered on October 7, 2018. Dancing with the Stars will not premiere for a spring season in 2019, but is set to return in the fall of 2019.
The Melbourne shuffle is a rave dance that developed in the 1980's. Typically performed to electronic music, the dance was popular in the 1980's and 1990's Melbourne rave scene, where the dance originated. The dance moves involve a fast heel-and-toe movement or T-Step, combined with a variation of the running man coupled with a matching arm action. The dance is improvised and involves "repeatedly shuffling your feet inwards, then outwards, while thrusting your arms up and down, or side to side, in time with the beat". Other moves can be incorporated including 360-degree spins and jumps and slides.
Dance music is music composed specifically to facilitate or accompany dancing. It can be either a whole musical piece or part of a larger musical arrangement. In terms of performance, the major categories are live dance music and recorded dance music. While there exist attestations of the combination of dance and music in ancient times, the earliest Western dance music that we can still reproduce with a degree of certainty are the surviving medieval dances. In the Baroque period, the major dance styles were noble court dances. In the classical music era, the minuet was frequently used as a third movement, although in this context it would not accompany any dancing. The waltz also arose later in the classical era. Both remained part of the romantic music period, which also saw the rise of various other nationalistic dance forms like the barcarolle, mazurka, ecossaise, ballade and polonaise.
Dance Moms is an American reality television series that debuted on Lifetime on July 13, 2011. Created by Collins Avenue Productions, the show originally followed the early training and careers of children in dance and show business under the tutelage of Abby Lee Miller, as well as the interactions of the instructor and the dancers with their sometimes bickering mothers. Cheryl Burke replaced Laurieann Gibson during the second half of season 7.
Set originally in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and later in Los Angeles, California, the show is primarily filmed at the Abby Lee Dance Company (ALDC) studios.
