Ballroom dance is a set of European partner dances, which are enjoyed both socially and competitively around the world, mostly because of its performance and entertainment aspects. Ballroom dancing is also widely enjoyed on stage, film, and television.
Jazz dance is a performance dance and style that arose in the United States in the mid 20th century. 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.
In some types of partner dance, lead and follow are designations for the two dancers' roles in a dance pairing. The leader is responsible for guiding the couple and initiating transitions to different dance steps and, in improvised dances, for choosing the dance steps to perform. The leader communicates choices to the follower, and directs the follower by means of subtle physical and visual signals, thereby allowing the pair to be smoothly coordinated.
The Charleston is a dance named after the harbor city of Charleston, South Carolina. The rhythm was popularized in mainstream dance music in the United States by a 1923 tune called "The Charleston" by composer/pianist James P. Johnson, which originated in the Broadway show Runnin' Wild and became one of the most popular hits of the decade. Runnin' Wild ran from 28 October 1923 through 28 June 1924. The Charleston dance's peak popularity occurred from mid-1926 to 1927.
Swing dance is a group of social dances that developed with the swing style of jazz music in the 1920s–1940s, with the origins of each dance predating the popular "swing era". Hundreds of styles of swing dancing were developed; those that have survived beyond that era include Charleston, Balboa, Lindy Hop, and Collegiate Shag. Today, the best-known of these dances is the Lindy Hop, which originated in Harlem in the early 1930s. While the majority of swing dances began in African-American communities as vernacular African-American dances, some influenced swing-era dances, like Balboa, developed outside of these communities.
The Shim Sham Shimmy,Shim Sham or just Sham originally is a particular tap dance routine and is regarded as tap dance's national anthem. For today's swing dancers, it is a line dance.
Choreography is the art or practice of designing sequences of movements of physical bodies in which motion or form or both are specified. Choreography may also refer to the design itself. A choreographer is one who creates choreographies by practising the art of choreography, a process known as choreographing. It most commonly refers to dance choreography.
Partner dances are dances whose basic choreography involves coordinated dancing of two partners, as opposed to individuals dancing alone or individually in a non-coordinated manner, and as opposed to groups of people dancing simultaneously in a coordinated manner.
Social dances are dances that have social functions and context. Social dances are intended for participation rather than performance. They are often danced merely to socialise and for entertainment, though they may have ceremonial, competitive and erotic functions.
This is a list of dance terms that are not names of dances or types of dances. See List of dances and List of dance style categories for those.
Dance improvisation is the process of spontaneously creating movement. Development of movement material is facilitated through a variety of creative explorations including body mapping through levels, shape and dynamics schema.
Frank Manning was an American dancer, instructor, and choreographer. Manning is considered one of the founders of Lindy Hop, an energetic form of the jazz dance style known as swing.
A caller is a person who prompts dance figures in such dances as line dance, square dance, and contra dance. The caller might be one of the participating dancers, though in modern country dance this is rare.
Boogie-woogie dance is a European variation of swing dance often done competitively that developed in the 1940s. Although its name derives from the boogie-woogie genre of music, it is most often danced to rock music. The form is cited in Madonna's hit single "Music"
Swing! is a musical conceived by Paul Kelly with music by various artists. It celebrates the music of the Swing era of jazz (1930s–1946), including many well-known tunes by artists like Duke Ellington, William "Count" Basie, Benny Goodman and others. It received a nomination for the 2000 Tony Award for Best Musical and other Tony awards.
Acrobatic rock and roll is a fast, athletic, physically demanding form of partner dance that originated from Lindy Hop but has evolved to a choreographed sport, often done in formal competition. It is danced by both couples and groups, either all-female or four to eight couples together.
Jamming in dance culture is a kind of informal show-off during a social dance party. Dancers clear a circle and dancers or dance couples take turns showing their best tricks while the remaining dancers cheer the jammers on. While some jam circles are staged, most form organically and spontaneously when the energy and mood is right.
Sylvia Sykes is an American swing dancer, instructor, judge, and choreographer. She is known for reviving the swing dance style balboa.
Dmitry Chaplin is a Russian dancer, choreographer, and actor, best known for being a Top 10 finalist on the second season of the dance competition series So You Think You Can Dance. While competing on the series, he became known for performing shirtless, with one solo routine having him rip off his shirt. In 2009, Chaplin was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award for his choreography.
A mixer dance, dance mixer or simply mixer is a kind of participation dance in a social dance setting that involves changing partners as an integral part. Mixing can be built into the dance choreography or can be structured to occur more randomly. Mixers allow dancers to meet new partners and allow beginners to dance with more advanced dancers. Some people may take advantage of mixers to assess dance skills of other persons without fear of being stuck with a poor match for an entire dance.
