Dance is an art form that generally refers to movement of the body, usually rhythmic and to music,used as a form of expression, social interaction or presented in a spiritual or performance setting.
Every dance, no matter what style, has something in common.
It not only involves flexibility and body movement, but also physics. If the proper physics is not taken into consideration, injuries may occur.
So.. the what the history of all the styles?
Hip hop - It was in the 1970's that this hip hop dancing trend first began to be noticed. In the street corners of slightly impoverished African-American and Latino neighborhoods, kids found a way to break the gloom and the monotony by bringing out beat boxes and staging dance showdowns, or battles, amongst each other. Any kind of moves were appreciated, and unorthodox moves like spinning on the head and slamming against the ground became synonymous with the music. As the popularity of the music went up, so did the dance moves. These moves soon began to be called breaking, and the mainstream producers of hip hop music also included these dance routines in their presentation.
Ball room - In the late 18th and early 19th centuries dancing was very popular among the upper classes of England. The working class really didn’t catch fire with this form of activity until the early 20th century. In the early 1920’s competitive ballroom dancing was gaining popularity so the Imperial Society of Teachers of Dancing (formerly known as The Imperial Society of Dance Teachers) formed a Ballroom Branch whose function was to standardize the ballroom dances.
salsa - Between 1930 and 1960 there were musicians from Cuba, Puerto Rico, Mexico and South America coming to New York to perform. They brought their own native rhythms and musical forms with them, but as they listened to each other and played music together, the musical influences mixed, fused and evolved.
This type of musical hybridization gave birth to the 1950s creation of the mambo from son, conjunto and jazz traditions. Continuing musical fusion went on to include what we know today as the cha cha cha, rhumba, conga and, in the 1960s, salsa.
Jazz - The term "jazz dance" has been used to describe a forever-changing form of popular and creative dance movement ever since the 1920s. It represents our popular culture, and as the culture changes, so does the appearance of jazz dance. Jazz dance has character and the ability to make changes as a main fragment. It is this element that allows itself to shed its skin and take up another for every passing era. This means that the social dances of the 1920s like the Charleston and Back Bottom are known as jazz dances, but so are the theatre dances of choreographer Bob Fosse. The style of Fred Astaire comes from jazz dancing, as well as many dances by the modern dance choreographer Alvin Ailey. The shortened sounds of tap dancing can be considered as jazz dancing, but so can the body popping movements of breakdancing. The common subject binding these obviously different things together is rhythm, or to be more exact, rhythm that is composed in African influences
belly dance - Belly Dance known as Raks al-sharqi means "Dance of the Middle East," and Raks al-baladi means "Dance of the People." Belly dance is one of the oldest dances in creation. The name belly dance was changed from Raks al-sharqi to belly dance once it entered into the United States and became a part of the western world. Belly dance goes back as far as the 1800s and further. Women as well as men have been puzzled for decades about the art of this dance. There’s a myth that belly dance is a dance for men. No, not true at all! Back in history, belly dance was performed and men were not allowed to come watch a belly dancer.
Disco - Disco dance emerged during the 1970s, reaching its popularity peak with the release of the blockbuster film "Saturday Night Fever." Latin dances such as the samba, cha cha, and tango inspired many of the popular disco moves. One of the pioneers of disco dance was Tom Moulton, who some believe reinvented disco music to be better suited for choreography.
Polka - The polka is a dance of bohemian or polish origin, the name being derived from the Bohemian polka, which is the half-step characterization of the dance. The invention of the step is credited to Anna Slazak, a farm servant at Elbsteinitz, near Prague in about 1830. It was popularly introduced in Prague in about 1835, and in 1839 was brought to Vienna by the musical band of the Prague Sharpshooters, a military unit. There both the music and the dance met with extraordinary acceptance. In 1840 it was received with tremendous applause at the Odeon Theater in Paris and was soon the favorite dance at all the public and private balls. It spread rapidly into every other country in Europe and is now popular all over the world
Ballet - Ballet emerged in the late fifteenth-century Renaissance court culture of Italy as a dance interpretation of fencing, and further developed in the French court from the time of Louis XIV in the 17th century. This is reflected in the largely French vocabulary of ballet. Despite the great reforms of Noverre in the eighteenth century, ballet went into decline in France after 1830, though it was continued in Denmark, Italy, and Russia. It was reintroduced to western Europe on the eve of the First World War by a Russian company: the Ballets Russes of Sergei Diaghilev, who came to be influential around the world. Diaghilev's company came to be a destination for many of the Russian trained dancers fleeing the famine and unrest that followed the Bolshevik revolution. These dancers brought many of the choreographic and stylistic innovations that had been flourishing under the czars back to their place of origin
Riverdance - was first performed during the interval of the 1994 Eurovision Song Contest on April 30. This first performance featured Irish Dancing Champion Jean Butler, Michael Flatley and the Celtic choral group Anúna with a score written by Bill Whelan. Whelan also composed "Timedance" - an early version of "Riverdance" for the 1981 Eurovision Song Contest, performed by Planxty. Flatley choreographed for himself and Jean Butler choreographed her solo and the troupe. A video of the Eurovision interval performance was released by the Irish broadcaster Radio Telefís Éireann under the title "Riverdance for Rwanda" with all proceeds going to the Rwanda Appeal Disasters Joint Appeal Committee. Many of the dance troupe featured in this performance subsequently went on to dance principal roles in later productions of "Riverdance the Show". Riverdance is produced and directed by husband and wife, John McColgan and Moya Doherty, controlled through their production company Abhann Productions based in Dublin.
