Dance Styles

Ballet

Ballet is a type of performance dance, that originated in the Italian Renaissance courts of the 15th century, and which was further developed in France and Russia as a concert dance form. The early portions preceded the invention of the proscenium stage and were presented in large chambers with most of the audience seated on tiers or galleries on three sides of the dance floor. It has since become a highly technical form of dance with its own vocabulary. It is primarily performed with the accompaniment of classical music and has been influential as a form of dance globally. Ballet has been taught in ballet schools around the world, which use their own cultures and societies to inform the art. Ballet dance works (ballets) are choreographed and performed by trained artists, include mime and acting, and are set to music (usually orchestral but occasionally vocal). It is a poised style of dance that incorporates the foundational techniques for many other dance forms. This genre of dance is very hard to master and requires much practice. It is best known in the form of Late Romantic Ballet or Ballet Blanc, which preoccupies itself with the female dancer to the exclusion of almost all else, focusing on pointe work, flowing, precise acrobatic movements, and often presenting the dancers in the conventional short white French tutu. Later developments include expressionist ballet, Neoclassical ballet, and elements of Modern dance.

At SCAPA we use the Australian Teachers Of Dancing (ATOD) for our Syllabus classes. We also offer an 12+ to adult beginner ballet class. This is recommended for all serious dancers of other genres to improve core strength and technical abilities.

Contemporary

Contemporary dance is a genre of dance that employs compositional philosophy, rather than choreography, to guide unchoreographed movement. It uses dance techniques and methods found in ballet, modern dance and postmodern dance, and it also draws from other philosophies of movement that are outside the realm of classical dance technique.

Contemporary dance employs many modern dance techniques such as contact-release, fall and recovery, floor work, improvisation, and lifts in partnering.

Jazz

Jazz dance is a classification shared by a broad range of dance styles. Before the 1950s, jazz dance referred to dance styles that originated from African American vernacular dance. In the 1950s, a new genre of jazz dance—modern jazz dance—emerged, with roots in Caribbean traditional dance. Every individual style of jazz dance has roots traceable to one of these two distinct origins.

Traditional

Until the mid 1920s jazz dance referred to the dance styles that originated from the African American vernacular dance of the late 19th century to mid-20th century. Jazz dance often referred to tap dance because tap dancing, set to jazz music, was one of the predominant dances of the era. Jazz dance evolved over time to spawn a diverse range of social and concert dance styles. During the later jazz age, popular forms of jazz dance included the Cakewalk, Black Bottom, Charleston, Jitterbug, Boogie Woogie, swing and the related Lindy Hop. Today, many of these dance styles are still popular and continue to be practiced and taught.

Modern

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. Modern jazz dance continues to be an important element of musical theatre, and it can often be seen in music videos and competitive dance.

Fun n Dance

An introduction to Ballet and Jazz for Kindy and Pre-primary aged kids (4, 5 and 6 year olds/before year 1 at school) that involves creativity, fun, exploration of movement and the freedom to be who they are. They will learn a dance introduction to Jazz and Ballet technique in a fun and encouraging group environment.

Pilates Mat Classes

Pilates is a popular approach to exercise widely used today! Whether you are an elite athlete/performer, unfit or injured, the Pilates classes are tailored to your needs. Mat classes take place on the floor using comfortable exercise mats incorporating theraband and Swiss balls. Women and men are welcome!

Acro

The Acro courses as SCAPA are taught by Michael Keen, who works professionally as a gymnastics coach. Students can be complete beginners, and will be taught basic acro, or if students are already experienced they can come and work on more complex tricks. Learning acro is great for students wanting to expand their dance performance possibilities.

The styles of  Hip Hop

Hip hop dancing almost eludes definition. Like the music it accompanies, this style of dance constantly evolves and welcomes innovation across cultural boundaries. From the streets of the Bronx to exclusive dance conservatories, hip hop dance represents a cultural movement.

Hip hop is a form of musical expression and artistic culture that originated in African-American and Latino communities during the 1970s in New York City, specifically the Bronx.DJ Afrika Bambaataa outlined the four pillars of hip hop culture: MCing, DJing, breaking and graffiti writing. Other elements include beatboxing.

Since its emergence in the South Bronx, hip hop culture has spread around the world. Hip hop music first emerged with disc jockeys creating rhythmic beats by looping breaks (small portions of songs emphasizing a percussive pattern) on two turntables, more commonly referred to as sampling. This was later accompanied by “rap”, a rhythmic style of chanting or poetry presented in 16 bar measures or time frames, and beatboxing, a vocal technique mainly used to imitate percussive elements of the music and various technical effects of hip hop DJ’s. An original form of dancing and particular styles of dress arose among fans of this new music. These elements experienced considerable refinement and development over the course of the history of the culture. Some Hip-Hop music makes political statements.

Commercial Choreographed Hip Hop

Generally referred to as simply hip hop nowadays due to its blended nature and wide-spread use. Hip-hop dance refers to dance styles primarily performed to hip-hop music or that have evolved as part of hip-hop culture. It includes a wide range of styles notably breaking, locking, and popping which were created in the 1970s by African Americans and made popular by dance crews in the United States. These crews and styles gained mainstream exposure by being showcased in their early stages on the television show Soul Train and in the 1980s films Breakin’, Beat Street, and Wild Style. The dance industry responded with a studio based version of hip-hop—sometimes called new style—and jazz funk. These studio styles were developed by classically trained dancers who wanted to create choreography from the hip-hop dances they saw being performed on the street. Because of this development, hip-hop dance is practiced in studios and outdoor spaces. The commercialization of hip-hop dance continued into the 1990s and 2000s with the production of several other television shows and movies such as The Grind, Dance 360, Planet B-Boy, Rize, America’s Best Dance Crew, the Step Up film franchise, and The LXD, a web series. Though the dance is established in entertainment, it still maintains a strong presence in urban neighborhoods which has led to the creation of street dance derivatives turfing, krumping, and jerkin’.

Classes referred to as Hip Hop at SCAPA are commercial choreography classes. We also currently offer classes in Breaking and Popping which are less commercialised and are much closer to the roots of Hip Hop culture, and its freestyle and urban nature.

Breakdancing

Breaking, also called B-boying or breakdancing, is a dynamic style of dance which developed as part of the hip hop culture. Breaking is one of the major elements of hip hop culture. Like many aspects of Hip hop culture, breakdance borrows heavily from many cultures, including 1930′s-era street dancing, Afro-Brazilian and Asian Martial arts, Russian folk dance,and the dance moves of James Brown, Michael Jackson, and California Funk styles. Breaking took form in the South Bronx alongside the other elements of hip hop. According to the documentary film The Freshest Kids: A History of the B-Boy, DJ Kool Herc describes the “B” in B-boy as short for breaking which at the time was slang for “going off”, also one of the original names for the dance. . Dancers at DJ Kool Herc’s parties, who saved their best dance moves for the break section of the song, getting in front of the audience to dance in a distinctive, frenetic style.

Popping

Popping was created by Sam Solomon in Fresno, California and performed by his crew the Electric Boogaloos. It is based on the technique of quickly contracting and relaxing muscles to cause a jerk in the dancer’s body, referred to as a pop or a hit. Each hit should be synchronized to the rhythm and beats of the music. Popping is also used as an umbrella term to refer to a wide range of other closely related illusionary dance stylessuch as strobing, liquid, animation, and waving that are often integrated with standard popping to create a more varied performance. In all of these sub-genres, it appears to the spectator that the body is popping, hence the name. The difference between each sub-genre is how exaggerated the popping is. In liquid, the body movements look like water. The popping is so smooth that the movements do not look like popping at all; they look fluid. The opposite of this is strobing (also called ticking) in which the movements are static, sudden, and jerky.

Popping as an umbrella term also includes gliding, floating, and sliding which are lower body dances done with the legs and feet. In gliding, a dancer appears as if they are drifting across the floor on ice. Opposite from gliding is tutting which is an upper body dance that uses the arms, hands, and wrists to form right angles and create geometric box-like shapes. Tutting can be done primarily with the fingers rather than the arms. This method is called finger tutting. In both variations, the movements are intricate, linear, and form 90° or 45° angles. In practice, tutting looks like the characters on the art of ancient Egypt hence the name—a reference to King Tut.

While popping as an umbrella term is widely used by hip-hop dancers and in competitive hip-hop dancing, Timothy “Popin’ Pete” Solomon of the Electric Boogaloos disagrees with the use of the word “popping” in this way. Many of these related styles (animation, liquid, tutting, etc.) can not be traced to one person or group. Popin’ Pete states “There are people who wave and there are people who tut. They’re not popping. I say this to give the people who created other styles their just dues and their props.”