- Related Topics:
- ballet
- ballroom dance
- Morris dance
- modern dance
- court dance
Western dance
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What is Western dance?
Western dance encompasses a diverse history, evolving from ancient rituals to contemporary forms. Characterized by a readiness to embrace change, it includes communal, social, and theatrical dances.
From prehistoric times, Western dance may have included work, war, and erotic dances. Court dances gained prominence during the Renaissance, with dancing masters instructing nobles in steps, posture, and etiquette. Over time, social dances evolved, emphasizing individual couples rather than group formations.
In the 20th century, ballroom dances gained popularity, while jazz influenced social dance, incorporating African elements. Today, Western dance encompasses a wide range of styles and genres, attracting large audiences and experiencing revivals in various forms.
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What are some examples of Western dance styles?
Western dance encompasses a diverse range of styles, each with unique characteristics and historical roots. Ballroom dance, for example, is a social dance performed by couples, including the waltz, polka, and tango. Tap dance originated in the United States, blending West African and Scottish-Irish percussive dance traditions. Jazz dance evolved alongside jazz music, incorporating African American social dances and influencing stage and social dance in the 20th century. Modern dance emerged as a rebellion against classical ballet, emphasizing emotional expression and innovation.
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How is Western dance different from traditional dances of other regions?
Western dance is characterized by diversity and rapid change, unlike Eastern dances that maintain refined forms for centuries. Western dance includes various communal, social, and theatrical forms enjoyed across different societal levels.
Ballet, a dominant genre in Western theater dance, features turned-out legs, pointed feet, and vertical lines, emphasizing grace and control. In contrast, traditional dances from other regions often reflect animistic religious beliefs and adapt to environmental and historical influences. For example, African dances vary in style based on the environment, with farmers displaying firm foot patterns and riverine people using light, rapid foot movements. Similarly, Native American dances blend indigenous and European elements, showcasing hybrid styles and adaptations.
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What role does music play in Western dance?
Music plays a vital role in Western dance, with the close relationship between the two based on their shared rhythmic patterns. The rhythm of music can dictate the rhythm and tempo of dance, emphasize movements, and help dancers maintain a beat. Many dance terms, such as tempo and beat, come from music.
Music can also determine a dance's style or dramatic quality, with composers often instructed to emphasize the drama already present in the choreography. Music and movement reflect and reinforce each other, and some choreographers work in silence to avoid a close correspondence between dance and music. Social dance is nearly always accompanied by music, which helps dancers keep time and increases the dance's excitement.
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How has Western dance changed over time?
Western dance has evolved from ancient communal and ritual dances to diverse social and theatrical forms. During the Renaissance, Italy became a hub for dance innovation, with dancing masters gaining social prestige. The French court established dances like the branle and morisca. In the early 20th century, there was a revival of older dances alongside new forms, influenced by discoveries in science and social awareness.
Ballet experienced rejuvenation, inspiring composers and painters. Modern dance emerged, challenging Romantic ballet's artificiality, while ballroom dances were revolutionized by Afro-American jazz, resulting in a more relaxed and intimate style. Post-World War II social dancing saw the rise of dances like the jitterbug and rock and roll dances, spread rapidly through motion pictures and television.
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How do people learn and perform Western dance today?
Today, Western dance is learned and performed through various avenues. Formal training in Western dance usually begins early, with many dancers in the West being trained in classical ballet or techniques introduced by modern-dance choreographers Martha Graham and Merce Cunningham. Classes and exercises are essential for molding the body, developing physical skills, and preventing injury.
Outside of formal training, Western dance traditions continue through social and popular dance. Social dances are practiced publicly or privately for enjoyment. Moreover, many folk dances nearly lost to a broader public in the 20th century have been carefully revived and are widely enjoyed.
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Western dance, history of Western dance from ancient times to the present and including the development of ballet, the waltz, and various types of modern dance.
The peoples of the West—of Europe and of the countries founded through permanent European settlement elsewhere—have a history of dance characterized by great diversity and rapid change. Whereas most dancers of the East repeated highly refined forms of movement that had remained virtually unchanged for centuries or millennia, Western dancers showed a constant readiness, even eagerness, to accept new vehicles for their dancing. From the earliest records, it appears that Western dance has always embraced an enormous variety of communal or ritual dances, of social dances enjoyed by many different levels of society, and of skilled theatrical dances that followed distinct but often overlapping lines of development.
The article folk art covers in greater detail the unique nature, techniques, forms, and functions, and the historical developments of each of these kinds of Western dance. In addition, the article dance covers the aesthetics and the varieties of dance, both Western and non-Western.
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The West cannot always be clearly distinguished from the non-West, especially in such countries as Russia or other regions of the former Soviet Union, where some dances are Asian and others European in origin and character. This article focuses on the dance of Western peoples, noting where appropriate the influence of other cultures.
From antiquity through the Renaissance
Before written records were left, a vast span of time elapsed about which scholars can only speculate. Pictorial records in cave paintings in Spain and France showing dancelike formations have led to the conjecture that religious rites and attempts to influence events through sympathetic magic were central motivations of prehistoric dance. Such speculations have been reinforced by observation of dances of primitive peoples in the contemporary world, though the connection between ancient and modern “primitives” is by no means accepted by many scholars. If the dances recorded in early written records represented a continuity from prehistoric dances, there may have been prehistoric work dances, war dances, and erotic couple and group dances as well. One couple dance surviving in the 20th century, the Bavarian-Austrian Schuhplattler, is considered by historians to be of Neolithic origin, from before 3000 bc.
Dance in the ancient world
In the civilizations of Egypt, Greece and its neighbouring islands, and Rome, written records supplement the many pictorial remains. Written records alone provide information about ancient Jewish dancing. There are still conjectures about the style, pattern, and purpose of ancient dances, but there is far more concrete evidence.
Ancient Egyptian dance
Formalized ritual and ceremonial dances in which the dancing priest–king represented the person of a god or the servant and regenerator of his people were practiced in Egypt. These dances, culminating in ceremonies representing the death and rebirth of the god Osiris, became more and more complex, and ultimately they could be executed only by specially trained dancers. From Egypt also come the earliest written documentations of the dance. These records speak of a class of professional dancers, originally imported from the interior of Africa, to satisfy the wealthy and powerful during hours of leisure and to perform at religious and funerary celebrations. These dancers were considered highly valuable possessions, especially the Pygmy dancers who became famous for their artistry. One of the pharaohs prayed to become a “dance dwarf of god” after his death, and King Neferkare (3rd millennium bc) admonished one of his marshals to rush such a “dance dwarf from the Land of Spirits” to his court.
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There is considerable agreement that the belly dance, now performed by dancers from the Middle East, is of African origin. A report of the 4th century bc from Memphis in Egypt described in detail the performance of an apparently rumba-like couple dance with an unquestionably erotic character. The Egyptians also knew acrobatic exhibition dances akin to the present-day adagio dances. They definitely were aware of the sensual allure of the sparsely clad body in graceful movement. A tomb painting from Shaykh ʿAbd al-Qurnah, now in the British Museum, shows dancers dressed only in rings and belts, apparently designed to heighten the appeal of their nudity. These figures probably were intended to entertain the dead as they had been entertained in life.
Egypt, then, presented a dancing scene that was already varied and sophisticated. In addition to their own danced temple rituals and the Pygmy dancers imported from the headwaters of the Nile, there were Hindu dancing girls from conquered countries to the east. This new dance had none of the long masculine strides or the stiff, angular postures seen in so many Egyptian stone reliefs. Lines of movement undulated softly, nowhere bending sharply or breaking. These Asiatic girls brought a true feminine style to Egyptian dance.