Western dance

Introduction
From antiquity through the Renaissance
- Dance in the ancient world
  - Ancient Egyptian dance
  - Dance in Classical Greece
  - Ancient Roman dance
  - Jewish dance
- Christianity and the Middle Ages
  - Ecclesiastical attitudes and practices
  - Dance ecstasies
  - Dance and social class
- The Renaissance world and the art dance
  - Court dances and spectacles
  - The birth of ballet
During the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries
- The maturing of ballet
  - Technical codifications and dance scholarship
  - Varieties of the ballet
  - Early virtuosos of the dance
- The reign of the minuet
  - The French dance suite
  - Form of the minuet
- English social dance
- Dance in colonial America
  - Attitudes
  - External and internal influences
- The rise of the waltz
  - The Romantic movement in dance
  - Spread of the waltz
  - Offspring and rivals
- Foundations of modern ballet
  - Noverre and his contemporaries
  - The Romantic ballet
- Theatre and ballroom dance
The 20th century
- Diaghilev and his achievements
  - The Ballets Russes
  - The continuing tradition
  - The Soviet ballet
- Modern dance
- New rhythms, new forms
  - Latin-American and jazz dances
  - Dance contests and codes
  - Effect on folk dancing
  - Experiments
- The dance since 1945
  - Social dance
  - Dance in the theatre

References & Edit History Related Topics

Images

Egyptian dancing

Etruscan funeral dance

medieval torch dance

Peasant Dance by Pieter Bruegel the Elder shows villagers dancing, drinking, and socializing outdoors near rustic buildings, with musicians playing in the foreground.

Related Questions

Egyptian dancing — Egyptian dancing Egyptian dancing, detail from a tomb painting from Shaykh ʿAbd al-Qurnah, Egypt, c. 1400 bce; in the British Museum, London.

Western dance

Written by

Horst Koegler

Fact-checked by

Britannica Editors

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...

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