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Dance in HistoryDance in HistoryAn Emotional Transformation

Renaissance Dance

• For centuries, in Europe and wherever Europeans have settled, the ballroom was the perfect setting for men and women to demonstrate their dancing abilities, to show their awareness of the latest fashions, and to display their mastery of polite behavior--qualities required for acceptance in society.

Ballroom Dancing

• During the late 19th and early 20th century, ballroom dancing became popular among the working class who attended public dance halls or "popular assemblies.“

• The five main dances in this style are Waltz, Foxtrot, Quickstep, Viennese Waltz and Tango.

Ballroom Dancing: Tango

• Around the turn-of-the-century, immigrants from Europe, Africa, and ports unknown streamed into Argentina during the 1880's.

Ballroom Dancing: Tango

• Many individuals gravitated toward the port city houses of ill repute. In these establishments, the portenos (as they were called) could drown their troubles in a few drinks and find some companionship.

• They looked desperately for a distraction to ease their sense of rootlessness and disfranchisement as "strangers in a strange land."

Ballroom Dancing: Tango

• Ironically, as these lonely immigrants and societal outcasts sought to escape from their feelings, they instead developed a music and dance that epitomized them.

• The wail of tango music, it is said, speaks of more than frustrated love. It speaks of fatality, of destinies engulfed in pain. It is the dance of sorrow.

Ballroom Dancing: Tango

• Early tangos not often represented a kind of sexual choreography depicting a duel, a man-to-man combat between challengers for the favor of a woman that usually ended in the symbolic death of an opponent.

• During the first two decades of the new century, the tango took Paris by storm.

• Soon, wealthy intellectuals, began writing new lyrics for the tango. Because of their influence, tango took on a more romantic, nostalgic, and less threatening air, a sweet remembrance of youth.

Ballroom Dancing: Waltz

• The waltz is thought to have originated from a folk dance of Austria and Southern Germany in the 18th Century.

• The name of the waltz is taken from the Italian ‘volver’ - to turn, or revolve.

• It was, indeed, rural lads and lasses who first found these whirling steps so appealing. And so, the waltz originally was decidedly low-brow and provincial.

• In those days, there was something unsavory about a woman being gripped in a man’s embrace while whirling in a frenzy around the dance floor.

Ballroom Dancing: Waltz

• The close contact with one’s partners body contrasted sharply with the stately dances of the aristocracy.

• Therefore, the waltz, like the Tango, was first considered vulgar.

• Naturally, the scandalized upper classes could not endure to have the lower classes having all the fun, and so, in time, the waltz finally achieved a degree of legitimacy

Tap Dancing

• Tap dance originates from both African slaves and Irish Immigrants.

• African slaves would entertain themselves by beating out rhythms on river boats, and eventually individuals found fame performing in minstrel shows in the 1930s.

• Irish immigrants used clogs, or wooden shoes to makes sounds as they danced on wooden floors.

Tap Dancing

• Tap has a long history of "stealing steps" and "challenges.“ Performers would dance on street corners or outside clubs trying to outdo other dancers.

Tap Dancing

• These street games of "one-upmanship" were called "challenges." Challenges survive today in tap jam sessions and the techinique of "trading fours" in a performance with several dancers. "Trading fours" refers to each dancer giving his or her best for four measures before passing to the other dancer with a non-verbal "top this!"

• The other phrase "stealing steps" refers to dancers trying to figure out what another dancer is doing, how he or she is getting that sound. The step is rarely taken literally by the viewing dancer. The motto is "Thou shalt not do another's step, exactly." A step is usually shaped and changed and incorporated into that dancer's personal style.

Tap: The Hoofer’s Club• "Hoofer", a term used for a

dancer of the 1920's, and later not just any dancer, but became specifically to refer to a tap dancer. Hoofers came in all shapes, sizes, male and female, all with unique and different styles and techniques.

• The Hoofers club existed just before the 1920's. It was around up until the mid 1940's in the heart of New York's Harlem next door to the Lafayette Theatre on 131st street and Seventh Avenue.

Native American Dance

• Native American ("First Nation," or "First People") dance is a very special art. Many dances are performed for family events, such as weddings and birthdays. Some dances are performed for fun, others to help the harvest, and some for religious ceremonies.

Native American Dance• Facts About Native American Dance

Most dances are done by men alone, or by women alone. Many dances are done in a circle. Many Native Americans believe that everything before, during, and after life is connected, with no end, just like a circle. Many dances have names that honor animals, such as the Eagle Dance, Bear Dance, and Rabbit Dance.

A powwow is a meeting or gathering of Native Americans for making decisions or for having spiritual ceremonies or celebrations