Describe some of the similarities and differences of modern

Describe some of the similarities and differences of modern, jazz, and ballet technique?

Solution

Both ballet and modern dance have strong techniques. Ballet all comes from the dancer\'s turnout where as in modern dance often the hip rotators are parallel and not turned out. Ballet has a floating quality to it and modern is grounded. Ballet has several different schools (variations) of styles and that is also true for modern dance as well. For modern the primary styles are Graham, Horton and Limon. For ballet there are the primary styles of Russian (Vaganova,) English, French, Italian (Cechetti,) Danish (Bournville,) and Balanchine.
Modern is not danced en pointe and is danced barefoot. Ballet is danced en pointe (or in character shoes for certain sections of a ballet) for the women and in soft ballet slippers for the men. It is true that modern \"broke the rules\" for ballet. However that does not mean there are no rules for modern. Each of the modern disciplines are grounded in their respective rules.
Contemporary dance is a fusion of both modern and ballet dance. It can be performed barefoot, in ballet slippers, en pointe or what ever the choreographer can come up with. For contemporary dance there are no rules like there is for both modern and ballet. However, the technique used relies heavily on both.
To dance modern dance, it is important to have a strong ballet background first. Like most of western world dance styles, many of the movements rely heavily on ballet technique but with its own take on it.

Regarding emotion when dancing that can or cannot be present in either styles of dance. Ballet can be a classical story ballet that relies heavily on the emotion of the dancers telling the story or a neoclassical piece which is all about the movement and line and can be totally devoid of emotion. The same is true with modern dance. Where as Limon modern is deeply rooted in expression, some of the later forms of modern are more abstract and rely more on the movements of the dancers to convey the choreographers intent. If you were an art lover, you could say classical ballet was like a Rembrandt and Neoclassical ballet would be more like a Mondrian. For modern, the more emotional pieces would be like a van Gough or Cezanne and the more abstract like a Jackson Pollack. As you can see by the examples, ballet is more restrictive by it\'s nature and modern movement although still disciplined within it\'s form, is freer by it\'s nature.

Modern dance is a form of \"free dance\". In the beginning, it was a way to get away from classical ballet. Big difference: no shoes are worn in modern dance (although sometimes I\'ve seen dancers wear some form of shoe like lyrical dancers .

Jazz dance originated later and sometimes includes forms of tap or musical theater. A lot of the \"classic\" jazz stuff looks like something you\'d see on Broadway. Same goes for the music... think Broadway. The movements are also more definite... they go on the downbeat. Modern can vary with the music... sometimes on the upbeat.

There are plenty of differences between ballet and jazz. visually, it\'s easy to pick apart the two, but in words, i would say jazz is definitely the more relaxed of the two, and in my opinion more fun than ballet because you have more freedom in jazz. in ballet, there is a definite set of body positions, and until you get used to them, they can be quite uncomfortable. everything in ballet is done in turned out positions, whereas jazz it\'s mostly parallel.

Jazz is not only a genre of music, it is also a dance discipline. jazz can also be used as an umbrella term as well. by that i mean there are different types of jazz dances out there for example you can have broadway style jazz, hip hop styled jazz, lyrical jazz. they all fall under the jazz umbrella, but also have the heading of stylized jazz. you might ask, how would you be able to tell the difference between all? by looking at the movements incorporated into the dance piece will tell you which one it falls under.

If you\'re just starting to dance, i would say that ballet would be the best choice to start out with because it gives a strong sense of structure, knowing body positions and terminology, you\'ll see that in all dance disciplines, a lot of the ballet terminology will be used, even the direction in which you are to face on stage. having ballet as your foundation will help you along with all of that in other disciplines.