There is great variety in dance in the United States of America.
It is the home of the hip hop dance
and modern square dance
and of course, Native American dances.
The reality shows and competitions So You Think You Can Dance, America's Best Dance Crew, and Dancing with the Stars, have broadened the audience for dance...
African American dances are those vernacular dances which have developed within African American communities in everyday spaces, rather than in dance studios, schools or companies. African American vernacular dances are usually centered on social dance practice, though performance dance and concert dance often supply complementary aspects to social dancing.
Placing great value on improvisation, African American vernacular dances are characterized by ongoing change and development. Because they exist in social spaces and their main 'purpose' is self-expression, they are continually changing to reflect the needs, interests and personalities of their participants.
Alvin Ailey and the Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater is an important example of African American involvement in performance or concert dance.
The term "swing dance" refers to a group of dances that developed concurrently with jazz music in the 1920s, 30s and 40s. The most iconic among the various styles of swing dance is the lindy hop, which originated in Harlem and is still danced today.
While the majority of swing dances began in African-American communities as vernacular African-American dances, some forms, like Balboa, developed within Euro-American or other ethnic group communities.
Dances such as the Black Bottom (craze of 1926-7)
Tap Dance travelled north with Dixieland jazz to New York, Kansas City, and Chicago in the Great Migration (African American) of the 1920s, where rural blacks travelled to escape persecution, Jim Crow laws, lynching and unemployment in the South (during the Great Depression).
Swinging jazz music features the syncopated timing associated with African American and West African music and dance—a combination of crotchets and quavers which many swing dancers interpret as 'triple steps' and 'steps' — yet also introduces changes in the way these rhythms were played—a distinct delay or 'relaxed' approach to timing.
Swing dance is now found globally, with great variety in their preferences for particular dances.
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Assignment: show us how to do one of the dances below
American folk dances
Other American dances
Tap dance
Ballet dance Contemporary dance Hip hop
