Contemporary dance
A concert-dance form that blends modern dance, ballet, and other styles, emphasizing experimentation and expressive movement.
Modern dance: A concert-dance tradition that developed in deliberate contrast to classical ballet, emphasizing individual expression and new movement principles. Contemporary dance inherits modern dance’s expressive priorities and experimental approach.
Choreography: The composition and arrangement of movement for performance. Contemporary dance uses choreography to organize movement without requiring one shared style.
Isadora Duncan: An American dancer who rejected ballet conventions and developed an expressive style inspired by natural movement. Duncan helped establish the modern-dance challenge to inherited theatrical conventions.
Jazz dance: A theatrical dance tradition shaped by African American music and movement, with syncopated rhythms and distinctive styles. Jazz has its own historical roots and movement conventions, though contemporary choreography may draw on them.
Concert dance: Dance created primarily for presentation to an audience in a theatrical or concert setting. Contemporary dance is commonly made and presented within this performance tradition.
Classical ballet: A theatrical dance tradition built around codified technique, turned-out positions, and highly developed pointe work. Ballet supplies movement vocabulary and training that contemporary choreographers often adapt or challenge.
Laban Movement Analysis: A framework for observing and describing movement through body, effort, shape, and space. Its vocabulary helps analyze the qualities and spatial patterns of contemporary movement.
Martha Graham: An American dancer and choreographer who developed a modern-dance technique centered on contraction and release. Graham’s technique and psychologically charged choreography became lasting influences on contemporary dance.
Hip-hop dance: A family of social and performance dance styles that emerged from hip-hop culture, including breaking and popping. Hip-hop’s cultural lineage differs from concert-dance traditions, despite frequent exchange between them.
Dance film: A screen-based work in which choreography and cinematic techniques shape one another. Film allows contemporary choreography to use camera movement, editing, and locations unavailable onstage.