Is there a difference between contemporary, lyrical and modern dance?
Friday, July 30th, 2010 at
7:03 pm
I think lyrical and contemporary are the same but modern or is it just or completely different. I’m confused. It would be great to get your definition of these types of dance as well.
Thanks Much.
Tagged with: types of dance • well thanks
Filed under: Dancing
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ive been dancing for a long time, take all advanced classes, and im on 5 dance teams at my studio. lyrical dance is basically a mixture or jazz and ballet, it is very emotional, flowey, and it requires a lot of moving freely
contemporary is pretty much a mixture of jazz, ballet, and lyrical. contemporary is more floor work and choppy movements and it is emotional
modern is totally different. modern is its own type of dance. in ballet lyrical and contemporary you (unless it is choreographed another way) have pointed feet. modern is a lot of rigid and flexed feet and weird movements. my teacher always says that modern is dancing and moving in ways no one has before and in ways the body shouldnt be able to move normally. hope i helped
They are all pretty much the same because they are all emotional dances
I have answered this so many times in different variations. I hope you don’t mind if I paste sections from other times I have answered this. I will try to answer for both the professional description of these styles as well as small studio versions of them.
True modern dance is very specific with a definite set of rules for each of the disciplined styles. Martha Graham, Horton, Limon, Dunham and Cunningham are the major modern styles. There are other styles that have branched off from those such as Paul Taylor, Parsons and Alvin Ailey. These are performed barefooted and unlike ballet (which it was based on) involve a sense of being grounded as opposed to floating. Here is an example; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKjFdmIlVMs
The chances that "true modern" disciplines would be taught at a small studio or school is not likely. People tend to call almost anything modern these days. Because the term is used loosely, you would have to see just what a studio means by it if you were thinking about taking class. Quite often they call Lyrical dance Modern. There seems to be a blur depending on the studio between modern. contemporary and lyrical.
Concert Contemporary dance is hard and you must have a strong ballet background for it. It is what is taught at schools like Juilliard and NYU Tisch. It can be danced barefoot, en pointe in socks or anything the choreographer can come up with. It is danced to music, noise, or the sound of the dancers breath for counts.
Here are some examples.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PTIHUMIkWcM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xr-4GWBSDM0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NY7fJulabYY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBhtE7A-mIM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-H3kD6trvY
What they call contemporary dance at many studios is more like the stuff on SYTYCD, which is more Lyrical based. Concert Contemporary dance is not really lyric driven even when the dance is to the spoken word instead of music. It is either Idea based or totally abstract, rarely if ever literal, therefore never "lyrical."
Lyrical dance only exists in competition dance and small studios. It is driven by the lyrics of the music and tends to be overly emotional.
It incorporates ballet (turns & jumps) and gymnastic moves and floor work for showing off in competitions.