Styles of dance what are they?

[Magic Hans]

Having recently seen a couple of examples of line dancing, I am now very confused as to what makes a particular dance a particular type.

It seems to me that a particular dance (style) might be defined or identified by one of two things. The mood of the music (inevitably effecting the mood of the dance) or techinique, eg footwork, posture, hand positioning.

The first type of dancing I learned (successfully!) was African, but it could have been:

Ballroom, Latin, Belly, Morris (Border, Cotswold or North-West), Line, American Indian, Chinese, Japenese, Swing, Argentine Tango, Jazz, Arab (Whirling Dirvish), Indian, Blues, Irish, Step clogging, tap, Scottish folk, English folk, English/French medieval, Cossack, Merengue, Mongolian, Hip-hop, Disco, Circle, Flamenco, Jewish, any other folk, Ceilidh, Lindy, etc, etc, etc.

These dance styles seem to associated with music styles, again from around the world, tango being one that sticks in my mind. However, people seem to dance different dances to different music styles. Clearly it's possible to jive, or lindy to a salsa or merengue track. Would it not change it's styling though?? I have certainly seen morris dancing to Jazz!! :eek:

Clearly, I am very biased to West music and so, western type dances and styles.

So, where so these various names and denominations come from? Do they always make sense? How do they describe the dance? [Or do they?] Is everything getting so mixed up that it's impossible to tell??

Discuss!!

[Bangers & Mash]

Having recently seen a couple of examples of line dancing, I am now very confused as to what makes a particular dance a particular type.
Discuss!!

Know exactly what you mean - especially since when watching the new dance program that's just started, the line dancing seemed more like ceroc than any line dancing I've ever done!

[Whitebeard]

Perhaps it's cross fertilisation, bastardisation, integration, or whatever. As the world shrinks due to (relatively) cheap travel, the increase in TV channels oblivious to country or continental divides, the internet itself, what were once very distinctive and localised musical and dance forms are being, what?, enriched?, corrupted?, by influences from other worldwide sources.

Can any dance form withstand this onslaught? And should it? Are groups, large or small, coining more and more esoteric names just to try to shield and isolate themselves from this perhaps inevitable trend?

[MartinHarper]

Advanced fixed couples blur things, because they can essentially invent their own dance, with a pick and mix approach to styling, music, techniques, and so forth. You don't get the same effect in social dancing.

Globalisation has a much larger effect on languages than dance. You can easily talk to someone on the other side of the world, but it's rather harder to dance with them. I expect we will all be speaking a single language long before we all dance a single dance style.