About Dance In Motion

Dance in Motion opened its doors 23 years ago in Abbotsford, BC. Since then Dance in Motion has developed into a major performing arts facility with its very own youth dance company, the Northwest Dance Project. Dance in Motion celebrates the passion, integrity, confidence and strength that its dancers possess.

For the past eight years Dance in Motion has been proud to send dancers to the BC Provincial level, and in addition has been traveling throughout North America to have it's dancers perform, compete and take classes with master teachers. Germany, New York, Seattle, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, and Hawaii are to name a few!

Dance in Motion is proud to be the home of the Northwest Dance Project Semi-Professional Dance Company, the Western Canadian Tap Team, and an all new Acro Team! We are proud of the Dance in Motion vision of moving forward and always striving in its growth and development of young dancers!

Dance Arts at Dance In Motion

Ballet

Ballet is a formalized form of dance with its origins in the French court, further developed in France and Russia a concert dance form. It is a highly technical form of dance with its own vocabulary. It is primarily performed with the accompaniment of classical music. It has been influential as a form of dance globally and is taught in ballet schools around the world which use their own culture and society to modernize the art. Ballet dance works (ballets) are choreographed, and also include mime, acting, and are set to music (usually orchestral but occasionally vocal). It is best known in the form of classical ballet, notable for its techniques, such as pointe work and turn-out of the legs, its graceful, flowing, precise movements, and its ethereal qualities. Later developments include neoclassical ballet and contemporary ballet.

Dance in Motion uses an open syllabus with an emphasis on Checcetti, Vaganova, and Russian based techniques. Ballet is offered at every level and age for non-competitive and competitive dancers.

Tap

Tap dance was developed in the United States during the nineteenth century, and is popular nowadays in many parts of the world. The name comes from the tapping sound made when the small metal plates on the dancer's shoes touch a hard surface. This lively, rhythmic tapping makes the performer not just a dancer, but also a percussive musician (and thus, for example, the American composer Morton Gould was able to compose a concerto for tap dancer and orchestra).

The Encyclopedia Britannica definition for tap dance is: "A style of American theatrical dance using precise rhythmical patterns of foot movement and audible foot tapping. It is derived from the traditional clog dance of northern England, the jigs and reels of Ireland and Scotland, and possibly the rhythmic foot stamping of African dances. Popular in 19th-century minstrel shows, versions such as "buck-and-wing" (danced vigorously in wooden-soled shoes) and "soft-shoe" (shoes) developed as separate techniques; by 1925 they had merged, and metal taps were attached to shoe heels and toes to produce a more pronounced sound. The dance was also popular in variety shows and early musicals.

We currently house the Canadian National Tap team that performed at the World Championships in Germany this past year and will be heading there again for the 2009-2010 season. Bonnie Jean Anderson is the director of the team!

Jazz

Beginner & Recreational:
Recreational Jazz classes, which consist of one class per week, will be offered for students 6 years and older. Students will be taught amalgamated moves with emphasis on fun and enjoyment as they progress to learning a choreographed routine. Students will be placed according to age and experience.

Technique:
We begin with limbering, stretching and strengthening exercises aimed at providing the young dancer with a solid foundation as well as working to improve jumps and turns. Students will be taught how to follow direction and improve on technical skills through amalgamated moves. A ballet class is definitely an asset in balancing out a student's training.

Competitive and Northwest Dance Project:
These are elite programs and the dancers are required to be taking at least one jazz technique class and two/three ballet classes, depending on age and level, to be considered. Entry is by audition or invitation only and dancers will be placed by ability and age.

Students & Parents:
Students and parents must realize that dancers participating in this program must be willing to make a commitment to their group and attendance is of vital importance. Other commitments such as costuming and grooming are to be expected. Students who do not adhere to this agreement may be asked to step down from a performance. As the focus in this program is performance, students will be expected to attend extra rehearsals from time to time. Also some competitions and performances may fall during school hours.

Musical Theatre / Stage

Musical Theatre is a form of dance combining music, songs, spoken dialogue and dance. The emotional content of the piece - humor, pathos, love, anger - as well as the story itself, is communicated through the words, music, movement and technical aspects of the entertainment as an integrated whole. Since the early 20th century, musical theatre stage works have generally been called simply, "musicals".

Hip Hop

The dance style primarily associated with hip hop is breaking, which appeared in New York City during the early 1970s and truly became a cornerstone (or "element") of hip hop as a culture. Funk styles, such as popping and locking, evolved separately in California in the 1960-70s, but were also integrated into hip hop when the culture reached the West Coast of the United States.

Though breaking and the original funk styles look quite different stylistically, they share many surrounding elements, such as their improvisational nature, the music they're danced to and the way they originated from the streets, mainly within black and Hispanic communities. These similarities helped bring them, and other street dance styles, together under the same sub-culture, and help to keep them alive and evolving today. Yet, this has not been without problems, often involving the media, such as when the movie Breakin' put all various styles under the label "breakdance", causing a great naming confusion that spawned many heated debates. In the late 1980s, as hip hop music took new forms and the hip hop subculture established further, new dance styles began appearing. Most of them were danced in an upright manner in contrast to breaking with its many ground moves, and were in the beginning light-footed with lots of jumping. Some moves hit the mainstream and became fad dances, such as The Running Man, but overall they contributed a lot to later hip-hop styles, and heavily influenced the development of house dancing.

During the 1990s and 2000s, parallel with the evolution of hip hop music, hip-hop dancing evolved into heavier and more aggressive forms. While breaking continued to be popular on it's own, these newer styles were danced upright, and draw much inspiration from earlier upright styles. Classifying these newer hip hop styles as a unique dance style of its own has grown common with larger street dance competitions such as Juste Debout, which includes hip hop new style as a separate category for people to compete in. Today, we see many specific styles that first appeared on their own, such as krumping and clown walking, now being danced and accepted within hip hop new style contexts.

All hip hop styles from the 1980s and beyond are sometimes collectively called new school while the distinct styles from the 1960-70s, such as breaking, uprocking, locking and popping, are considered old school. However, this classification is controversial, and often old school hip hop (or, in some areas, hype) is used solely for the late 1980s upright and jumpy hip hop styles, excluding locking, popping and breaking, and new style hip hop for the heavier hip hop styles of today.

Dance in Motion offers classes for all ages and levels both Non-Competitive and Competitive.

Modern

Modern dance evolved in the early 1900's as a revolution against structured dance (ballet). The mother of modern dance "Isadora Duncan" wanted to break the boundaries of constricted ballet movement and thus modern was born. This realm of dance is a very important and crucial form of technique for a dancer's training. Although the technique is ballet based it allows the dancer to work with other elements of their body such as free movement.

Currently, modern classes are only offered in our more advanced levels of dance training.

Salsa

Salsa refers to a fusion of informal dance styles having roots in the Caribbean (especially in Cuba and North America. The dance originated through the mixture of Mambo, DanzÃ³n, GuaguancÃ³, Cuban Son, and other typical Cuban dance forms. Salsa is danced to Salsa music. There is a strong African influence in the music as well as the dance.

Salsa is a partner dance, although there are recognized solo steps and some forms are danced in groups of couples, with frequent exchanges of partner (Rueda de Casino). Improvisation and social dancing are important elements of Salsa but it appears as a performance dance too.

Swing

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