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modern dance

(Encyclopedia)modern dance, serious theatrical dance forms that are distinct from both ballet and the show dancing of the musical comedy or variety stage. By the late 20th cent., distinctions among modern da...

dance

(Encyclopedia)dance [Old High Ger. danson=to drag, stretch], the art of precise, expressive, and graceful human movement, traditionally, but not necessarily, performed in accord with musical accompaniment. Dancing ...

morris dance

(Encyclopedia)morris dance or morrice dance, rustic dance of the north of England that had its origin in country festivals, such as those of May Day and Whitsunday. Reference to it in English literature is made as ...

folk dance

(Encyclopedia)folk dance, primitive, tribal, or ethnic form of the dance, sometimes the survival of some ancient ceremony or festival. The term is used also to include characteristic national dances, country dances...

Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival

(Encyclopedia)Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival, summer dance concert series held annually near Lee, Mass., in the Berkshires. The site, originally an 18th-century farm, was purchased by the American modern dancer Ted ...

Pilobolus Dance Theater

(Encyclopedia)Pilobolus Dance Theater pīläbˈələs [key], innovative modern dance company formed (1971) by Moses Pendleton, Jonathan Wolken, Lee Harris, and Robby Barnett from a dance class given by Alison Chase...

morrice dance

(Encyclopedia)morrice dance: see morris dance. ...

charleston, dance

(Encyclopedia)charleston, social dance of the United States popular in the mid-1920s. The charleston is characterized by outward heel kicks combined with an up-and-down movement achieved by bending and straightenin...

Ghost Dance

(Encyclopedia)Ghost Dance, central ritual of the messianic religion instituted in the late 19th cent. by a Paiute named Wovoka. The religion prophesied the peaceful end of the westward expansion of whites and a ret...

tap dance

(Encyclopedia)tap dance, theatrical dance form in which the dancer, wearing shoes with metal heel and toe taps, beats out complex, syncopated rhythms on the floor. After a slump in popularity in the 1960s, tap ...