At TAPA, we seek to develop well-rounded dancers.  Modern and Contemporary Dance techniques help dancers to develop core muscle control and strong floor work that classical ballet often neglects.  Working in parallel (or “turned in”) develops the opposing muscle groups that are often found lacking in dancers who focus solely on classical ballet technique.  Modern Dance in particular is a fantastic way to learn to connect to the emotion of the dance.

Modern Dance- Grade 3 and Above

 (from wikipedia) Modern dance is a broad genre of western concert or theatrical dance, primarily arising out of Germany and the United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

Modern dance is often considered to have emerged as a rejection of, or rebellion against classical ballet. Socioeconomic and cultural factors also contributed to its development. In the late 19th century, dance artists such as Isadora Duncan, Maud Allan, and Loie Fuller were pioneering new forms and practices in what is now called aesthetic or free dance for performance. These dancers disregarded ballet’s strict movement vocabulary, the particular, limited set of movements that were considered proper to ballet, and stopped wearing corsets and pointe shoes in the search for greater freedom of movement. In the early 20th century, dancers such as Martha Graham and Lester Horton devised technique based exercises that form the foundation for modern dance instruction world wide.

Contemporary Dance- Grade 2 and Above

Contemporary dance is a dance performance genre that developed during the mid twentieth century and has since grown to become one of the dominant genres for formally trained dancers throughout the world, with particularly strong popularity in the U.S. and Europe. Although originally informed by and borrowing from classical, modern, and jazz styles, it has since come to incorporate elements from many styles of dance.^[1] Due to its technical similarities, it is often perceived to be closely related to modern dance, ballet and other classical concert dance styles.

In terms of the focus of its technique, contemporary dance tends to combine the strong and controlled legwork of ballet with modern dance’s stress on the torso, and also employs contract-release, floor work, fall and recovery, and improvisation characteristic of modern dance.^[2] Unpredictable changes in rhythm, speed, and direction are often used, as well. It sometimes also incorporates elements of non-western dance cultures such as elements from African dance including bent knees, or movements from the Japanese contemporary dance Butoh.