Dance is a type of activity and performing art that involves specially selected arrangements of human movement. It is an inspiring art that has been known to the world for years and is performed worldwide. It includes body movements, often in rhythm to the music. Dancing is an entertaining activity that is performed in many cultures as a type of emotional expression, social interaction, or exercise. Dance is featured as a hobby by several people while it is presented as a profession by some. Here we have compiled the top 10 famous dance styles in the world.
1. Hip-hop Dance
Hip-hop dance is one of the most famous dance styles in the world. Hip-hop dance considers ‘Street Dance’ style, basically performed to hip-hop music or that have evolved as part of hip-hop culture. It involves a huge range of dancing styles that mainly involve locking, breaking, and popping, created in the year 1970, and became popular by a dance team in the United States of America. The dance in easy style is the vital feature of the Hip-Hop Dance style. These dances can also be performed professionally and in competitive form. The dance industry responded with a commercial, studio-based version of hip-hop known ‘new style’ and an impressive hip-hop style of jazz dance called ‘jazz-funk.’ Usually, this dance can be seen in pop music videos, R&B, and concerts.
2. Tap Dance
Tap Dance is a kind of dance characterized by tap shoes’ sounds striking the floor as a form of percussion. Tap dance is performed on specific music where there is always a tapping sound generated from metal plates that are affixed to both the ball and heel of the shoe of the dancer. Two significant differences with tap dance are rhythm tap and Broadway tap. The rhythm tap is also known as ‘jazz tap.’ Broadway tap focuses on dance, and rhythm tap focuses on musicality. The shoes play a crucial role in this form of dance. ‘Cappella’ is another procedure in Tap dancing. Some of the usual tap steps are running flaps, flap heel, flap ball change, flap, hop shuffle, leap shuffle, double shuffle, and shuffle ball change.
3. Yangko Dance
The Yangko dance is a form of Chinese traditional folk dance of the Han Chinese. This folk dance was developed from a dance well-known in the Song dynasty as Village Music. It is very renowned in northern China and is one of the most typical types of folk arts. It is renowned in both the countryside and cities in northern China. The dance has one thousand-year-old history in China and is mainly performed during the Lantern Festival.
4. Belly Dance
Belly Dance is also a popular dance form and is one of the most famous dance forms in the world. Belly dance is a Western-coined name for a ‘Traditional West Asian’ dance, especially Raqs Sharqi. Belly Dance is also referred to as ‘Arabic dance.’ Belly dance is an expressive Arabic dance which highlighted complex movements of the torso. It is also known as ‘Middle Eastern dance.’ The term ‘Belly Dance’ is a translation of the French word “danse du ventre,” which was practiced to the dance in the Victorian era, and referred to Egyptian and oriental female dances. It has transformed to take many different forms depending on the nation, area, region, costume, and dance style.
5. Kathak
Kathak is another dance that is the most popular dance form all over the globe. Kathak is a well-known Indian classical dance. The origin of Kathak is traditionally attributed to the traveling poets of ancient northern India known as Kathakars or storytellers. Generally, the Kathak originated from India. From the 16th century ahead, it absorbed certain features of Persian dance and Central Asian dance. The eye makeup and small bells called ‘Ghungroo’ are essential in this dance. The specific musical sound is generated from these Ghungroo or little bells while dancing. Kathak is discovered in three different forms, named after the cities where the Kathak dance tradition evolved Jaipur, Banaras, and Lucknow.
6. Gangnam Style
Gangnam Style is also a world-famous dance style. Gangnam Style is a Korean neologism that refers to a lifestyle-related to the Gangnam District of Seoul. It is the 18th K-pop single by the South Korean musician Psy. The song went viral on 15 July 2012, accompanying its music video and having influenced popular culture globally. In the year 2012, ‘Gangnam Style’ became the most viewed YouTube video around the globe.
7. Break Dance or B-boying
Break Dance is an athletic style of street dance, also called as B-boying or G-Girling. During the middle of the 1970s, breakdance originated basically among Puerto Rican and African American youth, the Young Spades, many former members of the Black Spades, and the Baby Spades. B-boying is commonly danced to hip-hop, funk music, and especially breakbeats. The breakdance is spread globally because of popularity in the media, especially in provinces like Canada, France, Germany, Japan, Russia, South Korea, and the United Kingdom.
8. Ballet
Ballet is a kind of performance dance and one of the most popular dance styles in the world. During the fifteenth century, Ballet was originated from the Italian Renaissance. It has been worldwide impressive and has defined the foundational methods used in many other dance genres and cultures. It is an extremely complex form of dancing and is taught in different ballet schools all over the globe. The dance is typically choreographed with vocal or orchestral music.
9. Salsa
Salsa is a famous form of social dance that originated in the Caribbean. The movements of salsa have origins in Puerto Rican bomba and plena, Cuban Son, cha-cha-cha, mambo, and other dance forms. At present, salsa is one of the most entertaining social dances in the world. Salsa needs to be performed in pairs; however, you can choreograph it as a type of line dance in which a companion may not be essential. The basic salsa dance rhythm includes three steps for every four beats of music.
10. Line dance
Line dance is a choreographed dance, consisting of a repeating series of steps in which a group of people dances in one or more rows unrelated to the person’s genders, all fronting either opposite or in the same direction, and performing the steps at the same time. Line dancing is a type of dance that takes place with a group of people. Participants are arranged in rows and perform the same actions or movements systematically. In this dance style, the performers are not in physical contact with each other.
