Sorry. I am new to this site and am not sure if a can post topics like this.

Please tell me if it is not suitable.

But I am a student aged 15 in England and I have just started my GCSE course of Dance. Everything is going well but I have a test coming up on the 13th January. And I need to know the differences between contemporary dance and ballet. If I could recieve some info about this topic I would be grateful.

Many Thanks.

hi i'm doing a degree in contempory dance which if you wanted to read alot more into it started in the era of modernism where you'd find contempories such as Martha Graham,Isadora Duncan, mary wigman and alot more. ballet was seen more as a european style and contempory was mainly based in america and is mainly about a free curving torso and is not as stricked as ballet as the choreogrphers wanted to move away from the ballet style.

Ballet is built on a precise vocabulary of steps and movements, done in a very precise style--i.e., the legs must be turned out, the body held erect, the arms softly rounded. Emphasis was on lightness and ethereal feeling. Classical choreographic style tends to be balanced and/or symmetrical.

The early modern dancers wanted the freedom to make up their own steps, and to create movement that expressed emotions, and many of their movements were drawn from natural movement. Often movements had great weight and pressed down into the floor. Choreography can also be very abstract and reminiscent of the designs and concepts of contemporary visual artists.

another important difference between ballet and modern dance is that ballet generally works upwards, against gravity i.e. several jumps and leaps, whereas madern dance works with gravity, with many low, sweeping movements close to the ground. a good way to see differences could be to watch matthew bourne's swan lake or nutcracker and then watch a classical version.