Majorette Dance: Moves, Dancing Styles and 200+ year History
K-Pop Dance: Korea’s Dancing Sensations
Circle Dancing: Joy and Connection Through Dance
Quebradita: Unleashing the Energy of This Dynamic Dance
Pasito Duranguense: Dance to the Rhythm of Mexico
Flamenco Dance: Mysterious and Mesmerizing
Folk & World Dance
A look at the wondrous Folk and World Dances from across the globe. In each we will typically uncover out how they came to be, how they rose to fame, the dances costumes, basic moves, variants of the dance style and where you can see these folk dances performed.
Folk and World dance has to be BY FAR the broadest of the dance styles we feature on the site.
The reason being that we are talking about the dances from around the world. Most of would intuitively understand that folk dance is a social or recreational dance, usually by amateurs and inclusive of new dancers, to a traditional music. Often it ties in with traditions, cultural and religious gatherings and celebrations. So much so that UNESCO actually has a list of dances ‘protected’ for their intangible cultural heritage.
We have purposefully grouped ‘folk’ and ‘world dance’ in this way because you could say that the characteristics in the above statements apply to almost any dance style to varying degrees. With that in mind, in this section of the site, the ‘world dance’ becomes a catch-all for the hundreds of different dance styles across the world, specific to certain countries or even towns and villages, their customs, languages, stories and heritage.
We believe there is beauty in each and every one of these and in this area of the site seek to build an easy to digest ‘flavour’ of many of these dances, which may be lesser known on the global stage but still deserve our understanding and celebration. Who knows, we may take inspiration from some of these to make us better dancers.
List of folk dances and world dances we have covered so far:
Belly dance
A sensual Middle Eastern dance. Using much more of the body than the ‘belly’, we take a look at its mysterious origins linked to supporting child birth and its rise to global popularity. This includes famous belly dancers and costumes for belly dancing.
Circle dancing
Circle dancing appears to have deep history in cultures across the globe and spanning thousands of years. Exactly how the circles form, how and where people dance can vary, but what’s constant, is the social, welcoming nature of this dance. Sometimes this taps into the specific cultural cues of an area, sometimes it is more linked to spirituality and tradition.
K-Pop
K-Pop is a fast paced, high choreography import from Korea, taking the world by storm. All over social media as dance challenges and covers become trends. We take a look at the history of the dance style, some K-Pop bands and choreographers.
Flamenco
A mesmerising Spanish dance with a rich heritage and culture, linked to gypsies and other settlers in Andalusia over a period of many years. We cover the cultural significance of this dance, how to get started with some basic flamenco moves and even where you could take yourself to experience an authentic flamenco show.
Pasito duranguense
A fast paced Mexican-American infusion of dynamic ballroom style dance. We explore some of the key characteristics of this dance and it’s intricate links with a musical genre, including some of the famous bands you must check-out.
Quebradita
A truly exhilarating Mexican dance peppered with daring lifts, flips and synchronized legwork, making for quite a spectacle. This article covers the rhythm, detail about the cultural heritage and the rise of the annual Quebradita Time Fest, which gives an international stage to Quebradita.
Ukranian folk dance
A detailed account of the many types of Ukrainian Folk dancing, owing to a member of our team spent a significant amount of time in Ukraine as a dancer. We cover the various styles, including Gopak, as well as some of the basic movements to explore.