Edgez Dance

Commercial Jazz is known to be a highly choreographed dance form. It features a mixture of sharp and fluid movements, popping & locking and animated expression similar to dances seen on commercial video clips and theme parks.

Jazz dance made its way onto Broadway in the 1950s bringing a new, smooth style that is taught today and known as Theatre Jazz. Broadway, refers to the theatrical performances presented in the 41 professional theatres along Broadway, in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. This performance style of Jazz was popularised by Bob Fosse’s work, which is was in Broadway shows such as Chicago, Cabaret and Sweet Charity. Theatre Jazz is also used in large scale TV musicals, movie musicals and staged musicals. Students will study barre, across the floor, floorwork, and facial expressions to develop their Theatre Jazz-styled technique.

Jazz Fusion is a class all its own! Drawing inspiration from Commercial Jazz, Jazz Funk, and Latin Jazz to create a new movement experience. Students can expect a similar class experience to Jazz with exercises in the center and traveling across the floor. With Jazz Fusion, students will explore different shapes with their body and arms incorporating flexed wrists and flexed ankles versus the pointed precision you will find in your standard Jazz class. Students interested in Jazz Fusion are recommended to have previously taken a Jazz-styled class for the most success in this fusion class.

Jazz dance allows students to explore “attitude or sass” within dance to upbeat styled music. Jazz is an extension of Ballet often having similar steps that are “turned-in” or “parallel” and is a great fuse and technique and personal style. A low center of gravity, high energy level, isolations, and style are all characteristics used to identify jazz dance. Students will study barre, across the floor, and floorwork to develop their Jazz-styled technique.

Contemporary dance is a style of expressive dance and combines elements of all dance genres including modern, jazz, lyrical and classical ballet. A focus within Contemporary dance is to connect the mind and the body through fluid dance movements that can portray a variety of emotions. Students will study across the floor and floor work combinations allowing them to express themselves and move their body in different shapes and forms that are not traditional to other styles of dance. Edgez Dance is certified with the Progressive Contemporary Technique (PCT).

Lyrical dance is a style that combines ballet and jazz dancing techniques. It is performed to music with lyrics so that it inspires expression of strong emotions the choreographer feels from the lyrics of the song. This style concentrates on an individual approach and expressiveness of such emotions as love, joy, hurt, or anger. The Lyrical style has a relatively recent history and brings together ballet with rock/folk/pop/alternative music and a variety of jazz and modern dance styles. Music for this style may consist of many genres including pop, rock, and hip- hop.

Pre-pointe is selected students who are 9 years and older and aspire to be en pointe or looking to strengthen their feet and ankles. Students will work not only on foot and ankle strengthening exercises but full body exercises to get students ready for pointe work. Students should expect soreness throughout the duration of the session as it generally means they are gaining muscle. Students should feel free to talk to the instructor if they feel any abnormal pain.

Hip-Hop dance refers to street dance styles primarily performed to hip-hop music or that have evolved from hip-hop culture. Hip-Hop is a wide range of styles which include but is not limited to breaking, tutting, popping, & locking. Hip-Hop gained mainstream exposure by dance crews, television shows and movies.

Tap dance uses the sounds of tap shoes, that have a metal "taps", striking the floor as a form of percussive dance. Tap dance benefits cardiovascular conditioning, strength, flexibility, and coordination. Students will study movements on the barre, center and across the floor to develop muscle memory and foot articulation that creates tap dance.

Acro Dance is the beautiful fusion of the artistic motion of dance and the athleticism of acrobatics. Acro Dancers complete skills or tricks integrating musicality, emotional expression, extension, control and lines. Our Acro Dance program targets dancers to be stronger and more flexible, which will transfer over into other dance forms. Acrobatic Dance is often comparable to gymnastics. With exception Gymnastics is a sport and AcroDance is an art form. AcroDance is an art form specifically for dancers. Acro has softer, more lyrical looking lines, with the emphasis being on lengthening “through” the tricks and holding pretty balances with interesting variations. In Acro, we teach our students to dance into and out of Acro tricks, with minimal obvious “prep” before and after a trick. Despite being technically difficult to execute, acrobatic tricks are meant to blend in seamlessly with dance steps, providing an extra level of excitement and flair to dance choreography. Edgez Dance is certified with the Acrobatic Arts.

Ballet which originated in the Italian Renaissance and established its present form during the 19th century. Ballet is characterized by it’s light, graceful, fluid movements. Ballet is considered the foundation of dance being a highly technically style of dance with it’s own vocabulary words in the French language. Students will study components of a ballet class such as barre, center, adagio, allegro and reverence.

Modern dance is deeply embedded in ballet syllabus. Historically, modern dance began as free form style lyrical ballet among a community of professional ballet dancers who refused to stop dancing. Some choreographers and dancers include in modern dance styles hip hop, lyrical, free style and fusion, a combination of dance forms like tap, jazz, modern and ballet. Dancers like Isadora Duncan, Ruth St. Denis and Ted Shawn, Martha Graham, Doris Humphrey, Lester Horton and Merce Cunningham have shaped modern dance by expanding the vocabulary of movement, development of facial expressions to covey emotion and designing costumes that allow for greater expression.

Contact Ms. Melissa for Private Lesson availability. Book your private lesson with Edgez Dance today!