Lyrical/Modern Dance

Lyrical dance is a popular form of dance which developed at the beginning of the 20th Century and has since grown to become one of the dominating performance genres for formally trained dancers throughout the world. Around 1980s, the word “contemporary dance” referred to the movement of new dancers who did not want to follow strict classical ballet forms, but instead wanted to explore the area of revolutionary unconventional movements that were gathered from all dance styles of the world. Lyrical/Modern dancers therefore do not use fixed moves and instead try to develop totally new forms and dynamics. They want to show to the world that contemporary dancers should embrace freedom, ignore old dance conventions and explore the limits of the human body and visual expression of feelings. In terms of the focus of its technique, lyrical/modern dance tends to utilise both the strong and controlled legwork of ballet and modern dance’s stress on the torso, and also employs contact-release, floor work, fall and recovery, and improvisation characteristic of modern dance. Unpredictable changes in rhythm, speed, and direction are often used as well.