Compare Hip Hop And Ballet

Olivia Oles

Ms. Hadley

Choreography/Performance 3/4

05 November 2017

Hip Hop vs. Ballet When viewing a work of art, either from an old theater, the streets of New York City, or the screen on your iPhone, it is hard not to notice the overall style and vibe of a dance, in other words, how the dance is to the eye. From the music, the way the dancers move, and the individual skills or steps in a dance, Hip Hop and Ballet are two of the most polar opposite dance styles in the history of the art, but the origin of the watcher’s viewpoint can occasionally be strained, a viewpoint that the two styles are not glaringly contrasting in many aspects. From the origin of Ballet and the origin of Hip Hop styled dances, the two are very diverse. Around the sixteenth and seventeenth century, European countries, mainly zoning in on France, popularized Ballet as a formal art piece. Ballet began as an idea in the Renaissance Period throughout the fifteenth century, in French Courts as entertainment for those wealthy enough to view it. Since the start, Ballet has gained a widespread vocabulary, stemming from its French ancestors, and globally, Ballet style and technique has been embedded in other styles, such as Modern and Contemporary, with steps such as a plié and grande jeté making an

Both Ballet and Hip Hop styles intend to tell a story, however the stories tend to be slightly different, Ballet stemming from fairytales or illustrating a book or play onto a lifelike canvas, whereas Hip Hop can explain the dancer or dancers signs of struggle, happiness, longing or fear. Hip Hop can be used as a more commercialized, performed for solely entertainment purposes in Dance Competitions, but the style itself, when stemming from cities and small or large groups of dancers, began with attempting to convey the feelings of darkness and light in the dancer’s