Concert dance

Concert dance (also known as performance dance, theatre dance, or dance theatre in the United Kingdom) is dance performed for an audience, often with theatrical elements such as rehearsed choreography, costumes, set-pieces, and potentially narrative elements. It is frequently performed in a theatre setting, though this is not a requirement, and it is usually choreographed and performed to set music.

By contrast, social dance and participation dance may be performed without an audience and, typically, these dance forms are neither choreographed nor danced to set music, though there are exceptions. For example, some ceremonial dances and baroque dances blend concert dance with participation dance by having participants assume the role of performer or audience at different moments.

Forms

Many dance styles are principally performed in a concert dance context, including these:

Ballet originated as courtroom dance in Italy, then flourished in France and Russia before spreading across Europe and abroad. Over time, it became an academic discipline taught in schools and institutions. Amateur and professional troupes formed, bringing ballet from the courts to the theater and making it one of the most widely performed concert dance styles today.

Modern dance and contemporary dance emerged largely as 20th century offshoot of traditional ballet technique; although modern and contemporary dance have each evolved their own quality of movement, sharing only a portion of their common repertoire of techniques, both of the newer genres continue to be performed primarily in a concert/theatre hall setting.

Acrobatic dance emerged in the United States and Canada in the early 1900s as one of the types of acts performed in vaudeville. Acro dance has evolved significantly since then, with dance movements now founded in ballet technique.