In lyrical dance, we combine the best of the worlds of ballet and jazz, sometimes with a little modern thrown in for fun. But with so many styles fusing into one to create lyrical, it can be hard to pinpoint exactly what dancers should focus on when practicing at home. Luckily, there are several easy and fun exercises you can do with your dancer that will help them improve in lyrical dance!
Jazz dance, with its origins in African music and culture, has long been a way to celebrate, communicate and entertain. The history of jazz dance isn’t often taught in the studio setting, but understanding where this commercially successful form of dance comes from, and how it has evolved, is an important part of improving as a jazz dancer.
To help your child improve in lyrical dance, you can encourage practicing at home, promote clear storytelling, and encourage creative improvisation and play in dance practice.
Tap dance, with its intricate rhythm patterns and fast footwork, requires a lot of practice! Even the most advanced and professional tap dancers come back to what are called the “rudiments” of tap dance to hone in on the basic skills necessary to execute the flashy steps.
As a dance educator and dancer, I’ve always thought that tap dance is the easiest form of dance to learn at any age. Even if you’re not a tap dancer yourself, you can still help your tap dancing kiddo improve by doing a few simple things at home, in the car, or wherever you happen to feel the need to dance!
Imagine, if you can, bored, blank faced orphans in “It’s a Hard Knock Life” from “Annie”. Or, Donald O’Connor trying to “Make Em’ Laugh” in “Singin’ in the Rain” without his hilarious and skilled facial expressions throughout the show-stopping routine. It would be a pretty bleak world if musical theatre dancers didn’t use acting skills to tell their story. If your child is studying theatre dance, there are a few things you can do to help them level up their acting abilities from home!
In order to be a well-rounded musical theatre dancer, you really have to have a wide variety of training in all aspects of musical theatre – dance, vocals, and acting. While not all young dancers want to be professionals, even dancers who participate in musical theatre classes for fun can benefit from learning the different facets of the art form.
The best way to help your dancer improve at hip hop is to practice at home! Games that develop personal style are a fun way to work on individual movement quality, and exercises that focus on the basics of hip hop will help with consistency.
Improving transitions and technique is something that every Acro dancer can make improvements on, even when they’re at home. You don’t have to be an expert to be able to notice when their transitions aren’t as smooth as they could be, or to notice that how they’re doing it doesn’t reflect good technique. Sometimes Acro dancers get overly focused on what they’re doing, instead of how they’re doing it. That’s where you come in!
Helping your child improve at a skill you may not be familiar with can feel like a daunting task. I know I would be lost if I was asked to help anyone improve in, say, chess! But when it comes to assisting your dancing son or daughter with their hip hop dance skills, there are plenty of easy and fun ways to level up their abilities from home!