Understanding the five

elements of dance
What is Dance?

That’s a big question! Here’s an answer that’s short and sweet:

Dance is an art form that uses movement to communicate our
ideas, feelings, and experiences.

But how?

Lesson Content
The Elements of Dance

Dance can be broken down into the following five

elements:

 Body
 Action
 Space
 Time
 Energy

These five elements are interconnected; at times, it’s

hard to separate one from the other. But as we discuss
each one, we’ll include specific vocabulary used to talk
about dance and examine how each element can be
manipulated to create different results.

Body: Who Dances? The Dancer!

Imagine a body moving with rhythmic purpose and
motions, usually performing to music. That’s dance.
Sounds simple, right? Dance critic Walter Terry put it
best this way:

“No paints nor brushes, marbles nor chisels, pianos or

violins are needed to make this art, for we are the stuff
that dance is made of. It is born in our body, exists in
our body and dies in our body. Dance, then, is the most
personal of all the arts . . . it springs from the very
breath of life.”
The human body is what others see when they look at
dance. Sometimes the body is still; other times, it may
be in motion. A dancer can use the whole body, or
emphasize individual body parts, when moving.

When you watch dance, try to notice the position of the

body. Is it symmetrical, with the right and left sides
doing the same thing, or not? What shape is the body
making? Are the shapes sharp and angular, or soft and
rounded? Is the body curved, twisted, or straight?

Just as some colors in a painting may be more vibrant

than others, you may notice dancers who have
exceptional body control. They have worked hard to
train their bodies (essentially their instrument of
expression) to achieve superior balance, strength, and
agility. Pay extra attention to how dancers use their
breath when working through a dance phrase, or series
of movements.
Dancers use their bodies to take internal ideas,
emotions, and intentions and express them in an
outward manner, sharing them with others. Dance can
communicate this internal world, or it can be abstract,
focusing on shapes and patterns.

In this excerpt from George Balanchine’s Apollo, you

can see how the dancers use individual body parts to
create a beautiful effect in space. The three ballerinas
touch their toes to the male dancer’s hand, and then link
their arms through his.

George Balanchine's Apollo (Pacific Northwest Ballet)

George Balanchine's Apollo (Pacific Northwest Ballet)
1:41
Action: The Dancer Does What? Moves!
Action is any human movement involved in the act of
dancing. What do dancers do? They move—this is the
action they perform. Movement can be divided into two
general categories:

 Non-locomotor or axial movement: Any movement

that occurs in one spot including a bend, stretch,
swing, rise, fall, shake, turn, rock, tip, suspend, and
twist.
 Locomotor movement: Any movement that travels
through space including a run, jump, walk, slide,
hop, skip, somersault, leap, crawl, gallop, and roll.

Action includes small movements like facial expressions

or gestures, as well as larger movements like lifts,
carries, or catches done with a partner or in a group.
“Action” is also considered the movement executed as
the pauses or stillness between movements.

Dancers work together with a choreographer to practice

and refine the action of the dance. When the action has
been “set,” or finalized, the dancers must memorize
their movement sequences in order to be able to
perform them.

Watch the Mark Morris Dance Company

perform L’Allegro il Penseroso ed il Moderato. The
action of the dance includes slaps and claps, falls,
prances, jumps in place, as well as turns from side to
side.

Mark Morris: L'Allegro, Il Penseroso ed il Moderato | Three

Excerpts
Mark Morris: L'Allegro, Il Penseroso ed il Moderato | Three Excerpts
2:41
Space: Where Does the Dancer Move? Through Space!
We’re not talking about the final frontier here! We’re
talking about where the action of dance takes place.
Dance moves through space in an endless variety of
ways.

To better explain, here are some ways a choreographer

or dancer thinks about space:

 Level: Is the movement on the floor or reaching

upward? Are they performed high, medium, or low?
 Direction: Does the movement go forward,
backward, sideways, right, left, or on a diagonal?
  Place: Is the movement done on the spot (personal
space) or does it move through space (general
space, downstage, upstage)?
 Orientation: Which way are the dancers facing?
 Pathway: Is the path through space made by the
dancers curved, straight, or zigzagged? Or is it
random?
 Size: Does the movement take up a small, narrow
space, or a big, wide space?
 Relationships: How are the dancers positioned in
space in relationship to one another? Are they close
together or far apart? Are they in front of, beside,
behind, over, under, alone, or connected to one
another?

The list above helps us understand how to think about

movement through space. Imagine how many ways you
could perform a simple movement, like clapping your
hands if you ran it through the different concepts listed
above. Remember, space can be both indoors and
outdoors, and some dances are created with specific
spaces in mind.

The action in Paul Taylor’s dance Esplanade is very

simple, consisting mostly of walking and running. Notice
how the concept of space is explored in a variety of
ways as the dancers constantly change direction and
orientation. Their relationship to one another also keeps
shifting. At times, they form two lines passing through
one another. At other moments, they move in unison.
Watch for both straight and curved pathways and think
about how many ways the choreographer was able to
manipulate the element of space.
Paul Taylor: Esplanade
Paul Taylor: Esplanade
2:01
Time: How Does the Body Move in Relation to Time?
Choreographers have to make decisions about timing.
Are their movements quick or slow? Are certain steps
repeated in different speeds during the work? If so,
why? We can think of time in the following ways:

 Clock Time: We use clock time to think about the

length of a dance or parts of a dance measured in
seconds, minutes, or hours.
 Timing Relationships: When dancers move in
relation to each other (before, after, together,
sooner than, faster than).
 Metered Time: A repeated rhythmic pattern often
used in music (like 2/4 time or 4/4 time). If dances
are done to music, the movement can respond to
the beat of the music or can move against it. The
speed of the rhythmic pattern is called its tempo.
 Free Rhythm: A rhythmic pattern is less predictable
than metered time. Dancers may perform movement
without using music, relying on cues from one
another.

The element of time is easily noticed in Step Afrika’s

work. The action of the hands slapping and feet
stomping creates the complex rhythm that the audience
hears.

Step Afrika!
Step Afrika!
1:36
Energy: How? The Dancer Moves Through Space
and Time With Energy!
So now we have bodies moving through space and time.
Isn’t that enough? Not quite. We need the fifth and last
element of dance—energy.

Energy helps us to identify how the dancers move.

What effort are they using? Perhaps their movements
are sharp and strong, or maybe they are light and free.
Energy also represents the quality of the movement—its
power and richness. For choreographers and dancers,
there are many possibilities.

The effort the dancers use can communicate meaning,

depending on the energy involved. A touch between two
dancers may be gentle and light, perhaps indicating
concern or affection; or it may be sudden and forceful,
indicating anger or playfulness. Energy is crucial in
bringing the inner expression of emotion out to the
stage performance.

Some ways to think about energy are:

 Attack: Is the movement sharp and sudden, or

smooth and sustained?
 Weight: Does the movement show heaviness, as if
giving into gravity, or is it light with a tendency
upward?
 Flow: Does the movement seem restricted and
bound with a lot of muscle tension; or is it relaxed,
free, and easy?
  Quality: Is the movement tight, flowing, loose,
sharp, swinging, swaying, suspended, collapsed, or
smooth?

The element of energy is important in this performance

of dance team Kaba Modern. The dancers use a sharp,
percussive attack, and have pauses between
movements that break the flow. Kaba Modern, like other
Hip Hop groups, has a sense of weight. They bend their
knees and frequently move to the floo