Dating back to the time of King Louis XIV and his palace at Versailles, Ballet has evolved for many years to become one of the most challenging dance forms to master, yet the most imperative to any dancer’s training. It is here where the dancer learns the grace and poise of the body, the length and stretch required to create line, and the power behind any jump, while gaining the utmost of strength and technical skill.

At our Oakville dance  school, West End Studio Theatre, we always encourage that the young dancer begin with Ballet first so as to acquire the technical strength necessary for dance, and can then move to apply this strength and technique to any other dance form. Should the dancer be strong enough, they will be encouraged to progress to Pointe class where their Ballet technique can be taken to the next level.

We have to thank our fore-fathers, like Bob Fosse, Luigi, and Jerome Robbins for bringing this energetic and powerful dance form into light. Jazz dance is upbeat, energetic, and powerful, yet still very challenging with its use of technique and wide range of styles. Through the medium of “So You Think You Can Dance”, one can see a multiple of jazz styles introduced in the way of funky jazz, latin jazz, and even lyrical jazz, a softer and more flowing style of movement.

Musical theatre style of jazz can be seen in a wide range of musical theatre such as “Grease!”, “Mamma Mia!”, “Fame”, “Guys and Dolls”, and “West Side Story"

Where would be without the likes of great dancers such as Fred Astaire, Ginger Rogers, Gene Kelly and Debbie Reynolds?  Although their predecessors happened to come from an urban community of men who placed bottle caps on the bottoms of their shoes and tapped with them on boards of wood, these fine dancers of the past worked to bring Tap to the masses in movies such as “Singin’ in the Rain”, and “Roberta” or “Broadway Melody” with Fred Astaire and Eleanor Powell. 

Tap is a dance form that also has a variety of style from one that is more soft-shoe to the urban funky rhythms of “Stomp!” and “Tap Dogs”.  It is a dance form of great skill and plenty of fun that challenges the dancer to use their feet and rhythms in a new way each time.

Acro dance, derived from (Acrobatics) is a dance form that can be seen through the mastery and artistic prowess of “Cirque de Soleil.” These elements of gymnastic style tricks combined with the fluidity of dance and motion help to create what we understand to be “Acro” movement. Acro builds a great degree of strength and flexibility in the dancer, while bringing new challenges with each new “trick” learned.

Students of Acro will begin their training with basic sommersaults, cartwheels, and head stands, and will progress to more challenging vocabulary such as round offs, hand stands and partner lifts to include double cartwheels, and various other partnering techniques to increase their knowledge of working with other bodies while discovering the power of their own.

In Modern dance, the dancer is given much use of freedom to explore their talent through the use of free-form choreography that may be very grounded or may be very energetic and powerful exploring a wide range of motion and levels, improv technique, and working closely with others to create shapes and lifts of various challenges. However, once again,

Modern technique roots itself in the techniques given to us by Martha Graham, a very strengthening and regimented dance form, Jose Limon, a fall and rebound technique with the use of breath, Merce Cunningham, a balletic style with use of chance and improv, and many more Modern greats such as Alvin Ailey, Ruth St. Denis, and Isadora Duncan who have all inspired this wonderfully expressive, and free dance form. InMotion Dance offers Modern examinations through the use of the P.A.E.C. syllabus.

Hip Hop is a dance form that has made its way to the top from humble beginnings in the street. Much like Tap, this dance form derived from the talents of every day dancers sharing their “new moves” to each other and building on to its repertoire to where we know it today. From Break Dancing, to Street Dance, and Popping, and Locking, Hip Hop has proved itself to be as skillful and challenging as other dance forms, and can be seen now in a multitude of music videos, “So You Think You Can Dance”, and movies such as “Honey”. A fun and energetic dance form that everyone loves to try out