Hey everyone! In this post, I discuss what I believe is the foundation of Dancehall dance, regardless of whether you freestyle or create choreographies. Note that this is my personal opinion. It doesn't necessarily reflect the opinion of the Dancehall community.

Four elements

Dancehall foundation includes four elements:

• Use the Dancehall position: We bend our knees, lean back, push our pelvis forward, and turn our shoulders inwards.
• Be grounded: We dance "into the ground." Something is always pulling us towards the ground, besides gravity. This is related to our position.
• Groove: There is a bounce in our dance. We build on this bounce to create different grooves.
• Respect the tempo: We respect the tempo of the song that we are dancing to. The tempo is the counts 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8. This is different from "dancing on/off beat." The latter is about following any of specific rhythms of the different tracks of a song.

Moves and steps

Are moves and steps not part of the foundation? I believe they are not. They are, however, built on top of the foundation. In other words, every move and step uses the foundation. Important to note is that the fact that moves and steps are not part of the dance's foundation says nothing about their cultural significance, importance, or influence, nor about their creators

Freestyle

The only thing that our freestyle needs to have for it to be Dancehall freestyle is the Dancehall foundation. That's it. You don't need to use any moves or steps. You can if you want, but there is no requirement whatsoever.