Dance in the United States

Dances such as the Black Bottom, Charleston, Shag, and Tap Dance travelled north with Dixieland jazz to New York, Kansas City, and Chicago in the Great Migration (African American) of the 1920s, where rural blacks travelled to escape persecution, Jim Crow laws, lynching and unemployment in the South (during the Great Depression).

The early modern dance makers broke with European classical forms by giving into the weight of gravity, initiating movement from the center rather than the limbs, and emphasizing an emotional directness in their choreography.

Later choreographers, Merce Cunningham introduced chance procedures and composition by field, and Alvin Ailey incorporated African dance elements and black music into his works.

Recently, Mark Morris and Liz Lerman have shown that graceful, exciting movement is not restricted by age or body type.

Popular songs like Michael Jackson's "Thriller", The Harlem Shake, and "Teach me how to dougie" have influenced dance moves that became trends in society.