The Elements of Dance, Explained Simply

Quick answer

The five elements of dance are body, action, space, time, and energy, often remembered by the acronym BASTE. Dance educators use these five building blocks to describe, teach, and create movement in nearly every style, from ballet to hip hop.

If your child came home from class talking about "levels" or "pathways," or a worksheet about BASTE just landed on your kitchen table, this guide is for you. Each section below explains one element in plain language, shows what it looks like in a real dance class, and gives you a two-minute activity to try at home. No dance background needed.

Key Takeaways

• The five elements of dance are body, action, space, time, and energy (BASTE); some curricula count three or seven, but the ideas overlap.

• The framework comes from arts education, including the Perpich Center for Arts Education, and appears in many classroom dance resources.

• The elements apply to most dance styles, which is why teachers of ballet, jazz, and hip hop can all use the same vocabulary.

• You can explore every element at home with games most kids already love, like freeze dance and mirroring.

What are the elements of dance?

The elements of dance are a shared vocabulary that breaks movement down into five parts: the body doing the moving, the action it performs, the space it moves through, the time it moves in, and the energy behind it. The most widely taught version of this framework was developed by the Elements of Dance project at the Perpich Center for Arts Education, created with the University of Minnesota Dance Program, and it shows up in lesson plans across the country, including the Kennedy Center's classroom resources.

Think of the elements like the ingredients list for movement. A pirouette in ballet and a freeze in breaking look nothing alike, but both can be described with the same five ingredients. That is what makes the framework so useful in studios that teach several types of dances under one roof.

One note before we start: not every curriculum counts to five. Some textbooks, like the dance appreciation materials from Human Kinetics, focus on three core elements (time, space, and energy), and some school programs stretch the list to seven. The ideas are the same; the slicing differs. BASTE is the version most US kids meet first.

Body: the instrument of dance

Body is the "what" of dance: which body parts are moving and what shape the whole body makes. A dancer might move just the arms, isolate the shoulders, or fold the entire body into a low, curled shape. Teachers talk about shapes being curved or angular, big or small, symmetrical (both sides matching) or asymmetrical.

In class: a teacher might say, "Make the roundest shape you can, now the pointiest." In ballet, port de bras (arm carriage) is body work; in hip hop, shoulder and chest isolations are too.

Two-minute activity at home: play statue maker. Call out a word ("spiky," "melty," "tiny," "giant") and have your child freeze in a shape that matches. Take turns so they get to direct you. You are building shape awareness without ever saying the word "asymmetrical."

Action: what the body does

Action is the movement itself: jumping, turning, sliding, reaching, freezing. Educators split actions into two families. Locomotor actions travel somewhere (walk, run, leap, skip, roll). Non-locomotor actions stay in one spot (bend, twist, stretch, swing, balance). Even a stillness held on purpose counts as an action in dance.

In class: across-the-floor exercises (skips, chassés, leaps) are locomotor practice. Center work, like pliés at the barre or a held balance, is non-locomotor. You will spot both in almost any popular dance style.

Two-minute activity at home: the action jar. Write six actions on scraps of paper (spin, wiggle, leap, freeze, stretch, stomp). Pull two at a time and have your child link them into a mini sequence. Linking actions is the first step toward choreography.

Space: where the movement happens

Space is the "where": how high or low a dancer moves (levels), which way they face and travel (directions), and the route they take across the floor (pathways, which can be straight, curved, or zigzag). It also covers how much room a movement takes up, from a tight spin to a huge traveling leap.

In class: when a teacher calls "low level!" the dancers drop toward the floor. Recital formations, like moving from a line into a circle, are space work too, and they are often the hardest part for young dancers to remember.

Two-minute activity at home: floor road trip. Lay a "path" through a room with painter's tape or socks, part straight and part curvy. Have your child travel it at a high level (on tiptoes), then a low level (crawling or crouching). One trip each and you have covered levels and pathways.

Time: when and how fast

Every "5, 6, 7, 8" you hear through a studio door is this element at work. Time covers the speed of the movement (tempo), the pattern it follows (rhythm), and the steady pulse underneath (beat). Dancers can move with the music, faster or slower than it, or even in silence while counting.

In class: you have probably heard a teacher counting "5, 6, 7, 8." Most studio choreography is built on 8-counts, which is how a room full of kids stays together. Speeding a familiar step up or slowing it way down is a classic time exercise.

Two-minute activity at home: tempo remote control. Put on a favorite song and pretend you hold a remote. "Slow motion!" means everything melts to half speed; "fast forward!" doubles it; "pause!" is a freeze. Kids find this one hilarious, and it quietly teaches tempo control.

Energy: how the movement feels

Robot or honey? That contrast is energy: the quality or texture of a movement. The same arm reach can be sharp or smooth, strong or feather-light, floppy or tightly controlled. Energy is what makes a dance feel joyful, spooky, or powerful, so it is where a lot of the artistry lives.

In class: a teacher might ask for "sharp like a robot" and then "smooth like honey." The same port de bras danced crisp and punchy versus soft and melting is an energy difference, even at the same speed.

Two-minute activity at home: the energy switch. Pick one simple move, like a big arm circle. Do it sharp like a karate chop, then underwater, then like a balloon losing air, then like a superhero landing. Same move, four energies. This is the element kids usually enjoy most.

The five elements at a glance

Keep this table handy after class. Asking one of these questions on the ride home tends to get a much better answer than "how was dance?"

How dance teachers use the elements

Teachers lean on the elements in three main ways. First, as vocabulary: "travel on a curvy pathway at a low level" is faster and clearer than demonstrating every detail, even for preschoolers just past their first ballet class. Second, as a creative prompt: the Kennedy Center's middle school lesson, for example, has students build their own short dances by combining elements over a set number of counts. Third, as a feedback tool: "try that with sharper energy" gives a young dancer something specific to fix.

The elements are also the raw material of choreography. If your child is starting to invent their own dances, our guide to how to choreograph a dance shows how the elements turn into finished routines. And if the studio vocabulary still feels like a foreign language, our ballet terminology guide for parents covers the terms you are most likely to hear next.

FAQ

Q: What are the 5 elements of dance?

A: The five elements of dance are body, action, space, time, and energy. Together they describe what is moving, what it does, where and when it moves, and the quality of the movement.

Q: What does BASTE stand for in dance?

A: B for Body, A for Action, S for Space, T for Time, E for Energy. Teachers use the acronym as a memory aid from preschool classes up through high school arts programs, often as a quick checklist when students build their own short dances.

Q: Are there 5 or 7 elements of dance?

A: It depends on the curriculum. The most common US framework teaches five (body, action, space, time, energy). Some programs teach three (space, time, energy) and others expand to seven by splitting categories like relationship or form into their own elements. The underlying concepts overlap heavily.

Q: Why are the elements of dance important?

A: They give dancers, teachers, and choreographers a shared language. A teacher can give precise corrections, students can analyze what they see, and young choreographers have a checklist of tools to vary, all across different dance styles.

Q: At what age do kids learn the elements of dance?

A: Informally, from their very first class: preschool creative movement is full of levels, tempo games, and shape-making. The formal vocabulary and the BASTE acronym typically show up in elementary school music or dance units and in studio classes for early elementary ages and up.

About the Stelle Team

Stelle is a mom-founded dancewear brand, making leotards, tutus, and activewear for young dancers since 2015. Our articles are written by the team behind the products — people who spend their days talking with dance teachers, studio owners, and dance parents, and who test everything from fabric stretch to tutu twirl in real classes. Learn more about Stelle.