What to Wear to Contemporary Dance Class

Three things recur: close-fitting legs in footless tights or leggings, hair off the face, and bare feet in every modern class whose code names footwear. Eugene’s contemporary class is the exception, asking for black jazz shoes or half-sole lyrical shoes. Where the codes differ most is strictness. A professional modern program can dictate leotard color and forbid shorts, while a community contemporary class may ask only for fitted clothes you can move in.

The same institution can publish two opposite answers, and the difference is the kind of class. Ailey Extension, Ailey’s open-class program for students 16 and older, suggests “comfortable loose-fitting clothes that you can move in, such as sweats, yoga pants, leotard, t-shirts, tank tops” (Ailey Extension). The Ailey School’s Professional Division bans sweatpants, big shirts, shorts and crop tops in every class. Use that split to read your own class:

• Drop-in or adult open class. Sweats, yoga pants, a tee or a tank are fine. Keep a fitted base underneath and strip down to it when floor work starts.
• Graded studio program. Expect a leotard or fitted top with leggings or footless tights, sometimes in a level color. Springfield Ballet also asks for solid leggings with no mesh, cut-outs or decoration.
• Pre-professional or conservatory track. Colors, tights length and bans are written down, and a student out of code may be asked to sit out; Ailey’s code says so in its first lines.

Crop tops, mesh layers and flowy pants are personal-style pieces for open classes; they belong over a fitted base that passes the inversion test below.

Contemporary movement includes spirals, off-balance falls, floor work, inversions and long extensions. The test for any garment is whether it stays where you put it through a roll, a lift and an inversion.

Contemporary leaves more room for personal style than most technique classes: a leotard with cut-off shorts, or a knotted shirt over a unitard, is at home here as long as it passes that inversion test.

Contemporary classes are long, sweaty and spend real time on the floor, so the fabric does more work than in most styles.

Floor work presses whatever you wear into the floor, so a sweat-soaked heavy tee starts to drag. Two label facts help when you shop. Soft “bamboo” dancewear is usually viscose rayon made from bamboo pulp, and rayon is soft, cool and highly absorbent (Wikipedia: Bamboo textile; Wikipedia: Rayon). Under US rules, only fabric made directly from bamboo fiber may be called plain “bamboo”; the rest must say “rayon (or viscose) made from bamboo” (FTC). Nylon, by contrast, is less absorbent than cotton (Wikipedia: Nylon), which is why technical nylon-spandex feels lighter late in a sweaty class.

Bare feet are the default because a bare foot can point, spread, grip and roll through the floor in a way no shoe allows. Socks are a teacher’s call, not a default: Ailey Extension asks for no shoes or socks, just bare feet, in its Horton, Graham and Limón classes. If your skin or the floor needs protection, half-soles, foot thongs and grip socks are the options, and choosing between them is covered in what shoes to wear for contemporary dance.

Arrive with one warm layer over your base and remove it before center work, so the teacher can see your line. Which layers work and when each comes off is laid out in dance warm-up clothes. On floor-heavy days, full-length leggings and knee pads earn their place for a simpler reason. In a 2023 survey of dance majors, minors and instructors at five Virginia universities, 59% reported skin problems they tied to dancing, floor burns among them; the dermatologists who ran it flag a small, self-reported sample (Saal et al. 2023, Archives of Dermatological Research). Covered knees and hips keep that skin off the floor.

Contemporary dance developed in the mid-20th century, blending modern technique with elements of ballet and jazz (Wikipedia: Contemporary dance). Its barefoot, close-fitting dress goes back to the modern pioneers, who stopped wearing corsets and pointe shoes in search of freer movement (Wikipedia: Modern dance). Isadora Duncan, whom the Smithsonian calls the mother of modern dance, “refused to wear shoes while she performed” (Smithsonian American Art Museum), and the same Wikipedia article credits her with a stress on “the center or torso, bare feet, loose hair, free-flowing costumes.” How the two styles differ in technique, not just in dress, from Graham’s contraction to Cunningham’s chance procedures, is laid out in contemporary vs modern dance.

The jazz-inflected end of that family dresses closer to a jazz class, where shoes are more common; the differences are in what to wear to jazz class. Dancers who also take ballet will notice that modern codes borrow ballet’s leotard but drop the slippers, as the level-by-level codes in what to wear to ballet class show.

Hair goes back in a bun, topknot or secure ponytail, which every code above asks for; some contemporary teachers allow loose hair when the choreography uses it. Jewelry comes off, because a necklace or bracelet becomes a snag hazard on the floor or in a lift. And color matters for a practical reason: head-to-toe black on a dark floor can make your line hard for the teacher to read, so one piece that separates legs from torso helps, unless your school’s code sets the colors for you.

Class clothes serve your teacher’s eye; a costume serves the choreographer’s concept and the audience. A costume can be flowing, sculptural or deliberately awkward, and the choreography is built around it in rehearsal, which is why dancers rehearse in costume before a show. For a tryout, the expectations sit between the two, as covered in dance audition clothes.

• A fitted top you can tuck, or a leotard
• Footless tights or leggings, plus fitted shorts if your studio allows them
• One warm layer you can take off
• Grip socks or foot thongs in the bag, in case the floor is slick
• A hair tie; no jewelry
• Water and a small towel

Everything on this page comes down to one check: lie down, roll over, go upside down, and see whether your clothes stay where they were.