Dance

This page gives a brief explanation of the various dances which can be performed by the /dance emote.


 * In PvP it is possible to hold any item while dancing (such as a Flag)
 * It is possible to enter a stance, or use any skills with no casting time (such as Ritual Lord), while dancing.
 * You can remain dancing while Shadow steping with the skill Recall, or when you stop maintaining Aura of Displacement.

Male
 The dance as an animated gif
 * The male warrior dance involves pelvic thrusting, drawing the hands across the eyes, full-body swaying, and spinning.
 * This dance is a mixture of various dances John Travolta has done in his movies, including Saturday Night Fever and Pulp Fiction.

Female
 The dance as an animated gif
 * The female warrior dance involves swaying, drawing the hands across the eyes, and "swimming" motions.
 * This dance is Uma Thurman's dance from the movie Pulp Fiction.
 * One loop of this dance lasts 16.2 seconds.

Male
 The dance as an animated gif
 * The male ranger dance is a form of breakdancing, involving slight swaying and clapping followed by full body spinning on the ground.

Female
 The dance as an animated gif
 * This dance could be described as "pole dancing without the pole". It involves a lot of hip gyration and seductive moves.
 * These are actually a series of disco dance moves popular in the 1970's.
 * One loop of this dance lasts 13.5 seconds.

Male
 The dance as an animated gif
 * The male monk dance is very graceful, resembling yoga, tai-chi or other fluid exercise.
 * More than constant motion, it involves shifting to and from various poses in an extremely fluid manner.

Female
 The dance as an animated gif
 * The female monk dance is a short section from the Chinese Wushu Chang quan. Which means Long fist.
 * Again, like the male, her dance involves graceful shifting among various poses, but she tends to move more than the male, especially involving spins.
 * One loop of this dance lasts 17.5 seconds.

Male
 The dance as an animated gif
 * The male elementalist starts out slowly, shifting his weight from side to side, then eventually becoming more and more absorbed into the "music," so to speak, eventually doing the "Dry Heave" from Seinfeld: sticking out his thumbs, leaning backwards, and snapping his head around while making little kicks similar to the Rumba train (like in the movie The Mask).
 * The male elementalist dance is unique in that the dance doesn't fully repeat. The beginning sequence of the dance happens once, and then there's a very short section at the end that cycles.  The dances for all other genders and characters repeat the entire dance routine once they get to the end.
 * The Elementalist does a series of dances popular in the 1980's, including one by Bill Cosby in the opening titles to The Cosby Show.

Female
 The dance as an animated gif
 * The female elementalist dance is a Belly Dance, a Western name for a style of dance developed in the Middle East. In Europe, it is sometimes called an oriental dance. In the Arabic it is known as "raqs sharqi" ("eastern dance") or sometimes "raqs baladi" ("national" or "folk" dance). It is believed to be descended from a religious early Egyptian dance.
 * It starts with the gyration of the hips accompanied by a wave motion of the arms right and left, then the hands are lifted up and brought down before the chest in concealing move, then the infamous breast shake (shimmy), first leaning back, then leaning forward.
 * Made fashionnable in the 1960s by movies and american Singer/Dancer Jamila Salimpour, the dance style was picked up again by Singer/Dancer Shakira, who practices the Lebanese style.
 * One loop of this dance lasts 11.2 seconds.

Male
 The dance as an animated gif
 * The male mesmer holds his arms stiff and dances with his feet alone, similar to the style of Riverdance or traditional Irish step dancing.

Female
 The dance as an animated gif
 * The female mesmer dance is almost exactly like the male mesmer dance. She holds her upper body in a slightly different position but nonetheless keeps it stiff, dancing with her legs alone.
 * One loop of this dance lasts 8.7 seconds.

Male

 * The male necromancer's dance is better described as "rocking out" than actual dancing. While holding up his hand in the shape of "the horns," the necromancer violently headbangs, eventually moving from headbanging with just his neck to his whole upper body, and eventually jumping wildly around.

 The dance as an animated gif
 * This dance is unique in that the Necromancer is able to hold any weapon or PvE item (such as a gear) while dancing outside an outpost.

Female
 The dance as an animated gif
 * The female necromancer's dance involves slides and lunges, stylized looking from side to side, a waving of the arms in "claw" position, and stalking around with arms raised in front of one's self.
 * This dance is the same as Michael Jackson's Thriller.
 * One loop of this dance lasts 21 seconds.

Male
 The dance as an animated gif
 * The Robot, complete with "strings" if you have the factions CE.
 * One loop of this dance lasts 26.6 seconds.

Female
  The dance as an animated gif
 * This dance begins with Skanking, a form of dance that came about in the 1950's to 1960's in the jamaican dancehall scene, then ends with a high-flying backflip.
 * One loop of this dance lasts 17.4 seconds.
 * With the Collector's Edition of Factions, using the /dancenew emote will add two backup dancers in the form of Shadow Assassins

Male
 The dance as an animated gif
 * This dance resembles the odd dance done by Napoleon Dynamite during the dance part of the movie.
 * One loop of this dance lasts 29.6 seconds.

Female
<br style="clear:both;"> <br style="clear:both;"> The dance as an animated gif
 * Bellydance, also some aspects of channeling spirits
 * Dance is more of a mix of Yoga, including some portions of the Sun Salute
 * One loop of this dance lasts 30.5 seconds.
 * With the Collector's Edition of Factions, using the /dancenew emote will add two backup dancers in the form of spirits.

Male
The dance as an animated gif
 * Consists largely of wing-flapping motions.
 * Also a Michael Jackson's dance, this time from the final dance sequence of the Beat it video.

Female
The dance as an animated gif

This dance is still widely under debate, but it strongly resembles the "Danse Sauvage" of Josephine Baker, which she presented in the 1920's throughout France. There has also been mention of a more recent link to Beyonce Knowles' "Deja Vu" which, itself, was inspired by the style of Josephine Baker.

Male
The dance as an animated gif
 * Inspired heavily by Christopher Walken's dance in Fatboy Slim's Weapon of Choice music video.

Female
The dance as an animated gif
 * Traditional whirling dervish dance.

Note

 * To access the special dance emotes packaged with the Collector's Edition of Factions, use the /dancenew emote.
 * It's not widely known that /dancenew is a command available to all characters and classes; Prophecies and Factions, with or without the Collector's Edition, however non-assassin or -ritualist characters will resort to their usual /dance routine, and non-Collector's Edition assassins and ritualists will run through their /dancenew routines without the shadow/spirit backing dancers. It is therefore possible to synchronise /dancenew routines even across classes and indeed different Guild Wars products with /dancenew *. /dance * and /dancenew * will not sync.
 * For assassins and ritualists, the /dancenew routine has certain differences to their usual /dance routines, including the "summoning" animation at the start and a few minor in-dance variations. For instance, during the male assassin dance there's a part where the dancer is pulled upright like a puppet on strings and is then "cut" from those strings - In the /dance, the assassin does this himself with his own hands, while in the /dancenew he allows the two shadows to do this; one pulling and one cutting.