Hip hop dance
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Hip hop dance refers to dance styles, mainly street dance styles, primarily danced to hip hop music, or that have evolved as a part of the hip hop culture.
The first and original dance associated with hip hop is breakdance, which appeared in New York City during the early 1970s and truly became a cornerstone (also called "element") of hip hop as a culture. In the 1990s, as hip hop music took new forms, new dance styles began appearing, most of them danced in an upright manner in contrast to breakdance with its many ground moves.
These later styles are sometimes referred to as new school or new style while the older styles, including breakdance and various funk styles that were incorporated into hip hop, are considered old school.
Hip hop dancing is evolving in many different directions today, heavily influenced by the evolution of hip hop music and its popularity in media, surrounded by heated debates on history and authenticity.
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[edit] Old school
Old school hip hop dances are those styles that evolved in the 1970s and 1980s and were primarily danced to funk and old school hip hop music. Breakdance is the best known of all hip hop dance styles, and is considered a corner stone of hip hop culture itself. In the 1980s, many funk dance styles that originally evolved separately from hip hop, such as popping and locking, started to be incorporated with the hip hop culture as well, and could be seen combined with breakdance.
[edit] New school/new style
In the 1990s, as hip hop music evolved and grew further away from funk, it got slower, heavier and more aggressive. This modern hip hop music has given birth to new styles of hip hop dancing partly inspired by the old school styles, many of them focusing on upright dancing as opposed to breakdance which is better known for its floor-oriented movements.
Some more specific styles of new school hip hop are krumping, harlem shake, snap dance, clown walk, grinding, and hyphy .
Classifying these newer hip hop styles as a unique dance style of its own has grown common with larger street dance competitions such as Juste Debout, which includes new style as a separate category for people to compete in.
Many of the newer styles of hip hop are a common sight in today's music videos on television channels such as BET and MTV.
[edit] Competitions
I DO, The International Dance Organization holds many competitions every year. The most important of them are the European Street dance Championships (which were held in Espoo, Finland this year and which will be held in Graz, Austria in 2007) and the World Championships which are held in Bremen, Germany each year.
Hoopdreamz Enterprises also holds many dance competitions throughout the southern hemisphere. Groove, the Australian state level Urban Dance Championships, is held in most state-capital cities since 2001. As recently as 2004, the competition was expanded to a national level including dance crews from New Zealand. The national level competition is known as Battlegrounds.
Juste Debout is a large, international and annual street dance competition held in Paris, which includes hip hop new style as a competition category. Breakdance is not included to give more focus to the upright hip hop and street dance styles.
[edit] Criticism
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Today, many dance studios offer hip hop classes of some sort. They might focus on a specific style such as breakdancing or combine elements of various street dance styles. As hip hop dancing is such a broad genre, the teacher has much freedom and room for personal interpretation, and often mixes various styles freely, even mixing them with other dance forms such as jazz.
Some criticize this type of teaching as being too strict and too choreographed, losing important elements such as improvisation and personal interpretation on the students' side. Because of this, some dislike labeling these dance classes as "hip hop" as it might not actually include all aspects of the traditional hip hop dances, especially when the teacher mixes it with dance styles not originally related to hip hop.
However, despite the controversy, studio-choreographed hip hop is still widely accepted today by many.
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- "Dancing on the Through-Line: Rennie Harris and the Past and Future of Hip-Hop Dance" by Jeff Chang; from the series Democratic Vistas Profiles: Essays in the Arts and Democracy
- Style2ouf - Has streetdancing guides, videos messageboards.
- MikesMoves - Learn Hip Hop Dance Moves - Has lessons, guides, videos, and pictures.
