Lecture on Hip Hop Dance

A. Hip-hop dance refers to social or choreographed dance which is primarily

danced to hip-hop music.

1. Hip-hop dance includes a variety of styles ranging from breaking, locking, and

popping which evolved in the 1970's by Black Americans.

2. The distinguishing characteristic of hip-hop is improvisation and battles and

dance competitions. These are usually performed in a cipher, which is a circular

dance.

a. Freestyling, battles and ciphers are the key components of hip-hop.

3. The most influential groups are The Lockers, the Rock Steady Crew and the

Electric Boogaloos who are credited for the spread of locking, breaking and popping

respectively.

4.The dances, The Running Man, and The Cabbage Patch became main stream and

were fad dances with funk style influences.

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5. The dance industry responded with studio/commercial hip-hop which is

sometimes called new style or L.A. style and jazz funk. Classically trained dancers

developed these styles to create choreography to hip-hop music and because of this

development, hip-hop is now practiced at both studios and outside spaces.

B. Internationally, hip-hop dance has had a strong influence in France and South

Korea.

1. France is the birthplace of Techtonik a style of house dance from Paris similar to

popping and breaking.

a. France is also the home of Juste Debout, an international hip-hop dance

competition.

b. South Korea is home to the international breaking competition R-16 which is

sponsored by the government and broadcast every year on Korean television.

1. Korean hip-hop dancers have been designated official ambassadors of Korean

culture.

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C. Hip-hop ranges from professional dance to make a living to competitive dance as

well as a way to keep physically fit or for a hobby.

D. The birth of breaking began in the early 1970s as people mimicked the way that

James Brown danced on T.V.

1. Clive Campbell, known as DJ Kool Herc was a Jamaican American DJ who spun

records at neighborhood teen age parties in the Bronx.

a. While waiting for records to finish, DJ Kool Herc noticed people waiting for

certain parts of the record where there was an instrumental break in the songs and

the people would get wild dancing. He zeroed in on the break of the record

dropping out the melody and chorus and just playing the instrumental break. People

wanted to hear break after break for dancing.

1. Herc developed the Merry-Go-Round technique to extend the breaks of

percussion or instrumental solos within a longer work of music. His technique was

to play the break on one turntable and then repeat the break on a second turntable

and he could extend this for as long as he wanted by looping the records.

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a. During this time, dancers became known as the break-boys or b-boys and would

perform what is known as breaking.

1. Breaking started out as toprock, which is footwork dance movements performed

while standing up. Toprock is usually performed before a breakers performance

that transitions into other dance moves performed on the floor.

2. Uprock dance style has its roots in gangs and comes from Brooklyn, New York

and is more aggressive than toprock and has movements that imitate fighting.

a. When there was an issue over territory, two warlords of the feuding gangs would

uprock and whoever won the dance battle would decide where the real fight would

be held.

b. Uprocks purpose was to moderate gang violence and because of this never made

its way into mainstream except for very specific moves used by breakers as a

variation for their toprock.

3. From toprock, breaking progresses with the formations of new moves and then

the formation of crews which were groups of street dancers who would get together

and create dance routines.

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a. Crews are composed of friends and families and no one auditions. Rehearsals

are generally in the home or on the streets.

E. Rock Steady Crew (RSC) is the most famous breaking crew in the world and

one of the oldest along with Afrika Bambaataas Might Zulu Kings.
1. Richard Crazy Legs Coln opened a Manhattan chapter of the crew and later

made his friends co vice-presidents.

a. Rock Steady appeared in the movies Wild Style and Beat Street which are

80s films about hip-hop culture. They have also performed at the Ritz, the Kennedy

Center and appeared on the Jerry Lewis Telethon. RSC is now worldwide with

member units in Japan, the United Kingdom and Italy.

2. Although there appear to be similarities between Capoeira, an Afro-Brazilian

martial art form which is a form of self defense disguised as dance, there are major

differences between Capoeira and breaking and uprock. The marital arts is

performed to music but in Capoeira, a competitors back can never touch the

ground and a breakers back is continually on the ground. There is also no

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evidence to trace that there was an influence of this martial art form in the South

Bronx.

F. Funk Styles and the California Renaissance

1. Funk originated in the 70s in California and was danced to funk music rather
than hip-hop and funk is slightly older than hip-hop and came about with the

formation of crews.

a. The Lockers were founded in Los Angeles by Don Campbellock Campbell

who created locking. The Lockers began as al black males but later women and

Latinos were added because of complaints of the lack of racial diversity. Toni Basil

belonged and was both choreographer and manager.

b. The Electric Boogaloos are another funk style crew founded in Fresno by Sam

Boogaloo Solomon. He is credited with developing popping and electric

boogaloo.

1. Popping got its name from Boogaloo Sam because when he was performing it, he

would say, pop, pop, pop as he was popping his muscles to the music.

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2. The bugal was created in New York by Cubans and Puerto Ricans and danced

to mambo, soul and Rhythm and Blues music.

3. Electric boogaloo is a dance characterized by rolling hip, knee and head

movements and popping. It lost its popularity in the 70s but is still a respected

dance form.

4. In Oakland, California, there was a style known as struttin. This style became a

fad and then faded away and never became mainstream.

a. After the year 2000, Oakland dance style was called turfing a fusion of mimin

and gliding with emphasis on story telling.

5. In L.A. there is a style called jerkin.

6. Krumping came about in the late 90s within the African American communities

of Compton, Ca. It was only seen and practiced in the Los Angeles Metro area until

it gained mainstream exposure in several music videos.

7. Clowning less aggressive than krumping and is not to be confused with the

clown walk. Clowning was created in 1992 by Tommy the Clown and Tommy and

his dancers would paint their faces and perform clowning for children at birthday

parties and other functions as a form of entertainment. The difference between

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clowning and krumping is that krumping focuses on highly energetic battles

and movements which are sharp, intense and fast-paced.

8. The cultural similarities of street dancing, funk styles and breaking have brought

them together under the subculture of hip-hop and this has kept them alive and

evolving today.

G. Breaking is considered the purest form of hip-hop and although created by Black

Americans, the Latinos have kept the momentum going.

1.Breaking includes four foundational dances

a. Toprock which is footwork oriented steps performed while standing up.

b. Downrock which is footwork performed on the floor using the hands to support

the body weight.

c. Freezes which are stylish poses done on your hands.

d. Power moves which are difficult and impressive acrobatic moves.

e. In breaking, the traditional cipher is the Apache line where opposing crews can

face each other in the line formation and execute their burns.

H. Locking was created in Los Angeles by Don Campbell and introduced to the

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country by his crew The Lockers. Modern locking looks similar to popping and

gets confused with popping, but in locking the dancer holds the position longer.

1. The movement lock is similar to a freeze or a sudden pause. A locking dancers

consistently locks in one place and after a quick pause moves again. It is incorrect

to call it pop-locking because locking and popping are two distinct funk styles.

I. Popping was created by Sam Solomon in Fresno, California and performed by his

crew the Electric Boogaloos. It is based on the technique of quickly contracting and
relaxing the muscles to cause a jerk in the dancers body referred to as a pop or a

hit and each hit is synchronized to the rhythm and the beats of the music.

1. Popping is also used as an umbrella term to include a wide range of closely

related dances to add a varied performance. Some of these sub varieties are

strobing, liquid, animation and waving distinguished by the time of the pause used

for the movement or as in liquid, the body is smooth and fluid and does not appear

to look like popping at all.

2. Before the term hip-hop, each style of dancing created by a group had a name for

their movements and was specific to a region and a group and sometimes

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called jazz and sometimes given a name based on the movement like slithering and

writhing or waving and sliding.

J. International competitions

1. Battle of the year started in Germany in 1990 and is exclusively a breaking

competition for crews.

2. B-Boy Summit is an international four dance conference created in 1994 in San

Diego California. The conference includes a breaking competition, panels,

workshops and a marketplace and emphasis on the history of hip-hop culture and its

roots.
3. There is also UK B-Boy Championships in London, Freestyle Session in United

States, The Notorious IBE in Holland, United Dance Organization in the UK, Juste

Debout in Paris, France, Hip Hop International in the United States, Red Bull BC

One held in a different country every year and R16 Korea held in South Korea.

K. The impact of hip-hop

1. Hip hop novelty and fad dance are popularized dance moves rather than

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dance styles. Many types of dances which are popularized by musical artists and

performed in nightclubs are categorized in the house dance category rather that hip-

hop.

J. Crews are still formed based on friendships and neighborhoods as well as theme,

gender, ethnicity and dance styles. It is not unusual for dancers to belong to

different crews in order to stay well rounded in technique and conditioning.

K. The dance industry responded to hip-hop dance by creating a more commercial

version of it.

1. Studio hip-hop is sometimes called new style or L.A. style.

2. For a hip-hop purist, anything that does not originate from the streets but might
look like hip-hop is not true hip-hop because the genesis for it is not from the

streets.

a. Many hip-hop dancers see jazz dancers copying the moves of hip-hop without

knowledge of the meaning or the culture and only doing the steps.

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3. From a technical standpoint, hip-hop dance (new style) is characterized as hard-

hitting with flexibility and isolations of a certain body part independently from

others. The feet are grounded, the chest is down and the body is kept loose so that a

dance can easily alternate between hitting the beat or riding through the beat. New

style hip-hop is rhythmic and emphasis is placed on musicality and being able to

freestyle.

4. Jazz funk is another style created by the dance industry which is also called

street jazz and is a blending of hip-hop and jazz dance. In jazz funk, there are no

dance reference to ballet whereas classical jazz relies heavily upon ballet

movements.

5. Hip-hop classes and dancer wear is now offered on the traveling circuit that used

to only feature ballet, tap and jazz.

6. Lyrical hip-hop is unique in that the movements have to tell a story and is fluid
and uses inspired turns as well as popping but not the hard-hitting kind. Some hip-

hop dancers feel that the interpretive softer style is not hip-hop at all but others feel

that it is hip-hop but not different enough to be in its own category.

7. Hip-hop is now recognized by dancers and trainers as a form of exercise and

conditioning and is an excellent workout.

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