HIP HOP AND STREET DANCE

Street dance refers to dance styles that have evolved outside of dance studios. It is
performed in streets, dance parties, parks, school yards, or in any available space. It is often
improvisational and social in nature, encouraging interaction and contact with spectators
and other dancers.

A full street dance is a collection of various similar dance moves and styles put together
into one practice and regarded as the same dance.

Hip Hop culture originated in New York amongst young Hispanic and African American
communities during the late 1960's. Synonymous with rap, scratch music and graffiti art,
the style encompasses the movements of break-dancing and body-popping, and has been
internationally recognized since the 1970's. . Hip-hop dance, on the other hand, refers to
street dance styles primarily performed to hip-hop music or that have evolved as part of
hip-hop culture. Hip-hop music incorporates a number of iconic elements, most notably
DJing and rapping, along with things like beat boxing, sampling, and juggling beats on
turntables.

The 1980's saw the emergence of a new style of hip hop into rap videos, distinguished from
original break dancing styles by its concentration on footwork as opposed to acrobatics.
Hereafter, the emergence of house music saw hip hop re-invent itself again with a broader
range of influences and freer expression.

Dance Styles
Popping
Popping was popularized by Samuel Boogaloo Sam Solomon and his crew the Electric
Boogaloos. It is based on the technique of quickly contracting and relaxing muscles to cause
a jerk in a dancer’s body. Popping forces parts of your body outwards, similar to an
explosion within parts of your body. Popping also contracts muscles, but it is followed by
relaxation that gives it the jerking appearance of popping.

Locking
Locking or campbellocking, was created by Don Campbellock Campbell in 1969 in Los
Angeles, California. It was popularized by his crew, The Lockers. It is a style of funk and
street dance and originally danced to traditional funk music such as James Brown.

Locking can be identified by its distinctive stops. It is usually performed by stopping the
fast movement that you are doing, locking your body into a position, holding it, and then
continuing at the same speed as before. In locking, dancers hold their positions longer. The
lock is the primary move used in locking. It is similar to a freeze or a sudden pause. A
locker’s dancing is characterized by frequently locking in place and after a brief freeze
moving again.

Krumping
Krumping is a form of dancing that originated in the African-American community of South
Central Los Angeles, California and is a relatively new form of the “Urban” Black dance
movement. It is free, expressive and highly energetic. Most people paint their faces in
different designs. Krumping is a dance style to release anger. It is reported that gang riots
in the United States decreased because of krumping style.
Tutting
It is a creative way of making geometric shapes forming right angle using your body parts.
The style was originally practiced by young funk dancers. It is derived from the positions
people were drawn in during the days of the Ancient Egyptians. It is the positions seen in
these portraits that have been adopted by dancers today. Tutting is still a greatly respected
move and King Tut aka Mark Benson is widely acclaimed for pioneering the style.

Shuffling
The Melbourne Shuffle (also known as Rocking or simply The Shuffle) is a rave and club
dance that originated in the late 1980s in the underground rave music scene in Melbourne,
Australia. The basic movements of the dance are a fast heel-and- toe action with a style
suitable for various types of electronic music. Some variants incorporate arm movements.
People who dance the shuffle are often referred to as rockers, due in part to the popularity
of shuffling to rock music in the early 1990s.

Waacking
Waacking” is an African American form of street dance originating from the 1970’s disco
era of the underground club scenes in Los Angeles and New York City. Waacking consists of
stylized posing and fast synchronized arm movements to the beat of the music. Today,
waacking is a popular element of hip hop dance.

Electric Boogie
Electric boogie is a style of popping (ticking) but the major difference is that Popping
creates a soft wave whereas Electric Boogie creates more jerky waves with micro wave
moves, executed with a high velocity more difficult than classical popping. The Robot, and
the more smooth and controlled movements of mime are characteristic. Instead of
throwing the body in and out of control like locking, or in total hydraulic control like The
Robot, energy is passed through the body popping and snapping elbows, wrists, necks, hips
and just about all the body joints along the way. Electric Boogaloo is more like mime in the
sense that it imitates a live wire of electrical current or rippling river, but it still needs the
control of The Robot to give it style.

Breakdance / B-Boying
Breaking or b-boying, commonly called breakdancing, is a style of dance that evolved as
part of hip-hop culture among Black and Latino American youths in the South Bronx during
the 1970s. It is danced to both hip-hop and other genres of music that are often remixed to
prolong the musical breaks. A practitioner of this dance is called a b-boy, b-girl, or breaker.
Although the term breakdance is frequently used to refer to the dance, b-boying and
breaking are the original terms.

Four Movements:
Toprock footwork - oriented steps, upright dancing and shuffles performed while
standing up.

Downrock footwork - footwork dancing performed with both hands and feet on the floor.

Freeze - stylish poses done on your hands that breakers throw into their dance sets to add
punctuation to certain beats and end their routines.

Power moves - impressive acrobatic moves that comprises full-body spins and rotations
on the floor or in the air that give the illusion of defying gravity.
Uprock
The term breakdancing, though commonly used, is frowned upon by those immersed in
hip-hop culture because the term created by the media to describe what was called
breaking or b-boying in the street. The majority of the art form’s pioneers and most notable
practitioners refer to the dance as b-boying.

Uprock is a soulful, competitive street dance using the rhythms of Soul, and Funk music.
The dance consists of foot shuffles, spins, turns, freestyle movements, sudden body
movements called "jerks" and hand gestures called "burns". Uprock is said to be mastered
with discipline, patience, heart, soul, and knowledge.

Funk
Funk dancing originated on the West coast of the United States, where it developed in the
late 60’s as a reaction to the fusion of Soul and Disco, as well as early R’n’B and Hip Hop
music.
It is a highly choreographed dance form, similar to dances seen on commercial video clips.
It features a mixture of sharp and fluid movements, popping & locking and animated
expression.

Liquid Dancing
Liquid dancing (or liquiding) is a form of gestural dance that sometimes involves
pantomime. The term invokes the word liquid to describe the fluid-like motion of the
dancers’ body and limbs. It is primarily the dancers’ arms and hands which are the focus,
though more advanced dancers work in a full range of body movements. Liquid dancing is
similar to the styles of popping or locking.

Boogaloo
A fluid style, that uses every part of the body and involves using angles and smooth
movements to make everything flow together. It often uses rolling of the hips, knees, and
the head and is often used as a transition.

Ragga
This is a dance style originating (in the late 70’s) from street dance by Afrojamaïcans,
Afrocarabians, which uses music which evolved from classical Reggae with a hip hop
influence. The style used is a combination between hip hop moves, afro moves with latin
influences with sensuality. It requires very good physical condition, as many muscles are
involved in the Raggajam, particularly in the lower part of the body. Correct execution
requires good technique.

House Dance
House is a group of dance styles primarily danced to house music that have roots in the
clubs of Chicago in the late 70’s and early 80’s. The main styles include Footwork, Jacking
and Lofting. Like hip hop dance it was created by black and Latino Americans and is often
improvisational in nature. It emphasizes fast and complex foot oriented steps combined
with fluid movements in the torso.

House dance incorporates movements from many other sources such as Capoeira, tap, jazz,
bebop, and salsa. It includes a variety of techniques and sub-styles that include skating,
stomping, and shuffling. One of the primary elements in house dancing is a technique called
jacking and involves moving the torso forward and backward in a rippling motion, as if a
wave were passing through it. This movement is repeated and sped up to match the beat of
a song. This technique is the most important movement in house dancing. All footwork in
house dancing is said to initiate from the way the jack moves the center of gravity through
space. Other than footwork, jacking, and lofting, house dance has grown to include other
related styles such as vogue, waacking and hustle.
Lyrical
Lyrical hip-hop is a fluid and more interpretive version of new style hip-hop most often
danced to downtempo rap music or R&B music. Lyrical is "hip-hop with emotion". It
focuses more on choreography and performance and less on freestyles and battles.

The name lyrical comes from the word "lyrics" because dancers use the lyrics of a song or
instrumental music to inspire them to do certain movements or show expression. The goal
of a lyrical dancer is to use gesture, facial expression, and controlled movements in order to
execute their movements and emotions fully. Besides emotional connection to music,
lyrical dance typically encourages use of articulation, line, weight, and movement qualities.

Stepping
Stepping or step-dancing is a form of percussive dance in which the participant's entire
body is used as an instrument to produce complex rhythms and sounds through a mixture
of footsteps, spoken word, and hand claps. Though stepping may be performed by an
individual, it is generally performed by groups of three or more, often in arrangements that
resemble military formations.

Stepping may also draw from elements of gymnastics, tap dance, march, or African and
Caribbean dance, or include semi-dangerous stunts as a part of individual routines. Some
forms of stepping include the use of props, such as canes, rhythm sticks and/or fire and
blindfolds.

The tradition of African stepping is rooted within the competitive schoolyard song and
dance rituals practiced by historically African American fraternities and sororities,
beginning in the mid-1900s

Free Running
Free running or freerunning is a form of urban acrobatics in which participants, known as
free runners, use the city and rural landscape to perform movements through its
structures. It incorporates efficient movements from parkour, adds aesthetic vaults and
other acrobatics, such as tricking and street stunts, creating an athletic and aesthetically
pleasing way of moving. It is commonly practiced at gymnasiums and in urban areas (such
as cities or towns) that are cluttered with obstacles.

The term free running was coined during the filming of Jump London, as a way to present
parkour to the English-speaking world. However, the term free running has come to
represent a separate, distinct concept to parkour — a distinction which is often missed due
to the aesthetic similarities. Parkour as a discipline emphasizes efficiency, whilst free
running embodies complete freedom of movement — and includes many acrobatic
maneuvers. Although the two are often physically similar, the mindsets of each are vastly
different.

The founder and creator of Free running Sébastien Foucan defines free running as a
discipline to self-development, following your own way, which he developed because he
felt that parkour lacked enough creativity and self-expression as a definition of each free-
runner to follow your own way.

Punking
This style came in 1970s from the West coast, directly Los Angeles, where it was developed
in clubs and underground scene. Punking was first spotted in gay clubs in Hollywood.
Dancers began to represent it on television and it became well-known thanks to Soul
Train. Punking then became a part of many shows from Hollywood to Las Vegas.

Some of the first dancers of punking : Billy Goodson, Tinker, Lanny and Aka Micheal Angelo,
Adolfo "Shabba Doo" Quinones, also dancers from the group Dancing Machine, which was
founded in 1975 by Jeff Kutachem, who later created the show , called Splash in Las Vegas.
Show was danced in the 70s and early 80s. Dance Machine was dancing this show,
members were: Stever' Sugarfoot 'Notario, Gino, Dino, SugarBop, Fast Freddy, Topaz Lanet,
Diane, Flame, Dallas and Ana 'Lollipop' Sanchez.

Voquing
Vogue is a form of modern dance, as well as waacking and was created by the gay
community. The style is inspired by photos of models in poses in various positions such as
posturing hands, feet, body movements in linear, angular and precise, fixed position.

Inspirational material for the dancers were fashion magazines like Vogue, Elle ... which
often drew inspiration from photos of extravagant models. This style of dance arose from
Harlem ballrooms by African Americans and Latino Americans in the early 1960s. It was
originally called "presentation" and later "performance”.

Old Way (pre- 1980)

is characterized by the formation of symmetrical and precise lines, creating a wonderful

variable action with proper attitude. Egyptian hieroglyphs and fashion poses serve as the
original inspirations for old way voguing

New Way (1990)

is characterized by a more precise geometric patterns associated movements called "Click"

(arm twisting in the joint) and "arms control" (agility hands and wrist illusions, which
usually make "tut" or "tutting" and locking or stopping movement. New Way can also be
described as a modified form of mime. Where imaginary geometric shapes such as boxes,
are presented during the move, that move progressively around the body of dancer and
showing dancers dexterity.

Vogue Fem (started around 1985)

is largest extreme flexibility and fluidity, exaggerated feminine movements, influenced by

ballet, modern dance and in the case of "dramatic" Vogue Fem, emphasize jumps and tricks.
Vogue also includes other forms of dance moves such as: Modern jazz, ballet, gymnastics,
martial arts, break dancing, yoga ... Some dance historians even point out that breakdance
and vogue evolved together in a bilateral loan of movement, with artists from both parties
interacting one another in Central Park, Christopher Street pier, Harlem and Washington
Square Park.