Dance:)

History of hip-hop dance

The history of hip-hop dance encompasses the people and events in the 1970s that contributed to the development of the early hip-hop dance styles of uprock, breaking, locking, popping, and electric boogaloo. Uprock and breaking were created by Black and Latino Americans in New York City. Locking, popping, and electric boogaloo—collectively referred to as the funk styles—were created by Black Americans in California. All these dance styles are different stylistically. They share common ground in their music and street origins, and in their improvisational nature which defines hip-hop dance.

More than 30 years old, hip-hop dance became widely known after the first professional breaking, locking, and popping crews formed in the 1970s. The most influential groups include the Rock Steady Crew, The Lockers, and The Electric Boogaloos who are responsible for the spread of breaking, locking, and popping respectively. The Brooklyn based dance style uprock influenced breaking early in its development. However, it never gained mainstream popularity. Electric boogaloo gained more notability due to the fact that it is the namesake of the Electric Boogaloos crew. Both are respected dance styles but neither are widely practiced.

Hip-hop dance is not a studio derived style. It is comparatively younger than ballet, ballroom dance, and modern dance and it was developed in urban neighborhoods without a formal process. All of these early substyles were brought about through a combination of events including inspirations from James Brown, DJ Kool Herc's invention of the break beat, Don Cornelius' creation of the TV show Soul Train, and the formation of street based dance crews. Events such as these were succeeded by the production of several films and international competitions which contributed to introducing hip-hop dance outside of the United States. The history of hip-hop dance is in large part oral. Author Jeff Chang describes it as such: "Hip-hop dance remains the least well documented of all the original hip-hop arts. But the dancers retain that one-to-one folkloric tradition-passing much more than any of the other arts. The dance community is close-knit and well organized, and often presents a unified front on questions of its own history.

Hip Hop Dance

While Hip Hop dancing origins are essentially from the "street," and you could learn steps by imitation or exploration, today there are Hip Hop dance classes with a dance choreographer teaching the various forms from a basic to an advanced level.  Additionally, Hip Hop classes appear in gyms and fitness clubs and are revered for their health and fitness aspects of toning muscles and providing a cardio workout. 

Hip Hop dance involves complex movements that are broken down into counts where, usually, for every count an individual movement is executed.  These movements involve a combination of three styles and can be performed individually with improvisational movement or as a group incorporating improvisational movement with set choreography. Hip Hop dancing is vigorous and helps in the building and maintenance of balance, stamina, and strength.  Warm-up exercises are recommended before learning the various movements.  

Todays Hip Hop dance is very diverse.  With influences from movies such as You Got Served and Hip Hop music stars from both the East and West Coast, the style is ever changing.  However, the basic ideas of Hip Hop dancing will always be the same and keeping time to the music and dancing with control are necessary.  Here at Hip Hop instruction, we offer a selection of Hip Hop dance DVD and videos that will teach you all the latest moves and styles.  Our Hip Hop dance videos are broken down into various levels and curriculums. 

K-12 DANCE PROGRAM

The K12 Dance Program is for kids looking to be exposed to a healthy form of clean Hip Hop dancing.  This program is great for after school programs, gym classes, dance teams, and even warm up exercises. It is geared towards a school system versus a dance school. Please note that the dance moves are the same, just fewer levels at a more cost effective price.

With the K12 Dance Program`s easy to follow, and very meticulous, manual, you will be able to easily teach your students how to dance in no time.  This dance program contains three levels of dancing that could give you enough material for up to 2-years without having to repeat moves.  It is challenging and fun for students of all ages and dance background.  The K12 Dance Program combines written descriptions with pictures and easy to follow DVD`s.  It is easy to learn and to pass on to your students.  We also include interactive student programs to help each student track their progress as well as pre-made dances in case you are stuck.  Our approach to Hip Hop is methodical and detailed when compared to the everyday "Try to copy what I do" approach.  Dancers will understand how Hip Hop dancing works which will give them a greater sense of accomplishment after dance class.

 

Hip Hop Dancing

Hip Hop dancing is very popular with many people and it can jazz up your dance instruction.  From dancing at clubs, dance recitals, or even cheer dance squads, everyone wants to learn a new move or routine that will stand out to their audiences and move them away from the average dancer category, and into the group to remember!

Our website offers a new curriculum for instructors that will make the dance classes fun and help your students to feel accomplished and to see improvement in their dancing and confidence level.  Teaching your students something that freshens their perspective and brings energy to their steps can transition them from adequate to excellent, just by giving them something new and challenging.  Who does not want that for their students?

HIP HOP ORIGINS

While Hip Hop dancing origins are essentially from the "street," and you could learn steps by imitation or exploration, today there are Hip Hop dance classes with a dance choreographer teaching the various forms from a basic to an advanced level.  Additionally, Hip Hop classes appear in gyms and fitness clubs and are revered for their health and fitness aspects of toning muscles and providing a cardio workout. 

Hip Hop dancing involves complex movements that are broken down into counts where, usually, for every count an individual movement is executed.  These movements involve a combination of three styles and can be performed individually with improvisational movement.  In addition, it is done as a group, incorporating improvisational movement with set choreography.  Hip Hop dancing is vigorous and helps in the building and maintenance of balance, stamina, and strength.  Warm-up exercises are recommended before learning the various movements.  

Today`s Hip Hop dancing is very diverse.  With influences from movies such as You Got Served and from various rap start from both east and west coast, the style is ever changing.  However, the basic ideas of Hip Hop dancing will always be the same and keeping time to the music and dancing with control are necessary.  Here at Hip Hop instruction, we offer a selection of Hip Hop dance DVD and videos that will teach you all the latest moves and styles.  Our Hip Hop dance videos are broken down into various levels and curriculums. 

Our Hip Hop dance education package helps each student to set and reach new goals for themselves, as they document their progression through the program.  Our programs offer many different moves and styles to varying beats.  With dance formations for anywhere from five to eighteen dancers, the possibilities are endless when it comes to putting together a showcase for your students.

You can help bring a contemporary feel and flow to your students` dance programs by giving them an exciting and energetic new program that will help them, no matter what their dancing goals are.  Students can create their own steps and routines, and gauge their own improvement as they taker the initiative and strive for improvement.

Popping 

Popping is a dance style and one of the original funk styles of dance that came out of Fresno, CA in the 1970s.^[1] It is based on the technique of quickly contracting and relaxing muscles to cause a jerk in the dancer's body, referred to as a pop, tick or a hit. This is done continuously to the rhythm of a song in combination with various movements and poses.^[1] Popping is also used as an umbrella term to refer to a group of closely related illusionary dance styles and techniques that are often integrated with popping to create a more varied performance, but it is distinct from break-dancing, with which popping is often confused. A popping dancer is commonly referred to as a popper.

Like other styles of street dance, popping is often performed in a battle trying to outperform another dancer or group of dancers in front of a crowd. This gives room for improvisation and moves that are seldom seen in shows and performances (also referred to as freestyling). It also allows for interaction with the other contestants and spectators.

Terminology

As stated earlier, popping has become an umbrella term for a group of closely related styles and techniques that have often been combined or danced together with popping, some of which are seldom seen outside of popping contexts.^[2] However, the use of popping as an umbrella term has been criticized on the grounds that its many related styles must be clearly separated so that those who specialize in more specific styles aren't classified as poppers (ex: a waver, a tutter, a strober).^[1]

It is often assumed that popping is a style of breakdance. This is due in large part to the movies Breakin' and Breakin 2: Electric Boogaloo. In these movies all styles of dance represented, (breaking and the funk styles: popping, locking, and electric boogaloo) were put under the "breakdance" label causing a naming confusion. This caused the media to associate funk styles with hip hop music and assume that popping and electric boogaloo were the same as breaking. The difference between the two is that breaking originated in the Bronx, New York and is danced on the floor while popping and boogaloo came out of Fresno, CA and are danced standing up.

Characteristics

Popping is centered around the technique of popping (or hitting), which means to quickly contract and relax muscles to create a jerking effect (a pop or hit) in the body. Popping can be concentrated to specific body parts creating variants such as arm pops, leg pops, chest pops and neck pops. They also can vary in explosiveness. Stronger pops normally involve popping both the lower and upper body simultaneously.

Normally pops, or hits, are performed at regular intervals (the intervals can also be irregular if the dancer wants to avoid "the old one two", which refers to popping to the same beat continuously without any variation) intervals timed to the beat of the music, causing the dance to appear very rhythmic in nature. A common technique of transitioning between poses is the dime stop, heavily utilized in robot dancing, which basically means to end a movement with an abrupt halt (thus "stopping on a dime"), after which a pop normally occurs.

Poses in popping make heavy use of angles, mime style movements and facial expressions. The lower body has many ways to move around from basic walking and stepping to the more complex and gravity defying styles of floating and electric boogaloo. Movements and techniques used in popping are generally focused on sharp contrasts, being either robotic and rigid or very loose and flowing.

As opposed to breaking and its floor-oriented moves, popping is almost always performed standing up, except in rare cases when the dancer goes down on the knees or even lies down for a short while to perform a special move.

Music

Having its roots in the late 1970s funk music era, popping is commonly danced to funk and disco. During the 1980s, many poppers also utilized “electro” and other “new wave” styles to choreograph their popping routines. Popular artists utilized by poppers included Kraftwerk, Twighlight 22, Egyptian Lover, and World Class Wrecking Crew. More mainstream Rap was also employed by poppers during the 1980s, including Kurtis Blow, Whodini, and Run DMC. Today, it is also common to see popping danced to more current music genres such as modern hip hop music (often instrumental hip hop) and various forms of electronica.

Songs that are generally favored have a straight and steady beat at around 90-120 beats per minute, a 4/4 time signature and a strong emphasis on the back beat, normally by a snare drum or a drum machine. The pops performed by the popper normally occur on every beat or on the distinct back beats. The popper can also choose to follow the music more freely such as by timing the pops to the rhythm of a melody or other rhythmic elements.