So I was just watching the first 10 minutes of stomp the yard and I thought why not talk about the roots of hip hop dance today. So your hip hop lessons for today is going back to the roots of hip hop dance.
Hip Hop dance refers to a style of dance that is primarily danced to hip hop music, and evolved as part of the hip hop culture. Now hip hop is not just one style of dance, it includes a wide range of styles and is not limited to breaking, popping, locking, krumping and the most recent style Beat Kune Do which really come to the main stream in 2008, thanks to the dance crew Jabbawockeez.
According to 4 articles and Wikipedia breaking, locking and popping was developed in the 1970's by African and Latino Americans. Now honestly I don't believe in these fact's as I believe that hip hop culture and style was around long before 1970's. My research suggests that hip hop was around in Africa and America around the 1950's/1960's except it was on the streets. My observations over about 15-16 books and a few internet resources, it seems that hip hop was really not recognized till 1970's.
Now Wikipedia believes that krumping followed in the 1990's in Los Angeles, to be honest I not to sure about these facts but if someone has an idea because I reckon hip hop krumping has more than 29 years history (2009) I would have a guess about the same time as breaking, locking and popping.
What separates the hip hop dance style from other forms of dance like jazz and contemporary is that hip hop is often improvisational (freestyle). Often hip hop dancers and artist will compete in team or one on one battles, these styles of dance are usually performed in a Cipher (a circular dance space). You can see these forms of circles on movies such as Stomp The Yard, Step Up , Step Up 2 and You Got Served. This cipher naturally forms naturally once the dance or battle starts taking place.
Hip hop dance has now grown to be practiced both in and out of the studios. To some people hip hop has become a way of life, for fitness, a hobby, competitive dancing and also a profession for people like Jack Johnson who you can learn a few hip hop moves at my hip hop lessons .com.
The Main Styles of Hip Hop:
Hip Hop Lessons - Breaking/ B-Boying, B-Girl, B-boy (short for break boy or break girl):
According to wikipedia this style of hip hop dance appeared in the 1970's in New York City, due to the status of this style of hip hop it is considered to be the most purest form of hip hop dancing. This Breaking style has five elements to it's form of hip hop.
1. Toprock: Which are dance moves done while standing up
2. Brooklyn Uprock: similar to Toprock but are more confrontational form where two opponents face each other and engage in a "war dance" or a "battle"
3. Downrock: hip hop breaking are dance moves on the floor.
4. Freezes: These are poses that can be done on your hands or feat in which you stop a current move and hold it there.
5. Power Moves: The most difficult and most impressive centerpiece moves.
Hip Hop Lessons - Funk Styles:
Unfortunately their is not much credible information on funk styles, but what I have found out is that the funk style of hip hop
Is a group of dance styles that originated in California in the 1970's (the Funk Era). This was introduced by Don Campbell and Sam Solomon. Solomon introduced popping and electric boogaloo, in which he performed these moves with his crew the Electric Boogaloos. and Campbell introduced locking which was originally called Campbellocking, who performed with the Lockers. These 2 styles of funk hip hop where mostly danced to mambo, soul and R&B. It seems that this style lost popularity after the 1970's, however it is still a respected dance form.
Hip Hop Lessons - Popping:
popping is based on the technique of quickly contracting and relaxing muscles to cause a jerk in the dancer's body, often referred to as a pop or hit. Popping also incorporates other forms such as strobing, liquid animation, gliding, tutting, floating, (ro)boting and waving to give a more varied performance. Each individual form of popping varies slightly due to the type of popping taking place. E.g. When waving the dancer does not even look like the are popping, however when ro(boting) where the body is made to move like a robot would.
Hip Hop Lessons - Locking:
Modern locking looks similar to popping and thus gets confused with popping. You cannot perform locking and popping move at the same time. Locking is similar to popping however it uses the "lock" which is similar to a freeze or a sudden pause. With this you lock in place and after a quick pause you move again.
Hip Hop Lessons - Krumping:
Krumping according to wikipedia appeared in Los Angeles during the 1990's, unlike any other style of hip hop krumping is entirely freestyle and is rarely choreographed and mostly performed in battles within a cipher. The four primary moves are Wobbles. arm swings, chest pop's and stomps.
In krumping the arms and torso pump aggressively to the music, it focuses on highly energetic battles and movements that are intense, face-paced and sharp.
So Stomp the Yard has almost finished and they are almost up to the best part the finals, so I am off to watch the and thanks for reading my hip hop history and don't forget to visit my website my hip hop lessons .com for your one stop place for all things hip hop.
No comments:
Post a Comment