STREET DANCE
A street dance is a dance style—regardless of country of
origin—that evolved outside dance studios in any
available open space such as streets, dance parties, block
parties, parks, school yards, raves, and nightclubs. The
term is used to describe vernacular dances in urban
context.
Vernacular dances are often improvisational and social in
nature, encouraging interaction and contact with
spectators and other dancers. These dances are a part of
the vernacular culture of the geographical area that they
come from.
The West Coast created some signature
moves to rock and funk as well. Waacking
came from the gay dance clubs that featured
1970s disco music in L.A. Locking and popping
also developed in L.A. in the 1970s and
crossed over into an umbrella hip
hop category that expanded to include a fight
style called krumping in the 1980s.
HIP-HOP?
STREETDANCE?
Hip-hop as a cultural movement began in the
Bronx in New York City in 1976, mostly among
the African-American and Latino population.
During the early 1980s, certain aspects of this
culture – for example, the clothes, language
and music – began spreading into the
mainstream population of the USA and, by the
1990's, hip-hop culture had spread
throughout the world.
This was mainly due to more groups using videos to
promote their music, which were then viewed by a wider
audience through music channels. Some consider beat
boxing to be the fifth element of the genre; others might
add fashion, slang, Double Dutching (an urban form of
rope skipping, demonstrated in Malcolm McLaren’s video
to the song Double Dutch in the early 80s), or other
elements as important facets of hip hop. In mainstream
spheres, the term “hip-hop” typically refers only to the
music produced by the MCing and DJing aspects of hip-
hop culture.
The four main aspects, or elements, of hip-hop
culture are:
• MCing (rapping)
• DJing
• Graffiti
• B-boying (known to the mainstream as break-
dancing).
MCing (rapping)
rapping is a musical form of vocal delivery that incorporates
"rhyme, rhythmic speech, and street vernacular", which is
performed or chanted in a variety of ways, usually over a
backing beat or musical accompaniment. The components
of rap include "content", "flow", and "delivery".
A disc jockey, more commonly
abbreviated as DJ, is a person
who plays existing recorded
music for a live audience. Most
common types of DJs include
radio DJ, club DJ who performs at
a nightclub or music festival and
turntablist who uses record
players, usually turntables, to
manipulate sounds on
phonograph records.
Graffiti is writing or drawings
made on a wall or other
surface, usually as a form
of artistic expression,
without permission and
within public view.
Breaking, also called breakdancing
or b-boying/b-girling, is an
athletic style of street dance.
While diverse in the amount of
variation available in the dance,
breakdancing mainly consists of
four kinds of movement: toprock,
downrock, power moves and
freezes.
What is called street dancing today
developed in a rec room party in
the Bronx in 1973 when DJ Kool
Herc mixed records, 'breaking'
and scratching them to prolong
the instrumental sections so the
dancers could show their moves
longer. The extended dance was
called breaking, and the emcee
patter that covered the breaks
became rap. Competition
heated up over fancy moves as
b-boys and b-girls worked out
their styles to funk, soul, rock
and percussion riffs in the
streets and schoolyards.
Street Styles
Breaking
Breaking, b-boying or b-girling is
often referred to as
"breakdancing," a generic
term coined by the media that
the dancers don't use.
Breaking features close-to-the-
ground improv and acrobatic
head, shoulder, back and hand
spins choreographed to hip
hop, funk and solo percussion
riffs, or "breakbeat" music. The
gravity-defying spins and
footwork came straight out of
those original parties and clubs
in 1970's Harlem and the
Bronx.
Locking and Popping
Locking and popping look similar but
they are really two distinct styles.
Locking is a kind of funk that
involves freezing a move and then
resuming it at a fast pace, a series of
rapid contractions that focus on
exaggerated arm and hand
movements.
Lockers use splits and drops to their
knees as well as interaction with the
audience. Their routines frequently
combine locking moves with
popping. Popping features jerky,
explosive moves that thrust outward
from a quick contraction. Advanced
poppers work their upper and lower
bodies at the same time.
Electronic dance music (also known
as EDM, dance music, club music,
or simply dance) is a broad range
of percussive electronic
music genres made largely
for nightclubs, raves, and festivals.
EDM is
generally produced for playback by
disc jockeys (DJs) who create
seamless selections of tracks,
called a mix, by segueing from one
recording to another. EDM
producers also perform their
music live in a concert or festival
setting in what is sometimes called
a live PA. In the United Kingdom,
EDM is more commonly called
'dance music' or simply 'dance'.
Tutting
Tutting looks like a flip book of
Egyptian frieze paintings. It's a
series of angular moves,
primarily for the arms, shoulders
and hands. The style was named
for King Tut and tutters create
intricate and improbably
perpendicular angles with their
hands and arms, syncopated to
the music. Finger tutting is an
elaborate specialty, a product of
the 1990s Big Apple rave scene.
Fingers form a series of shapes
made from 90-degree angles
and continuous moves in which
the fingers always remain
touching.
Animation
Animation is twitchy, glitchy and weird -
waves and zigzags that sweep through
the body, interrupted by constant tics
and sudden freezes into poses derived
from cartoon characters. The
Guardian describes animation as a
"jerky, freeze-frame style" in which a
dancer seems to have no bones and to
be electronically controlled. Animation
dancers such as tWitch and Spencer
have popularized the form on shows
like So You Think You Can Dance and
show their new moves in performances
and master classes at dance
conventions.
Krumping
Krumping is very fast and aggressive
hip hop dance that incorporates
locking, popping, improvisational or
freestyle moves and upright posture.
It's a bi-coastal mash-up of gang
culture and clowning. Rhythmic
bobbing and jerking, spine flexing
and chest popping are staged in
mock battles between two or more
dancers. Krumping started as
a nonviolent alternative to street
violence and has been picked up by
artists from Missy
Elliott to Madonna in music videos.
Waacking
Waacking often incorporates 1960s East
Coast voguing, and mimics signature
poses of old-time movie stars such as
Bette Davis and Lauren Bacall. It's a '70s
West Coast punk style that started in the
LGBT clubs of Los Angeles and was
popularized on the TV show Soul Train.
The freestyle diva-ish choreography is
danced to 1970s disco and music by
artists such as Diana Ross and James
Brown. Dancers show off their musicality,
sense of rhythm and emotional
interpretation with fluid arm-over-and-
behind-the-shoulder moves, fancy
footwork and voguish runway poses.
Vogue, or voguing, is a highly
stylized, modern house
dance originating in the
late 1980s that evolved out
of the Harlem ballroom
scene of the 1960s. It
gained mainstream
exposure when it was
featured in Madonna's
song and video "Vogue",
and when showcased in
the 1990 documentary
Paris Is Burning.
Vogue Fem
Vogue Fem ("Fem" is derived from the French
word femme, meaning "woman") is fluidity
at its most extreme with
exaggerated feminine movements
influenced by ballet, jazz and modern
dance. Styles of Vogue Fem performances
range from Dramatics (which emphasizes
stunts, tricks, and speed) to Soft (which
emphasizes a graceful, beautiful, and easy
flow continuations between the five
elements). There are currently five
elements of Vogue Fem:
• Duckwalk
• Catwalk
• Hands
• Floorwork
• Spins and Dips
House dance
House dance style has roots in the clubs of
Chicago and of New York. The main
elements of House dance include
Footwork, Jacking, and Lofting. House
dance is often improvisational in nature
and emphasis on fast and complex foot
oriented steps combined with fluid
movements in the torso, as well as floor
work. The major source in house dance
movement stems directly from the music
and the elements within the music such as
Jazz, African, Latin, Soul, R&B, Funk, Hip
Hop, etc. The other source is the people,
the individuals and their characteristics,
ethnicities, origin, etc. People from all
walks of life partying under one roof
provided exchanges of information (via
body language) making house dancing a
social dance.
Dancehall
Dancehall is a genre of Jamaican popular
music that originated in the late
1970s. Initially, dancehall was a more
sparse version of reggae than
the roots style, which had dominated
much of the 1970s. In the mid-1980s,
digital instrumentation became more
prevalent, changing the sound
considerably, with digital dancehall (or
"ragga") becoming increasingly
characterized by faster rhythms. Key
elements of dancehall music include its
extensive use of Jamaican Patois rather
than Jamaican standard English and a
focus on the track instrumentals (or
"riddims").
Various street dances have lent themselves to the
style of urban dance, which arose from the
collegiate dance scene. Urban dance is
choreography-oriented but is inspired by different
street dance styles and fundamental moves, such
as house, locking, and popping. Urban dance
should not be mistaken with hip hop, which is the
culture and art movement that began in the Bronx
in New York City during the late 1970s.
Risen from the musical terrain of old school New
York - block parties, raves, nightclubs - Street
Dance is naturally rooted in rap, hip hop, funk and
house, and therefore finds rhythm, poetry and
lyricism intrinsic to its energy and power. It is also
however, an evolution of traditional dance forms
like jazz, which were taken out of their
professional contexts and applied more freely in
open spaces in an ongoing urbanisation of genres.
Born from the grassroots counterculture
movement of the 80s, and rare in that it was
(and is) championed equally by men and
women, we look beyond the mass appeal of
Street Dance.
And it can really boost your health and
happiness. So here are our top 5 benefits of
street dance...
1. Enhance Your Mood
This dance form is no longer just the territory of youth who bop their
way from being disengaged to being driven - it's also an outlet for a
growing number of adults who need their own story, to express themselves
and to feel part of something. Once Street Dance came in from the cold
and made itself at home in our studios, it began to glamourise the gritty
and the primal - something that is surely worth tapping into when we're
feeling raw and need a lift.
What with the relatively recent assimilation of pop music into its repertoire
of complementary backing tracks, Street Dance can sometimes be reduced
to real life impersonating an MTV video. We think it has this wonderful
ability to get people to work hard, lose themselves, and come out the
other side feeling valued - less celebrity, more sanity, self-esteem and
sense of community.
2. Cardio That's Enjoyable
Street Dance is a fun way to cardiovascular fitness glory, as opposed to
running on a treadmill or riding a bike up a hill. If merely imagining those
activities makes you cringe, maybe it's because you hate the thought of
being mentally present during torturous forms of exercise, able to feel
every movement in your knees and hear the clock hands tick-tocking as
you lose minutes of your life in the sweat pit that is the gym.
Well one of the greatest things about Street Dance is that it not only makes
you feel fly, it makes time fly. Hard-hitting, urban choreography is busy
business, and you don't just have to be able to do a backflip to see
positive health results. With continuous practise and training you'll
eventually see a spike in your stamina. Plus you are not just allowed, but
encouraged to wear trainers!
3. Street Dance Is Versatile
Whether you want to steal some thunder and go it alone, or
make it rain as part of a crew, mastering a routine is a
rewarding experience. With Street Dance, you can learn
formations that enable you to dance to trending rap, funk,
hip hop or pop music - you know, the stuff you hear
everyday, whether it's mainstream or indie.
So basically you're sorted when it comes to taking the club
floor or attending your mate's wedding. And the next
time you hear that tune on the radio and turn it up, you will
be able to do more than just nod your head in appreciation.
4. Unleash Your Attitude
There are a lot of styles within the genre of Street Dance, from popping and
locking to breakdancing and house dance, so there's naturally a lot of room
for self-expression, and attitude. You can safely let it all out here, and
there's also a real chance of elevating your hobby, to make a profession out
of your expressiveness.
Dance battles are that much closer to your tutting fingertips. The world of
theatre is ever more open to alternative entertainment; check out
ZooNation's Mad Hatter's Tea Party for an example, recently shown at the
Roundhouse. And if you're that way inclined, there's always the talent
shows; think Diversity and Britain's Got Talent. The arena of Street Dance is
full of opportunities and on the most basic level, it's empowering - a
feeling that is multiplied when you share the experience of learning a
choreographed piece with other like-minded people.
5. A True Head To Toe Dance
While learning the basics of Street Dance, you'll work on
strengthening your hands, feet and joints - as opposed
to more traditional dances which don't always
demand complete control over the shapes made by
the extremities of your body. From creating turfing
hand illusions, which rely on wrist movements, to air-
walking, which asks for strict control of the heels -
there are many moves that require attention to the
smaller details of form and co-ordination.
This means there is both more definition and more
flexibility in your movements. That said, it's
important not to just work on technique. There
are a lot of pioneers and a load of culture that
have made up the relatively young foundations
of Street Dance; a genre that's always growing
and adapting. So don't be afraid to give it a part
of yourself too - you never know, your quirks
could become part of modern history.
