Hip Hop

Hip hop is a form of musical expression and artistic subculture that originated in African-American and Hispanic-American communities during the 1970's in New York City, especially in the Bronx. The range of movement includes breaking, locking and popping, which have been made popular by dance crews in the United States. "Breaking"'s earliest form began as an elaboration on James Brown's "Good Foot" dance, which came out in 1972. While breaking was emerging in New York, other styles were developing in California. The funk styles refers to several steet dance styles created in California in the 1970s that were dance to funk music. These styles include roboting, bopping, hitting, locking, bustin', popping, electic boogaloo, strutting, sac-ing, dime-stopping etc. African Americans Don Campbell and Sam Solomon created the most popular and widely spread styles of popping and locking which spread through the television show Soul Train. I have recently become very fascinated with lyrical hip hop, through So You Think You Can Dance and through some of the play's choreography. Lyrical hip-hop is a fluid and more interpretive version of hip-hop. According to British hip-hop choreographer Kate Prince, it is "hip-hop with emotion." The term was first coined by Adam Shankman, a judge and choreographer for So You Think You Can Dance. Here is a definition of lyrical hip-hop from Dance Spirit magazine: "What makes lyrical hip hop unique is that your dance movements have to tell a story to the lyrics of a song. Expect isolations (especially of the chest), slow, fluid movements (like gliding and body waves) and contemporary-inspired turns (but not pirouettes). There’s popping, but not the hard-hitting kind. Dancers are meant to look like they’re unwinding, unraveling and floating." I think my attraction to hip hop in general stems from my lack of training. Hip hop has always been something that I could do with my sense of rhythm, regardless of my inability to double pirouette or fouetté. Lyrical hip hop combines knowledge I have acquired from modern dance classes and emotional techniques I have learned from acting classes with my innate hip hop instincts. Hip hop, along with other dance styles, is a wonderful energy release. Sometimes throwing myself around jerkily helps express myself more than with pointed toes and a straight back. Here are a couple of videos of lyrical hip hop and regular hip hop. The second video is from my favorite hip hop company Mega Jam.


Chelsie & Mark: Bleeding Love


Telephone: Mega Jam