Dance Styles

Hip Hop

Fathers of Hip Hop: Grandmaster Flash, Kool Herc and Afrika Bambaataa

Hip hop dance refers to dance styles, mainly street dance styles, primarily danced to hip hop music, or that have evolved as a part of the hip hop culture.

By its widest definition, it can include a wide arrange of styles such as breaking, popping, locking, punking, waacking, soul, krumping, and even house dance. It can also include the many styles simply labelled as hip hop, old school hip hop (or hype), hip hop new style and freestyle.

- Wikipedia.com

Bboying/Bgirling/Breaking (Breakdancing)

Frosty Freeze and the Rock Steady Crew

Breaking, b-boying or b-girling is a street dance style that evolved as part of the hip hop movement among African American and Puerto Rican youths in Manhattan and the South Bronx of New York City during the early 1970s. It is normally danced to pop, funk or hip hop music, often remixed to prolong the breaks.

- Wikipedia.com

This dance was originally called b-boying and that it came out of a gang style dance called “rockin” that started circa late 60s, early 70s. B-boying came into its own in the late 70s. It’s a legitimate dance form that has its own foundation of moves such as the six step, as well as various styles such as toprock, footwork and power. But unlike other dance forms, this is the only dance that’s core has a very serious competitive element that inspires self-expression. Furthermore, there are no real steps because of it. The dance is totally designed around the music and its mostly improvised. This is a dance that encourages individuality. A dancer can bring anything into the dance that he or she wants, but has to maintain the foundation to some degree, as well have b-boying “attitude,” which is basically being a warrior.

- Benson Lee, Director of Planet Bboy

Funk Styles

Back L-R: Mr.Wiggles, Popin' Pete, Skeeter Rabbit (RIP), Suga Pop
Front: Boogaloo Sam

Popping

Popping is a style in itself, that involves snapping the legs back, and flexing your muscles continuously to the beat to give a jerky/snapping effect. Popping is a unique style. It's not the universal name for all the funk styles. If you pop, then you're a popper. If you wave, then you're a waver. If you Boogaloo, you're a boogalooer, and so on.

Other styles include

- Electric Boogaloos.com

Locking

Locking or Campbellocking is a dance art form with the improvisational steps called the locks , created by Don Campbell in the nightclubs of Los Angeles in the early 1970s. This dance and subculture quickly caught on and was soon the rage of a new television dance show called Soul Train. Individual dancers displayed quick locking and pointing movements along with hand slaps and splits.

The name is based on the concept of locking movements, which basically means freezing from a fast movement and landing in a certain position, holding that position for a short while and then continuing in the same speed as before. These movements create a strong contrast towards the many fast moves that are otherwise performed quite continuously, combined with mime style performance and acting towards the audience and other dancers. Locking includes quite a lot of acrobatics and physically demanding moves, such as landing on ones knees and the split. These moves often require knee protection of some sort.

Moves include

Alpha/applejax/Oilwells

One leg is kicked forward from a crouching position while the upper body is lent backwards supported by both hands.

Bop-top

a bop top is where you make a 70s face step with it and some hand gesture

Box split

A semi-split done with one leg bent, which enables the dancer to get up again in one swift movement.

Crazy horse or Whichaway

Altering kicks to the sides with right and left legs, upper body stationary with arms in front as if holding reins .

Funky Broadway

Moving the feet from a 'V' position to an upside-down 'V' position, while moving to the side. The body generally lags behind.

Funky Chicken

Feet move from side to side with small kicks each way, while moving the body up and down. (This is different from the James Brown Funky Chicken.)

Groove Walk or Rock-Steady or The Bump

Stepping forward, the hip of your front foot is thrusted towards the front foot, brought back, dipped forward towards the front foot as you take a step with your back foot (sometimes used to get across the dance floor with some funk in your step)

Hop kick

A high, quick kick of one leg while standing straight on the other.

Knee Drop

Drop to the knees with knees pointing inwards (into a W shape leg position).

Leo Walk

A funky two step where the first is an exaggerated step in a particular direction, followed by sliding of the second foot along the floor to meet the first

Lock

Bending slightly forward with arms forming a circle downward, as if lifting a heavy object.

Pacing

A quick punch to the side, with hand starting just below the shoulder. (Fist should still be open.)

Stomp the cockroach

Going down on one knee, with the other leg pointing out to the side, then pounding the floor.

Scooby doo

Taking a stationary forward step, then making a Lock

Scooby walk

Walking forward, stopping and bending knees outward with each step

Scootbot or scoobop

Skipping while making the motion of an exaggerated step to the left or right.

The Skeeter Rabbit

a kick and shiffle hop move

Stop-and-go/Busstop

Taking a step back and to the left/right, then forward again.

Uncle Sam points

A quick, extended pointing gesture, usually held for a few seconds for emphasis

Wrist roll or Twirl

Twirling wrists while moving arms up and down in pace.

- Wikipedia.com

House

Brian Green

House is a style of street dance danced to house music. It is improvisational in nature and emphasizes fast and complex footwork combined with fluid movements in the torso.

House dance has been debatingly broken down in 3 styles: Footwork, Jacking, and Lofting. It includes a variety of techniques and sub-styles that include skating, stomping, and shuffling. It also incorporates movements from many other sources such as whacking, voguing, Capoeira, tap, and Latin dances such as salsa. A wide variety of the movements came from jazz and bebop styles and even from African and Latin descent.

One of the primary elements in house dancing is a technique that came from Chicago that involves moving the torso forward and backward in a rippling motion, as if a wave were passing through it. When this movement is repeated and sped up to match the beat of a song it is called jacking, or "the jack." All footwork in house dancing is said to initiate from the way the jack moves the center of gravity through space.

In house dancing there is an emphasis on the subtle rhythms and riffs of the music, and the footwork follows them closely. This is one of the main features that distinguishes house dancing from dancing that was done to disco before house emerged, and current dancing that is done to techno as part of the rave culture.

Major contributors to the house dance scene in the US include Brian "Footwork" Green, Marjory Smarth, Caleaf Sellers, Ejoe Wilson, Terry Wright, Shannon Mabra, Tony McGregor, and many others before them that danced at places such as The Warehouse in Chicago, The Loft in NYC, Paradise Garage, and other places that are long forgotten.

- Wikipedia.com

Krumping

Lil' C and Tight Eyez in Rize

Krumping is an urban African American street dance form that developed on the streets of South Central Los Angeles, around 2001 - 2002^{[citation needed]}. It is characterized by free, expressive, and highly energetic moves and is a major part of the hip hop dance culture, alongside other techniques, such as: breakdance, locking, popping and freestyling. Krump is often represented as K.R.U.M.P., an acronym for Kingdom Radically Uplifted Mighty Praise, presenting krumping as a faith-based artform.

Krumping is said to have originated from Tight Eyez, Lil' C, Big Mijo, and J-Smoove of Tha J-Squad. However, Krumpers also acknowledge clowning as a point of origin. Clowning, is a form of hip hop developed by Tommy the Clown, whose real name is Thomas Johnson, in 1992.

As others in the area picked up the clowning moves, the style changed into something more aggressive. Krumping crews sprang up throughout South Central, and Johnson realized a bigger purpose for the dance style he started. He opened the Tommy the Clown Academy, a recreation room where kids could study and dance after school, and he created the idea of the "battlezone" dance, which features dance-contests often billed as "Krumpers versus Clowns."

Krumping is a more aggressive clowning and is intended to be a release of pent-up emotion "Dissing” or jokes are often involved in the dance form when different crews battle. Krumping also includes moments of heightened aggression called "buck" moves. There is now a new part of Krumping called labbing which is just practicing on your own or against members of your crew.

- Wikipedia.com