Hip hop dance
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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.
These later styles are sometimes referred to as new school or new style while the older styles, including breakdance and various funk styles that were incorporated into hip hop, are considered old school.
Hip hop dancing is evolving in many different directions today, heavily influenced by the evolution of hip hop music and its popularity in media, surrounded by heated debates on history and authenticity.
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[edit] Competitions
There are many hip hop dance competitions around the world today, some allowing all styles to enter while others focus on more specific styles.
The World Hip Hop Championships in America is currently the largest and arguably most respected of the International competitions for Hip Hop Dance featuring the worlds most recognised dance crews and nations. (Battle of the Year, the uk Bboy Championships and Juste Deboute remain the choice for specific forms)
Hoopdreamz Enterprises also holds many dance competitions throughout the southern hemisphere. Groove, the Australian state level Urban Dance Championships, is held in most state-capital cities since 2001. As recently as 2004, the competition was expanded to a national level including dance crews from New Zealand. The national level competition is known as Battlegrounds.
Juste Debout is a large, international and annual street dance competition held in Paris, which includes hip hop new style, Popping, Locking, House, and Experimental as a competition categories. Bboy (Breakdance) is not included to give more focus to the upright hip hop and street dance styles.
I DO, The International Dance Organization holds many competitions every year. The most important of them are the European Street dance Championships (which were held in Espoo, Finland this year and which will be held in Graz, Austria in 2007) and the World Championships which are held in Bremen, Germany each year.
In the UK Hip Hop Crew Championships is a recognised event however other organisations such as Gforce Productions StreetDance Weekend and JumpOff are recognised as well.
[edit] Criticism
Today, many dance studios offer hip hop classes of some sort. They might focus on a specific style such as breakdancing or combine elements of various street dance styles. As hip hop dancing is such a broad genre, the teacher has much freedom and room for personal interpretation, and often mixes various styles freely, even mixing them with other dance forms such as jazz.
Some criticize this type of teaching as being too strict and too choreographed, losing important elements such as improvisation and personal interpretation on the students' side. Because of this, some dislike labeling these dance classes as "hip hop" as it might not actually include all aspects of the traditional hip hop dances, especially when the teacher mixes it with dance styles not originally related to hip hop.
Despite the controversy, studio-choreographed hip hop is still widely accepted today by many.
[edit] See also
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[edit] External links
- "Dancing on the Through-Line: Rennie Harris and the Past and Future of Hip-Hop Dance" by Jeff Chang; from the series Democratic Vistas Profiles: Essays in the Arts and Democracy
