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| Street Dance in TST, HK |
It is so hard to define Street Dance. It is a broad term that is used to describe a number of different types of dance that originated outside of a dance studio - usually on the streets, but also in clubs, parks, and other open spaces. While it is tricky to trace the very first type of street dance, because firms of it exist the world over, the precursor to what we now know as street dance is African-American dance. This style of dance developed within communities who were brought the US as slaves during the early 19th century. Early styles of street dance include:
- Folk
- Tap
- Traditional Jazz.
What we now see on TV and in films referred to as 'street dance' is a mixture of moves from different forms of styles; and recently a lot of people have equalled Street Dance and Hip Hop and grouped other substyles like Breaking, Popping, Locking under Hiphopping. However, considering their common origin, i.e. street, it is better to catogorize all as Street Dance.
Another reason that causes me to insist the term 'Street Dance' is that if you meet a Hiphopper in Hong Kong, s/he may tell you that ‘but I don’t break’, if s/he claims her/himself a street dancer s/he may say ‘but i focus on Hip Hop’. It gives me enough room to think that Hip Hop has already including other street elements like Popping & Locking but Breaking stands out; so if the whole family is termed ‘Hip Hop’, ‘Break Dance’ should be excluded, but that defies my knowledge about ‘Street Dance’- that Breaking is a core.
No matter how we term it, Hip Hop has really become too popular and too enriched that we can’t split it from other substyles. From the term itself, hip-hop dance is a dance style performed to the tune of hip-hop music (originated in New York where, and among the African-American and Latino communities in the 1960s and popularized in 1970s), and is now a part of the popular and commercialized culture.
At the earlier times, the common street styles were Uprock & Funk, and the not yet so elaborated Breaking went together with the former: Breaking at that time was not floor-oriented but standing up moves!
Black Americans and Latino Americans created uprock and breaking in New York City.
Black Americans in California created locking, roboting, boogaloo, and popping—collectively referred to as the funk styles. All of these dance styles are different stylistically. They share common ground in their street origins and in their improvisational nature.
Breaking is performed as an athletic solo wherein the dancer enters dance floor sideways, breaking to the floor afterwards. The dancer will then spin around with different parts of his body like the head, shoulders or buttocks and end the routine with a freeze position.
Locking was a dance invented by street dancer Don Campbell in the late 1960s, and pioneered by his dance group The Lockers, famous for appearing as the house dancers on legendary TV show Soul Train. As a style locking is visually distinctive, with traditional outfits including baggy pants, newsboy/barrowboy cabs, and stripes in abundance. Musically, they dance to funky soul and disco.
Locking was a dance invented by street dancer Don Campbell in the late 1960s, and pioneered by his dance group The Lockers, famous for appearing as the house dancers on legendary TV show Soul Train. As a style locking is visually distinctive, with traditional outfits including baggy pants, newsboy/barrowboy cabs, and stripes in abundance. Musically, they dance to funky soul and disco.
Popping, on the other hand, involves several fast and sharp actions traveling throughout the body in a ‘robotic’ way and ends up in a freeze position as well. Popping is executed by quick contraction and relaxation of the muscles, causing a jerk that is most commonly called ‘pop’ or ‘hit’. This jerking move, combined with other movements as well as poses, is continuously performed to the music. To become a popper, you must learn how to ‘hit’ your muscles including your arms and legs, shoulders, back, neck, chest, and stomach. There are 26 popping styles that one may learn, each of them had their own lingo, such as Boogaloo, Puppeting, Bopping, Vibrating, Ticking, Botting, and Strobing among others.
House is one of the more recent forms of street dance, which originated in the post-disco era in clubs in both New York and Chicago. The dance style is heavily social, with the emphasis on freestyling and vibing to the music played by the DJ. The music that house style is danced to now includes soulful house, broken beats, and minial tech.
House is one of the more recent forms of street dance, which originated in the post-disco era in clubs in both New York and Chicago. The dance style is heavily social, with the emphasis on freestyling and vibing to the music played by the DJ. The music that house style is danced to now includes soulful house, broken beats, and minial tech.
So what is Hip Hop? It seems to be a collective term to call the dance that merges the Locking, Popping and Uprock and Funk together and danced to Hip Hop music. Parallel with the evolution of hip-hop music, hip-hop social dancing emerged from breaking and the funk styles into different forms. Dances from the 1990s such as the Running Man, the Worm, and the Cabbage Patch entered the mainstream and became fad dances. After the millennium, newer social dances such as the Cha Cha Slide and the Dougie also caught on and became very popular. It has become so popular that even it is not a studio-derived dance, a lot studios now offer Street Dance classes.
Just to confuse you even more, the studio-based version is known as the ‘New Style’- Some doubt how authentic this ‘New Style’ is but just like all the other dance styles, Street Dance or Hip Hop Dance keeps evolving and changing, all early substyles and social dances were brought about through a combination of events including inspiration from James Brown, DJ Kool Herc's invention of the break beat, the formation of dance crews, and Don Cornelius' creation of the television show Soul Train, the studio-taught style only enriches the 'battles' and helps popularize the dance.
Learn more about the other dance styles? Check here.
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