Hip Hop Dance Moves

Old School vs. New School

Breakdance is where the roots of hip hop started, and in the "old school" style breakdance moves include popping and locking to funk and rap music. Though popular belief is that the form started in New York, it also developed on the west coast – particularly L.A. – pretty much concurrently. Unfortunately, this led to "hip hop battles" where artists such as Tupak Shakur were killed by their competitors.

"New School" hip hop evolved in the 1990's with less emphasis on the breakdancing floorwork and more focus on the the vertical dance moves. Some of the styles of hip hop that developed included:

• Krumping
• Harlem shake
• Snap dance
• Clown walk
• Wu-Tang
• Gangsta walking

Most of these styles developed first in the streets, in improvisational performances for audiences in the "round." Some purists criticize choreographed hip hop dance moves done before more traditional audiences in a proscenium or thrust setting.

Battlegrounds of Hip Hop

One of the ways that hip hop dance is different than many other social dances is in its competitive nature. While it is not directly combative, there are definite confrontations in hip hop competitions, even in informal "jams" at parks, gyms, or dance studios. In some ways the form resembles the capoeira dance of Brazil, a Latin-based dance. Not only do the dancers – called "b-boys" or "b-girls" – try to perform more complex or impressive moves than each other, they often will use the moves themselves to actually initiate a sort of daring, playful, and sometimes insulting dialogue with the other dancers.

While America has most of the hip hop championships, there are competitions throughout the civilized world. The Groove Urban Dance Championships (a.k.a "Battlegrounds") lets dancers compete in hip hop new style, Popping, Locking, House, and Experimental categories. In the Old World there are the European Street Dance Championships and the annual World Championships hosted in Bremen, Germany. Hip hop dance moves are very popular in the UK, with the Hip Hop Crew Championships, Gforce Productions StreetDance Weekend and other events.

Types of Hip Hop Dance Moves

There are different methods of hip hop dance depending on where on the dance floor the dancer performs. Popping is a form of hip hop that comes from the world of breakdance, involving staccato isolations of the joints in a mechanical rhythm. Floorwork involves more choreography for the feet, usually in small sequences that can be strung together into a hip hop dance combination. Other examples of moves include:

• Heel Toe
• Crip Walk
• Harlem Shake
• Glide
• Moonwalk
• Soulja Boy
• Sponge Bob

New moves and styles of hip hop dance moves are a fascinating challenge for choreographers and dancers, and the interest goes beyond the dance world. In 2008 during the annual Technology, Education and Design Talks the dancer Kenichi Ibina startled the technorati by performing a combination of hip hop, breakdance, and mime on the same stage that had held such "established" performers as Pilobolus.

Other pioneers of hip hop dance and culture include Boogaloo Sam, Popin' Pete, Skeeter Rabbit, Sugar Pop, Don Campbellock, Trac 2, Joe-Joe, King Uprock, Kool DJ Herc, and Afrika Bambaataa.

While it is still developing in the streets, hip hop has crossed the line to mainstream culture. It is taught in dance studios, community centers, and is a featured dance form on popular shows such as So You Think You Can Dance and the Dancing with the Stars Tour. Nothing ensures its popularity as much as the fact that many parents and self-appointed judges of cultural mores have deemed it "inappropriate." Like most fun dances, this seems guaranteed to keep hip hop a staple of our contemporary dance culture.