Hip hop is not only music, it's more than that. It's a feeling, an emotion. A passion which makes you feel alive. Dancing. MC'ing. Graffitti. DJ'ing. Beatbox. Knowledge. It's not only a culture, it's a way of living. Welcome to my world.
Hip hop is one of the most popular music genres today. Since it was formed during the early 70's until now, it has only gotten more and more loved all around the world. Today, it is the most streamed genre on Spotify. But I'm not here to talk about hip hop as a music style; I'm a dancer and I want to talk its dance aspects.
In the beginning was the break
There are four elements to hip hop. One of them is b-boying or breakdance. B-boying is the origin of the hip hop dance as it is today. It is recognized by a lot of figures on the floor, such as this:
They are called freezes because you basically freeze in that position while you're dancing. This is the most common one, called baby freeze:
You could also do it probably :)
Another recognizable factor of breakdance are powermoves. Those are the ones that make you stare with astonishment. Essentially, they are spins in hard positions. They are very difficult and take a lot of time and skill to overcome. Some of them are:
Headspin
Flare
Windmill
2000 Spin
But breakdance isn't danced just on the floor. It can also be danced in normal, standing position. When you dance it like that, it's called toprock. It is a bit easier than the freezes and powermoves and it's not that visually attractive, so a lot of bboys do it just for a short time before going down on the floor. Here is an example of a toprock entrance to the battle:
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Here is another battle where you can see all of the described above, because a photo doesn't really capture the skill of breakers:
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As you can hear the music is very fast. It's called breakbeat and it is the fundamental to hip hop music. But, with time music evolved, so of course dance evolved too. It sounded like this:
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Songs got slower and because of that it got hard to dance break to it, so a new dance had to made up. It's name was hip hop.
Hip hop don't stop
Fundamentals of the hip hop dance are bounce, rocking, and groove. Bounce is a movement of your knees: you bend them a little bit, so it looks like you're bouncing around. Rocking is the movement of your upper body: you can move it forward or backward. And groove is more of a feeling or a mood with which you will dance. You can not dance with a hyped up attitude to a slow song. You need to feel the mood of the song that you're dancing to and accompany it to your dance.
When you get these three basic moves covered, you can continue to upgrade your knowledge with more moves and then, the most fun part comes: freestyle.
Freestyle: expressing yourself through dance
Freestyle dancing is a complete improvisation to the music. There is no made up choreography, there is no one telling you what to do; just you and the song that is playing. That's why many hip hop dancers like it – it's complete freedom. It takes a lot of time and training to get good at freestyling. And how to determine who is the best freestyler though? Dance battles.
Battles are a form of competition amongst dancers. Their principle is simple: two dancers get on the floor and freestyle on the same song, one at a time. Then, the judges (usually three) vote for the better dancer by showing at them with their hand. If they think the dancers were equal they make an X with their hands. The better dancer goes to the next round. Like in chamionships in other sports it goes quarterfinals, then semifinals, then the finals. The best dancer usually gets some kind of an award: clothes, shoes or money. And glory, of course.
Here is an example of a hip hop battle:
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As you can see the battle is 2 vs 2; so it's also possible to battle in pairs. What's interesting is that the dancers on the left are only 16 years old. They are a phenomenon in the hiphop world because nobody their age is that good.
So, that's one side of freestyling: the competitive style. But what if you don't want to compete?
Cyphers & jams: fun for everybody!
Of course, hip hop is not just about winning battles. It's also about dancing with other people, sharing the energy, exchanging the knowledge. That's where cyphers and jams come in. Cypher is a circle usually formed at a training or a club. Everybody is dancing to theirselves a little bit, just grooving, and then the person who really likes the songs goes inside the circle and dances for everybody to see them. When the person is finished, another one comes in and so on. Since it's not a competition people around are very supportive and cheer for you, so it's great for freestyle beginners to try it first.
Jammings or jams are very similar to cyphers. But in this case, the people forming the circle try to follow your dance steps while you dance. So it's not really freestyling, it's more repeating the same step for some time so everyone can follow you and enjoy the unity. It's more of a bonding type of dancing, instead of showing off.
And that's what hip hop is essentially about. Even it's motto says: peace, love, unity, having fun.
Hope you have a good day!