Hip Hop dancing videos and lessons

Hip hop dance borrows moves from older popular dance styles, comic pantomime, and martial arts – including the Brazilian art of dance-fighting known as capoeira – but the style evolved on its own, locally and organically. Hip hop matured as a dance movement almost simultaneously on the streets of New York City and in California during the 1970’s. Moves were originally shared and developed on the streets, and only later did hip hop make it into clubs and finally into dance studios.

The DJ culture that is central to hip hop started in 1950’s Jamaica with dub artists and migrated to New York City where it evolved over the 1960’s and 1970’s. MCs started putting rhymes together over the DJs’ beats and a new style was born. The street culture took off in the late 1970’s as a mass movement that involved music, dance, fashion and visual art. By the 1980’s, hip hop culture was transforming the mainstream.

Hip hop dance originally combined two major styles: B-Boying (performed by B-Boys and B-Girls) and Funk.

B-Boying – also known as Breaking or Break Dance – was a New York invention. The basic movement starts with rocking – getting your body into the beat – then progresses into improvised combinations of slides, glides, and highly acrobatic spins and freezes.

Funk dance was happening across the U.S. in the 1970’s, but the funk styles that eventually became hip hop standards were developed in New York and in California. Funk dance in hip hop is the basis for popping, locking, and dances like the Boogaloo (funk style, not Latin) and the Robot.

Dancers on the street were influenced by mainstream figures – including James Brown in the 1960’s and Michael Jackson in the 1970’s and 1980’s – but generally the influence was from the underground up. In the late 1960’s, street and gang dances started to find their way into clubs and discos and gained popularity. Dance competitions were held in the clubs and battles on the streets drew crowds. After 1972, the televised dance show Soul Train brought many of the new dances to a national audience.

New York DJ Kool Herc is credited with coining the term B-Boy in 1973 to describe the dedicated dancers who flocked to his parties. Even the old school B-Boys who were around at the time were never sure whether the B stood for break, beat, or Bronx. Some of the original New York B-Boys included dancers Klark Kent, the N*a Twins, Sau Sau, Tricksie, James Bond, The Amazing Bobo, and El Dorado Mike.

In 1970’s California, dancers were experimenting with various styles of “locking,” a funk-inspired dance with the arm and leg joints locked, and “popping,” or flexing the muscles to the beat, which became signature West Coast hip hop styles and are still practiced today. Locking and popping pioneers included Don Campbell, Mr. Wiggles, and Boogaloo Sam Solomon.

By the late seventies, New York hip hop style was dominated by the Rock Steady Crew, whose members are responsible for inventing several classic B-Boy moves. Rock Steady Crew’s 1981 battle with Dynamic Rockers at Lincoln center is considered by many to be the first exposure of real hip hop dance culture to the mainstream. In 1983 Rock Steady Crew appeared in the film Flashdance and 1985 saw the release of the (not especially accurate) dance movie Breakin’, but hip hop dance had begun to fade from the public imagination and wouldn’t make a comeback until the next decade.

From the 1990’s on, hip hop music and culture have evolved and reached an international audience. New dance styles have developed that involve more footwork and jumping, and fewer floor moves. New style hip hop dances incorporate East Coast and West Coast influences, and include early 1990’s fad dances – like the Roger Rabbit and the Running Man – as well as Krumping, Clowning, and other dance styles that are making a serious impact on hip hop.

Today dance studios around the world offer hip hop classes, though it is usually up to the instructor to decide which specific styles are taught.