Hip Hop Dance the History

Hip Hop Dance the History began in the 70's as Hip Hop became the umbrella term for four intertwined art forms stemming from the urban plight in New York's Bronx. Adolescent street gangs were fighting for territory, survival, and dominance. These four interconnected forms were known as rapping (chanted poetry), scratching (mixing turntable sounds), breaking (ritual combat), and graffiti (subway painting). For this space I will concentrate on breaking as one expression of Hip-Hop.

The performers, breaking at all night parties or subways, playgrounds, and parks, were known as b-boys. When asked what a b-boy was doing, he might answer, "I'm gettin' serious about this dancin' thing to {percussion} breaks." He could have added, "Its hard to do." He had to hear the music, study the moves, and create his own style. Then he was ready to enter the circle, perform fancy footwork low to the floor, spin on his head, shoulders, or back, while creating something witty, insulting, or obscene for the freeze before returning to the outside of the circle. Next an opponent entered the ring "to burn him." Competitive, and combative marked this macho form with its physical risks and drive to impress.

It was an underground form with social significance, invisible to the outsider before the media caught up with it. By 1983 Hip-Hop had evolved far from the Bronx in meaning and form. Benefiting from media hype, it firmly established itself in popular culture. The 1983 film, "Wild Style", took the viewer into the Hip-Hop world, and in the same year Hollywood, in the film "Flash Dance", introduced the general public to break dancing with its attention-grabbing two minute segment. Other Hollywood films featuring break dancing followed. In 1984 a Newsweek cover featured a breakdancer. The accompanying article attributes the current dance craze "on city street corners, in old-time ballrooms and hot new clubs " to the influence of breakdancing. In the same article, b-boy Shabba-Duo said, "The frenzy may eventually die down, but street-dancing is here to stay. Ultimately people will realize it's a valid art form, on the same level as jazz or ballet. And it's a dance Americans should be proud of."

Today, however, other hip hop dances have replaced breaking. After the media caught up with breaking, it became a theatrical dance form with professional dancers. Hollywood had thoroughly sanitized the b-boys dances. No longer a serious urban vernacular dance, or a battle game developed within a ghetto street culture, the b-boys and breaking became history. Hip-Hop (Rapping) remains a dominant cultural force influencing music, dance, graphics and fashion.

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