It's All about Street Dance

Hip hop dance

The dance style primarily associated with hip hop is breaking, which appeared in New York City during the early 1970s and truly became a cornerstone (or "element") of hip hop as a culture. Funk styles, such as popping and locking, evolved separately in California in the 1960-70s, but were also integrated into hip hop when the culture reached the West Coast of the United States. Though breaking and the original funk styles look quite different stylistically, they share many surrounding elements, such as their improvisational nature, the music they're danced to and the way they originated from the streets, mainly within black and Hispanic communities. These similarities helped bring them, and other street dance styles, together under the same sub-culture, and help to keep them alive and evolving today. Yet, this has not been without problems, often involving the media, such as when the movie Breakin' put all various styles under the label "breakdance", causing a great naming confusion that spawned many heated debates. In the late 1980s, as hip hop music took new forms and the hip hop subculture established further, new dance styles began appearing. Most of them were danced in an upright manner in contrast to breaking with its many ground moves, and were in the beginning light-feeted with lots of jumping. Some moves hit the mainstream and became fad dances, such as The Running Man, but overall they contributed a lot to later hip hop styles, and heavily influenced the development of house dancing. During the 1990s and 2000s, parallel with the evolution of hip hop music, hip hop dancing evolved into heavier and more agressive forms. While breaking continued to be popular on its own, these newer styles were danced upright, and draw much inspiration from earlier upright styles. Classifying these newer hip hop styles as a unique dance style of its own has grown common with larger street dance competitions such as Juste Debout, which includes hip hop new style as a separate category for people to compete in. Today, we see many specific styles that first appeared on their own, such as krumping and clown walking, now being danced and accepted within hip hop new style contexts. All hip hop styles from the 1980s and beyond are sometimes collectively called new school while the distinct styles from the 1960-70s, such as breaking, uprocking, locking and popping, are considered old school. However, this classification is controversial, and often old school hip hop (or, in some areas, hype) is used solely for the late 1980s upright and jumpy hip hop styles, and new style hip hop for the heavier hip hop styles of today.

Bboy

A B-boy or B-girl is a person devoted to hip-hop culture. The term originates with the first hip hop DJ, Kool DJ Herc, who, noticing the reaction of some dancers to his playing the part of the record with a drum break, named them break-boys or B-boys. It quickly came to include any follower of hip hop, identifiable by clothing habits, listening tastes or lifestyle, but has returned in latter years to the more specific usage in connection with dance.There are four basic elements which form the foundation of B-boying. The first is Toprock, a term referring to the upright dancing and shuffles that B-boys do when they enter a circle. The second element is the Downrock or Footwork, refers to dancing performed on the floor. The third element, is known as the Freeze, refers to the poses that B-boys throw into their dance sets to add punctuation to certain beats and end their routines. The fourth and final element of bboying is the Power moves. These are acrobatic moves normally made up of circular motions where the dancer will spin either on the floor, or in the air. A related dance form which influenced B-boyings Uprocking / Rocking / The Rock Dance, also performed while standing, and a style of dance in which both dancers fabricate ways of beating the opponent using fictional weaponry and embarrassing situations in rhythm with the music (Burning). This style involves moves called Yerks (pronounced /dʒɝks/, jerks) which are a set of motions executed to the break of a track and are where most of the battling occurs, outside of the break of a track is where the freestyle element of the dance is executed with great musicality throughout.

Popping

Popping is a funk dance and street dance style based on the technique of quickly contracting and relaxing muscles to cause a jerk in the dancer's body, referred to as a pop or a hit. This is done continuously to the rhythm of a song in combination with various movements and poses.A popping dancer is commonly referred to as a popper. Popping is also used as an umbrella term for a group of closely related illusionary dance styles and techniques that are often integrated with popping to create a more varied performance (see below). It is generally believed that the dance evolved in Fresno, California in the 1970s, partly inspired by locking. Like other street dances, popping is often performed in battles, trying to outperform another dancer or group of dancers in front of a crowd. This gives room for improvisation and moves that are seldom seen in shows and performances, such as interaction with the other contestants and spectators.In the late 1970s, a popping group called Electric Boogaloos (earlier known as the Electronic Boogaloo Lockers) from California greatly contributed to the spread of popping, partly because of their appearance on the television program Soul Train.

R&B

Rhythm and blues (also known as R&B or RnB) is a popular music genre combining jazz, gospel, and blues influences. Writer/producer Robert Palmer defined rhythm & blues as "a catchall term referring to any music that was made by and for black Americans". He has used the term R&B as a synonym for jump blues. Lawrence Cohn, author of Nothing but the Blues, writes that rhythm and blues was an umbrella term invented for industry convenience. According to him, the term embraced all black music except classical music and religious music, unless a gospel song sold enough to break into the charts.

Locking Dance

Locking (originally Campbellocking) is a style of funk dance and street dance, which is today also associated with hip hop. It relies on fast and distinct arm and hand movements combined with more relaxed hips and legs. The movements are generally large and exaggerated, and often very rhythmic and tightly synched with the music. Locking is quite performance oriented, often interacting with the audience by smiling or giving them a high five, and some moves are quite comical in nature. Locking was originally danced to traditional funk, such as James Brown. Funk music is still commonly favored by locking dancers, and used by many competitions such as the locking division of Juste Debout. The name is based on the concept of locking movements, which basically means freezing from a fast movement and landing in a certain position, holding that position for a short while and then continuing in the same speed as before. These movements create a strong contrast towards the many fast moves that are otherwise performed quite continuously, combined with mime style performance and acting towards the audience and other dancers. Locking includes quite a lot of acrobatics and physically demanding moves, such as landing on ones knees and the split. These moves often require knee protection of some sort. A locker is a locking dancer. Lockers commonly use a distinctive dress style, such as colorful clothing with stripes and suspenders.

Friday, August 15, 2008

Philippine All Stars wins 2008 World Hip Hop championship

The multi-awarded Philippine All Stars gave Filipinos another reason to be proud of when the group bagged the title in the 2008 World Hip-Hop Championship in Las Vegas, Nevada on Sunday, August 3.

More than 1,000 dancers from 33 countries gathered in Las Vegas in quest for the gold. The All Stars, however, ruled the dance floor with their two-minute performance packed with flips and steps in harmony. The dancers went off stage with high hopes of winning after finishing a near perfect dance.

When they received the award, group members said they were glad for the success as they united Filipinos in that moment of glory.

“This is just a moment where everyone could just unite. In our own part, to be an inspiration not just for the people here in the championship, but to all the Filipinos out there,” said group member Sheena Vera Cruz.

She added that the group wants to give other Filipinos hope that they could also become winners given the same opportunity.

"We want to give them hope that if we have this opportunity, all the Filipinos out there can also have the same opportunity as us,” she said.

Lema Diaz, another group member, called on other Filipino groups to dream big and strive to realize their aspirations.

"Our main purpose is to wake up the youth of the Philippines and and Filipinos around the world to rise up to go for what theybelieve and to dream big,” Diaz said.

In the end, the three judges gave the All Stars an aggregate score of 8.94. A large part of the score (5.35) was earned by way of the group's infusion of artistic steps in their choreography.

And to that, competition judge and multi-Gramy awardee MC Hammer said: “The Filipino artists…they continue to evolve in a global basis. They take art and dance seriously.I am very proud of the level that the Philippines over all have developed into.”

Judge Shane Sparks also had high praises for the group.

“Great kids, great dancers and choreographer…I think they’re some of the hottest dancers that touch the stage of the America’s best dance crews and I know there’s more to come ,”

Source: ABS-CBN Online