History
Hip-hop dance as seen today is a broad category that incorporates a variety of old and new urban dance styles. The older styles that were created in the 1970s include uprock, breaking, and the funk stylesThese dance styles all started independent of each other, half of them in New York and the others in California. Uprock was created in Brooklyn, N.Y. and breaking was created in The Bronx. In its earliest form, breaking began as elaborations on James Brown's Good Foot" dance which came out in 1972. Breaking at this stage was not primarily floor oriented as is seen today; it started out as toprock which is performed standing up. In 1973, DJ Kook Herc invented the breakbeat. A breakbeat is a rhythmic musical interlude of a song that has been looped over and over again to extend that instrumental solo. Kool Herc did this to provide a means for dancers who attended his parties to show their skills.[ B-boy and b-girl stands for "break-boy" and "break-girl"; b-boys/b-girls dance to the break of a record. Another influence on toprock was uprock. Uprock looks similar to toprock but it is more aggressive and is meant look like a fight. Unlike toprock, uprock was not performed to break beats. The song was played from start to finish. Also, uprocking is done with partners but in breaking each person takes turns dancing. Further influenced by gymnastics andmartial arts, breaking went from being a purely upright dance style—toprock only—to becoming more floor oriented.
The funk styles refers to several street dance styles created in California in the 1970s that were danced to funk music. These styles include roboting, bopping, hitting, locking, bustin', popping, electric boogaloo, strutting, sac-ing, dime-stopping, etc. Similar to breaking, James Brown also had a big impact on the boogaloo style of dance. One of Sam Solomon's inspirations for creating boogaloo was James Brown's dance "the popcorn and the name of the dance was taken from the title of the James Brown song "Do the Boogaloo". The most popular and widely practiced of the funk styles are locking and popping. Locking is the older of the two and was created by Don Campbell in the late 1960s. Popping was created by Sam Solomon in the 1970s. The 1980s media incorrectly brought these styles under the "breakdance"/"breakdancing" label causing a confusion about their origin. They were created on the west coast separate from breaking and came out of the funk cultural movement rather than from the hip-hop cultural movement. The television show, Soul Train, helped to spread locking and popping's popularity. Both The Lockers and the Electric Boogaloos—dance crews responsible for the spread of locking and popping—performed on this show. Today, the funk styles are now performed to both hip-hop and funk music.
Kinds of Hip-hop dance
1.Locking
Locking, originally called Campbellocking, was created in Los Angeles by Don Campbell and introduced to the country by his crew The Lockers. Other than Don Campbell, the original members of The Lockers were Fred "Mr. Penguin" Berry (Rerun on the 1970s TV sitcomWhat's Happening!!), Leo "Fluky Luke" Williamson, Adolpho "Shabba Doo" Quinones, Bill "Slim the Robot" Williams, Greg "Campbellock Jr" Pope, and Toni Basil who also served as the group's manager. In honor of her instrumental role in giving locking commercial exposure, Basil was honored at the 2009 World Hip Hop Dance Championships as the first female recipient of the Living Legend Award. Locking looks similar to popping and frequently gets confused with popping to a casual observer. In locking, a dancer holds their positions longer. Thelock is the primary move used in locking. It is "similar to a freeze or a sudden pause A locker's dancing is characterized by consistentlylocking in place and after a quick freeze moving again.[35] It is incorrect to call locking "pop-locking". Locking and popping are two distinct funk styles with their own histories, their own set of dance moves, and their own competition categories. Locking is more playful and character driven whereas popping is more illusory. Locking has specific dance moves that identify it from popping and other funk styles. These moves include "the lock, points, skeeter [rabbits], scooby doos, stop 'n go, which-away, and the fancies." A dancer can do one or the other but not both locking and popping at the same time. It was only after seeing The Lockers perform on TV that a young Sam Solomon was inspired to create popping and electric boogaloo
2.Popping
Popping was created by Sam Solomon in Fresno, California and performed by his crew the Electric Boogaloos It is 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. Each hit should be synchronized to the rhythm and beats of the music. Popping is also used as an umbrella term to refer to a wide range of other closely related illusionary dance style such as strobing, liquid animation, and waving that are often integrated with standard popping to create a more varied performance. In all of these sub-genres it appears to the spectator that the body is popping hence the name. The difference between each sub-genre is how exaggerated the popping is. In liquid the body movements look like water. The popping is so smooth that the movements do not look like popping at all; they look fluid. The opposite of this is strobing (also called ticking) in which the movements are static, sudden, and jerky.
Popping—as an umbrella term—also includes gliding, floating, and sliding which are lower body dances done with the legs and feet. When done correctly a dancer looks like they are gliding across the floor as if on ice. Opposite from gliding is tutting which is an upper body dance that uses the arms, hands, and wrists to form right angles and make geometric box-like shapes. Sometimes the arms are not used at all and tutting is only done with the wrists, hands, and fingers. In both variations, the movements are intricate and always use 90° angles. When done correctly tutting looks like the characters on the art of ancient Egypt hence the name—a reference to King Tut.
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