Dance Style Knowledge

History

The history of hip-hop dance encompasses the people and events since the late 1960s that have contributed to the development of the early hip-hop dance styles: uprock, breaking, locking, roboting, boogaloo, and popping. Black and Latino Americans created uprock and breaking in New York City. Black Americans in California created locking, roboting, boogaloo, and popping—collectively referred to as the funk styles. All of these dance styles are different stylistically. They share common ground in their street origins and in their improvisational nature.
More than 40 years old, hip-hop dance became widely known after the first professional street-based dance crews formed in the 1970s in the United States. The most influential groups were Rock Steady Crew, The Lockers, and The Electric Boogaloos who are responsible for the spread of breaking, locking, and popping respectively. The Brooklyn-based dance style uprock influenced breaking early in its development. Boogaloo gained more exposure because it is the namesake of the Electric Boogaloos crew. Uprock, roboting, and boogaloo are respected dance styles but none of them are as mainstream or popular as breaking, locking, and popping.

Parallel with the evolution of hip-hop music, hip-hop social dancing emerged from breaking and the funk styles into different forms. Dances from the 1990s such as the Running Man, the Worm, and the Cabbage Patch entered the mainstream and became fad dances. After the millennium, newer social dances such as the Cha Cha Slide and the Dougie also caught on and became very popular.
Hip-hop dance is not a studio-derived style. Street dancers developed it in urban neighborhoods without a formal process. All of the early substyles and social dances were brought about through a combination of events including inspiration from James Brown, DJ Kool Herc's invention of the break beat, the formation of dance crews, and Don Cornelius' creation of the television show Soul Train.

Hip-Hop Social Dances
Influences
The Charleston, the Twist, the Boogaloo, the Good Foot, the Funky Chicken
1980s-1990s social dances
Two-step, the Wop, the Cabbage Patch, the Roger Rabbit, the Running Man, the Rooftop, the Hammer dance, the Humpty, the Worm, Kriss-Cross, the Bartman, the Butterfly*, the Kid 'n Play kick-step
2000s era social dances
Toe Wop, Harlem shake, the Chicken Noodle Soup, the Reject**, the Dougie, the Cat Daddy, Getting Lite, Shoulder Lean, Swag Surfin'
Line dances
Cha Cha slide, Cupid shuffle, the Soulja Boy
The Butterfly came from Jamaica. *The Reject is one of many dance moves used in Jerkin'

In the 1960’s during the music revolution with all the changes in the music business a dance called “The Robot” was created from dancers influenced from watching movies with Robots. This dance was made famous from a dancer named Bill “The Robot” Williams of the Lockers crew. It was a part of the dance called Locking at the time.

In the mid 70’s in Fresno California a young dancer named Sam Solomon created a dance called Electric Boogaloo. Today this dance is called Boug Style Popping and was perfected from him and his brother Pete (Later on known as Popping Pete) and later on moves were added from the rest of the members of Sam’s crew (The Electric Boogaloos). Sam thought that he had created a new style of Locking from watching the Lockers on a T.V show called Soul Train and inspired by Bill “The Robot”. He even named his 1st crew “Electric Boogaloo Lockers”.

The name Boogaloo actually means dance and Sam heard his uncle one day saying “Yeah Boy! Do that Boogaloo!” After that Sam was known as Boogaloo Sam and the crew as Electric Boogaloos. Boogaloo is characterized by fluidity use of every part of the body, rolling the hips, knees and head. The style is a combination of “The Robot” and the smooth isolations of mime.

popping john

Popping was created by dancers wanting to look tough like gangsters in Los Angeles and Oakland when they danced. Popping is characterized by jerky movements resulting from flexing the muscles at parts of the body. When dancers Popped they would mutter “Pop, Pop” every time they flexed so it became known as Popping. Hitting is a term used when flexing the muscles harder and sudden as if trying to scare somebody. At the same time dancers watching the waves down at the beach and imitating them with there body movements were creating a dance called Waving. Electro was an effect they gave to Waving when they moved the waves through the body as if they caught some electricity. Inspired by the game Tetris, the Tetris system was created having the arms and hand movement fall in places like the bricks in the game. Later on Tetris connected with the King Tut system that reminded Egyptian dancing like in the hieroglyphics and influenced by cartoons like Looney Toons forming the system called Tutting. Toy-man system of moves was inspired by play mobile figures and action figures that were out on the market having the body imitate the toy figure moves. Sliding and Gliding give the illusion that the dancer’s feet are floating on the surface and sometimes looks like ice skating. Scarecrow is a part of Popping that reminds exactly what its name implies dancing with the arms out like a scarecrow. Air Posing is an exaggeration of breathing in and out making shapes at the same time. Crazy Legs created by Popping Pete has the legs moving at a different direction from the body and finally look like they re-attach themselves to the direction that the body is going. Strutting has the body breaking one movement towards a spot to many smaller movements and with the Strobing effect it makes it look like there is a strobe light on the dancer at the time. Spiderman is a style imitating the movements of the legendary comic hero when he is going up a building attached on the wall like a spider.

Related styles { Kinds }

Animation

Animatronics

Boogaloo

Bopping

Crazy legs

Dime stopping

Floating,gliding and sliding

Miming

Puppet

Robot/botting

Scarecrow

Strobing

Struttin

Ticking

Toyman

Tutting/King Tut

Waving

Isolation

Best Poppper Ever

All these dances, styles and systems combined with Electric Boogaloo otherwise known as Boug Style Popping under the term “Popping”. The Electric Boogaloos made Popping famous all over the world starting from the T.V show Soul Train following the Lockers footsteps and taking it into stage performance shows all over the globe.