STREET GROOVE Hip Hop Convention Class Descriptions

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HIP-HOP (Old School & New School): Hip Hop music and style has grown to a billion dollar money maker. (It’s no wonder so many kids now want to become hip-hop dancers!) Hip Hop classes use all of the latest music from MTV and Much Music. Musical groups such as Jay-Z, P. Diddy, Missy, Janet, J. Lo and Destiny’s Child bring Hip-Hop choreographers and dancers the inspiration needed to create some of the coolest moves out there today.

POPPING: Popping resembles robotic movements, with sharp “hits” with the body, usually in isolated places. Popping is sometimes done to hip-hop music, but mostly to “old skool” music of the late 70′s, and early 80′s. (Groups such as George Clinton, Dazz, and the Sugar Hill Gang, to name a few.)

LOCKING: Locking started during the breakin’ days of the 1970′s. A very funky style of dancing, it includes sharp, very placed arms and leg movements, still keeping that “funk” or “flow”.
A little history: (Text taken from here.)

“In 1969, a young black man by the name of Don Campbell was becoming known among street dancers in Los Angeles for inventing a dance called the Campbellock (he put out a record called “Do the Campbellock”). Don Campbell took some of the hydraulic robotic movements (popularly known as “The Robot”), which were all about total control and mixed it with wild, out of control body movement. Plus – he threw in some exact stop and start movements and spiced it all with comic facial expressions and clown-like costumes to develop a whole new dance movement which is still going strong called “Locking”.

BREAKIN‘ (INCLUDES FLOORWORK): Breakin’ (aka B-Boying or B-Girling) is a style of dance that involves the dancer using their imagination to execute all sorts of different moves such as: spins, freezes, footwork, and whatever the dancer can create. Most of this is done on the floor, using the hands almost as much as the legs and feet. Breakin’ started in New York in the mid 1970′s, and has evolved to a much more athletic type of dancing. At Street Groove, we introduce breakin’ as a creative style of dancing, so the dancers can learn something new; to be able to branch off into other styles of dancing that might not be offered in their home cities.

HOUSE: House is an energetic and fun style of dance that is finally gaining more popularity! It’s a style that began in the late 1970’s in Chicago, deriving some of the freestyle movements from the Funk and Disco eras. Picture tap dancing, roller-skating, disco and funk all mixed together!!! House also mixes in some of the floor work influenced by the Brazilian martial art form, Capoeira.

STREET: Street is a combination of Stylized Jazz (without specific technical moves) and Hip Hop. Most of the choreography you see in music videos today (Justin Timberlake, Britney Spears etc.) is Street Jazz. This is one of our most popular classes at both Street Groove and GSP!

FREESTYLE JAM: Street Groove conventions offer students the opportunity to work on their own style and confidence. Saturday’s last class of the day includes a live DJ, all of the faculty, all of the students jamming together!!! Students can practice choreography they learned that day, or explore their own freestyle moves!