Hip hop dance is a style of movement that is often associated with rap and other forms of beat-based music. It is a highly collaborative form of dance with many different styles that can be used to express emotion and move to the rhythm of the music. The most popular hip hop moves include breaking, locking, popping, and krumping.
Hip hop was developed in urban neighborhoods in the 1970s as a means of self-expression and protest against social issues such as poverty, racism, and police brutality. Initially, it was a performative and informal dance scene with groups of people developing their own choreography to specific songs and improvisational freestyle rhyming over the breakbeats of the music. Professional hip hop dance crews were formed like Rock Steady Crew and Electric Boogaloos, with many different forms of hip hop dance arising as a result such as popping, locking, and funk styles (like the Running Man or Dougie).
The 1990s saw the development of a new style called krumping which incorporates elements of all these other forms into one fluid, highly choreographed routine. While krumping has its roots in the street scene, it is now more widely seen in clubs and has been adapted into a variety of other genres such as twerking and jigging.
While modern TV shows and movies like America’s Best Dance Crew and Dancing with the Stars have brought hip hop dance to a larger audience, they have also sometimes romanticized underground hip hop culture and portrayed it in ways that are not always authentic. This appropriation is something that dance organizations and communities around the world are working hard to reverse by teaching, living, and preserving Hip Hop culture in its truest form.
