by Ledine - 10 O

My REVIEW!!

HIP HOP DON'T STOP! The Latest dance phenomenon.

Breakdancing.

In order to properly report the history of hip-hop dance forms, one must journey both inside and outside of New York City. Although dance forms associated with hip-hop did develop in New York City, half of them (i.e. popping and locking) originated and developed on the west coast as part of a different cultural movement. Much of the media coverage in the 1980s grouped these dance forms together with New York's native dance forms (b-boying/girling and Brooklyn uprocking), labeling them all "break dancing." As a result, the west coast "funk" culture and movement were overlooked and underrated as the public ignorantly credited "hip-hop" as the father of the funk dance forms. This is just one example of misinformation that undermines the intricacies of each dance form, as well as their origins and structure. The intent behind the following piece is to explore the past, present and future of these dance forms and their contributions to the performing arts worldwide.

In the early 1970s, the unnamed culture known today as "hip-hop" was forming in New York City's ghettos. Each element in this culture had it's own history and terminology contributing to the development of a cultural movement. The common pulse which gave life to all these elements is rhythm, clearly demonstrated by the beats the DJ selected, the dancers' movements, the MCs' rhyme patterns and the writer's name or message painted in a flowing, stylized fashion. The culture was identified in the early 1980s when DJ Afrika Bambaataa named the dynamic urban movement "hip-hop." The words, "hip-hop," were originally used by MCs as part of a scat style of rhyming, for example: "Hip-Hop ya'll and ya don't stop, rock on, till the break of dawn."

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