Monday, April 5, 2010

Hip Hop Identity Crisis: Terminology

Our hip hop dance nation is in a critical state. What do we call our dance when there's so many different terms out there? A recent video from strife.tv posed the question to Poppin' Pete (Electric Boogaloos) and Teresa Espinosa (Groovaloos, Beat Freaks).

You can check out the clip here:

So where does that leave us? If "hip hop" as a dance has been misconstrued and misunderstood by the greater public, how can we educate the masses? Does "street dancing" confuse things even further when we know that bboyin' is the original hip hop dance? For the choreographers who teach their own flavor in studio-based classes, shouldn't they take responsibility and label what they teach with a different name?

Even today, "breakdancing" still makes some bboys cringe. An uninformed public lumps poppin', lockin', and bboyin' all into the same umbrella term of "breakdancing." It still stings. What happens when promoters, studio owners, and choreographers themselves start to create new terms for their work like "r&b animation" and "iso style?" How do we distinguish the difference?

In the end, it seems that foundation for a style will help it stand the test of time. Trends come and go as much as popular choreographers do. But styles like poppin', lockin', and breakin' have survived challenges because they were embraced as a lifestyle. Hip hop culture is over thirty years old now so this confusion over terminology is natural. We're going to face a lot more discussion as different camps become more vocal and have a discourse.

1 comment:

  1. like any art form, there will always be real estate battles, based on terminology technique and ownership. artists will learn vocab, restylize it, give it a new name and claim ownership. you can try to buy into an existing style - some times you will be allowed in, some times they play an exclusive game - and you will be forced to draw your own boundries and create your own real estate. promoters and business men dont care about artist camps unless a name has cache. otherwise they will use the most commercial name they can think of to promote and make money. btw hip hop is 1930s slang - like platter hop or sock hop. it just means a trendy dance.

    ReplyDelete