What is Hip Hop Dance?

At Dance House Productions we love and value our work. Our faculty strives to be the best instructors, dancers and choreographers possible. We take every opportunity to continue our education in the field of Hip-Hop Dance. We love sharing what we have learned with parents and students.

What it Isn't

We will tell you what it isn’t, and what is helpful to know in order to determine what Hip-Hop Dance is.

Let’s start with what it isn’t:

• Hip-Hop Dance isn’t about minors dressed inappropriately, performing inappropriate movement to inappropriate music. No, no and no.
• Hip-Hop Dance is not “Street Funk.” We’re pretty sure that “Street Funk” is a term invented by the Dance Studio Industry to try and capture the dollars of people interested in Street or Urban Dance without, you know, having to actually talk to, credit, or remunerate the creators of those Street or Urban Dances. So, yeah, Street Funk isn’t really a thing. And also, come on, Dance Studio Industry – be better than that.
• Hip-Hop Dance is not an umbrella term for several different styles of dance like breakdancing and others. If anything, Hip-Hop Dance falls under the umbrella of another type or category of dance. But now we’re just getting into semantics. We want to dance, not have a scholarly debate, right? Right.
• Hip-Hop Dance is not random movement set to popular music. Nope, double nope and all the nopes to that. This dance has its own techniques, and of course, those techniques come with rules that describe when you’re executing the movement properly.
• Hip-Hop Dance is not a three-minute routine of dancers flamboyantly striding across stage, hair-flipping and showing off their best duck-face while still somehow managing to chew on a wad of gum. That sounds like the beginning of a movie about cheerleader fights.

And that brings us to our next point: Hip-Hop Dance is not cheer leading! Your cheering coach will agree. Go ask him.

Hip-Hop dance is not Jazz or Ballet movement done while wearing camo pants, a fish-net top, cut off gloves and a black winter hat. Seriously, people – did you know that every time a girl in camo fatigues does fouette turns to hip-hop music a kitten dies? Yuuuuuuup. Those poor, poor animals never had a chance. So all you people in Maine, and you know who you are, please stop already. Let’s all be better than that.

Technically, plagiarizing already-existing, well-known Hip-Hop choreography from movies like “Step Up 1,2,3,4,” “Step Up Squared,” “Step Up: Same Movie, Different Actors” or “Step Up: Dancing Puppies” is Hip-Hop Dance. Also, though, it is not just technically – but most definitely – theft of someone else’s ideas. When you steal someone else’s ideas, that is just a real low move. Ask Shia LaBeouf about it, he’ll tell you. We do not want to suffer the fate of Shia LaBeouf – our goal is not to copy the works of others but to be innovative and authentic. And so, no, we will not be stealing and performing your favorite routine from “So You Think You Can Dance.” Sorry, not sorry, try another dance studio.

"Dance is the hidden language of the soul. When children learn to express themselves through movement, they discover a powerful form of communication that transcends words."

In order to have an innovative and authentic Hip-Hop Dance Program, it is important to know the history of Hip-Hop Dance. To understand the history of Hip-Hop Dance is to know that the music, technical and costume selection must follow certain rules. Knowing what these rules are allows our instructors to honor traditions and conventions of Hip-Hop Dance.

What it is

"Alright bro, enough talking, what is Hip-Hip dance already?"

Don't "bro" me, bro.

Hip-Hop Dance is a specific body of movement with a defined technique. And that body of movement is vast. I'm talking thousands of moves. Let that sink in.

Hip-Hop Dance is partially rooted in a particular subculture of 1960’s New York. You can read about it in a book. Amazon, baby!

Did you know that a famous Hollywood cinema special-effects animator is credited with being a major contributor to Hip-Hop Dance? Uh-huh. What a weird world.

Did you know that Hip Hop Dance was born in many places? I know, sounds like it could have been messy, right? Some of those places are Zip Code 10468, Saint Louis, Missouri and Ancient Greece. True story.

Hip-Hop Dance is defined by a certain set of rhythms.

Getting Started

We hope we have piqued your curiosity and motivated you to come to our studio and see what makes our dance program so unique, because let’s face it, anybody can talk a good game on the Internet, or even be a man pretending to be a girl, but seeing is believing, so depending on the season, grab your keys, fire up your snowmobile, or harness up those sled dogs and come be a part of something special!