Hip Hop and Street Dance

This course introduces students to all of the basics of Hip Hop and street dance movement, music, and culture. Course topics provide appropriate body movements covering body placement, technique, stylization, rhythm, and musicality. Students will learn and practice hip hop combos that include either or both grooves and choreographies through the repetitions of large but simple dance moves that utilize the whole body. Choreographies include tunes that combine old and new school Hip Hop. Like other forms of dance, Hip Hop must be studied within the framework of its historical and social context. Each lesson will provide a focus on the cultural significance of Hip Hop and reflect on the origins of the Hip Hop culture of young, urban, working-class populations, its roots in the African oral tradition, its function as the voice of an otherwise underrepresented group, and, as its popularity has grown, its commercialization and appropriation by the music industry.