投稿類別:英文寫作類

篇名:

值得我們關注的舞蹈-街舞 A Dance Style That Is Worth Our Attention --Street Dance

作者:

陳宥竹。市立台中家商。應用外語科三年一班 葉嘉誼。市立台中家商。應用外語科三年一班 盧羽柔。市立台中家商。應用外語科三年一班

指導老師 : 李偉綾 老師 A Dance Style That Is Worth Our Attention -Street Dance I. Preface

I.1 Motivation & Background

With the broadcast of a famous China program “Street Dance of China,” street dance is all the rage today among teenagers. Initially, street dance was merely prevailing in America; however, in the wake of globalization, it stands out throughout the world, and a lot of competitions were held as mushrooms after rain. What’s more, one kind of street dance, “breaking, is even possible to become one of the formal competitions, Paris Olympic Games in 2024” (BBC, 2019). As street dance in earlier times was for the accusation, attraction, and gang fights instead of for recreation, it led to the result that people viewed street dance as an underground activity. However, the truth is that, no matter what your gender, age, skin colors, and social statuses are, everyone can enjoy dancing.

Through the program “Street Dance of China,” street dance broke through cultural circles, being treated and fostered correctly, giving a stage for dancers that was once looked down upon. To make people get rid of prejudice against street dance and exploiting more possibilities of street dance, we want to popularize street dance and take it to the world, and make everyone a fan of street dance!

I.2 Purpose

(1) What is street dance and what is its history? (2) What’s teenagers’ impression of street dance? (3) What’s the development and blueprint of street dance in the future? (4) How can we do to promote the culture of street dance?

I.3 Research Methods

(1) The Method of Literature Exploration: We collected data through the Internet and doctoral thesis. (2) Questionnaire survey procedure (quantitative analysis): We try to learn about teenagers' views and perceptions of street dance through online questionnaires.

I.4 Procedures

1

A Dance Style That Is Worth Our Attention -Street Dance II. Body

II.1 The Origin of Street Dance

II.1.1 In the Overseas Cities

In the late 1960s, street dance originated from Hip-hop music and Rap music in the African- American community and is a part of Hip-hop culture. Because its performance venues are on the roadside, square and other informal occasions, it is thus called street dance.

Street dance was successively born in two places, New York and California (Wikipedia, 2019).

II.1.1.1 New York

In the 1980s, the dance style of African-Americans in New York changed with the rising of Hip- hop music. After being adapted and created by Henry Link and Buddha Stretch, a brand-new dance style that combined with a variety of dance movements and could dance with Hip-hop music, R&B music and Jazz music, etc., came into the world. To distinguish it from the dance style of African- American in the 1970, it can thus be divided into two parts, Old School and New School. In early 1980, Breaking is the most prevailing and all the dance styles among this period were called Old school, which consisted of a series of movements and matched with the tempo of Hip-hop music. In the 1990s, another dance style came out, New School, or straightly called it Hip-hop dance. New School inherited the tradition of rock, a dance style that featured wiggling from side to side. In contrast to Old School, New school put a greater emphasis on matching the rhythm of the music. In other words, the key that turns Old School into New School is exactly the rhythm of the music (Wikipedia, 2019).

II.1.1.2 California

California's Hip-hop originated in Oakland, the center of the African-American civil rights. In the 1960s, many black groups developed Boogaloo dance based on the actions of early street artists, comedians, and pantomime actors. In the 1970s, Funk music appeared in California and developed two dance styles, one is Locking, and the other is Popping. Locking was invented by Don Compell, an L.A. black youth, in the 1970s, while Locking was invented by Sam Solomon in Fresno, Los Angeles. He created a series of dance movements with the combination of Boogaloo dance and Funk music and also formed another dance style. In the meantime, Sam created another dance style -Popping, based on Auckland Roboting. Because of having a common musical base, Auckland dances such as Locking, Popping, Boogaloo dance, and early Roboting are now collectively known as Funk Style Dance (Wikipedia, 2019).

2

A Dance Style That Is Worth Our Attention -Street Dance II.1.2 Taiwan

The turning point when street dance became popular in Taiwan was in 1980. Since the programs, “shining beats” and “golden channel” were released and the pop music master, Yu Guang, introduced western dance music, street dance had caught teenagers’ eyes and many people began watching MVs and imitating street dance. Meanwhile, with Hong Kong's idols and troupes coming to Taiwan, the first troupe of street dancers such as Ou Jun, Gao Jing Yang, and Wong Qin Xian took Taiwan by storm. At that time, the dancing level of Taiwan almost kept up with that of all the other countries. The Japanese TV station NHK even paid a special visit to Taiwan and interviewed the teenagers that danced at Shi Zi Lin square. Luo Shu Yu described, “Breaking was such a sensation that once a dancer or a troupe learned how to perform some movements such as WINDMILL, HEADSPIN and KNEESPIN, they could have the world” (Chinese Taipei Street Dance Association, 2010). In 1985s, with the release of the "Five Lights Award", street dance culture in Taiwan had been taken to a higher level, and because of that, many a person started learning breaking and popping.

In the same year, there were many dance troupes came out, such as Gestapo, who made a hit with avant-garde music and superb dance skill. Another important and influential dance troupe is L.A Boys, who brought the real American dance style to Taiwan. Street dance lovers in this era usually gathered in the plaza to practice dancing and learned from each other by exchanging views of dance skills, and the two most popular places to practice dancing were Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall and Dr. Sun Yat-Sen Memorial Hall. Nevertheless, it was not until 1995 did the sensation fade out after the “Coca-Cola street dance competition” finished.

Between 1996 and 1997, many DJs started to popularize Hip-hop music. Simultaneously, Mariah Carey came to Taiwan for her concert, and her exclusive dancers brought self-created dance movements to Taiwan, which rekindled the hope of Taiwan's street dance industry. After that, the first street dance competition in Taiwan, “SUMMER HIGH” was held, and many renowned troupes were invited as performing guests (Chiu, 2015).

Since 1988, Hip-hop dancers, DJs, and artists from all over the world came to Taiwan for communication and share with each other. Therefore, Hip-hop was spread rapidly in every part of Taiwan. In 1999, the first street dance alliance, South Soul, was established in Taiwan, which can be considered the flourishing period of south Taiwan; moreover, high school dance clubs were springing up like mushrooms. At the same time, Korean Hip-hop music started to snatch the Taiwan market, which provided Taiwanese with more choices.

In 2000, American Hip-hop culture drew a lot of attention, influencing global music and street dance style. Taiwan is no exception. Many singers began creating music by Hip-Hop and R&B style, and many dance competitions were held one after another in all parts of Taiwan. As a result, the number of people who take part in this field is increasing; therefore, the culture of Taiwanese street dance became more and more stable.

3

A Dance Style That Is Worth Our Attention -Street Dance II.2 Various Dance Styles of Street Dance

Table 1: The Styles of Street Dance. Locking Locking was originated from the late 1960s, which is the earliest formed dance style of street dance. It is invented by the crew, The Lockers, leading by Don Compell. It features fast movements, point with arms and hands, and sudden stop in a short time, and usually goes with clap, jump, split, etc.

Breaking In the early 1970s, a series of difficult, skillful Power Moves using the head, shoulder, back and knee as a center of gravity to spin rapidly on the floor was widely accepted with the name, Breaking. Moreover, Breaking is the first Hip-hop style of street dance.

“Hip” means one’s bottom, and “Hop” means jumping with one foot, and the combination of these two words means, “swaying bottoms softly”. Hip-Hop originated between the late 1980s and early 1990s and was spread by the dance crew, Elite Force, led by Buddha Hip-Hop Stretch. Hip-Hop originally meant the embryonic street dance dance (breaking), and it was transformed into a huge and broader concept afterward. This dance style emphasizes the integration of two objects, rhythm of the body and music; as a result, it is rich in lively feeling and looks pretty enjoyable. The element of movements generally comes from an underground dance party, prevalent

movements performed in American entertaining TV programs and ironic movements in gang culture. Hip-Hop is one of the most frequently-learned dance styles. With dancing by a wide range and simple steps, it can present a complicated emotion.

The technique of shrinking and relaxing muscles rapidly causes the dancers' bodies to look quivering. Moreover, the creator, Sam, Popping said the word “pop” whenever dancing, and this kind of dance style finally is called “Popping.” Popping is easily mistaken for Robot dance: in fact, the real motions of Robot dance are to imitate what robots exactly do, like using electricity or clockwork to turn on the dummy and acting statue. Robot dance is one of the dance styles in the Funk field, not in Popping.

As a dance style of stage performance, because its origin and historical development differ from American street dance, the New Jazz essence of Jazz does not belong to street dance. Earlier than all the other styles of street dance, Jazz was made up of American

4

A Dance Style That Is Worth Our Attention -Street Dance tap dance, Charleston, Swing, Lindy Hop, and was performed with Jazz music. It was between the 1940s and 1980s that Classical ballet, Modern dance, and Hip-Hop started to be introduced in America and thus affected Jazz. Gradually, it shaped as the new form, Contemporary Jazz.

It is also named Street Jazz, Jazz Funk, La Style, La Style Hip- hop and Urban Dance by different choreographers. The relation between Jazz and Hip-hop still has a large dispute now.

House House was gradually shaped between 1980 and 1990, widely absorbing plenty of diffident dance elements from Breaking, Hip- hop, Salsa, Tap, Ballet, etc. It was expressed by a variety of brisk steps and was divided into three parts—Jacking, Footwork, and Lofting.

Dancehall Dancehall has its roots in Jamaica, and the reason it was created (Reggae) is to respond to the rapid development of Reggae music. Dancehall put stress on the physical coordination of the waist and lower body, and gradually blended in with other elements. Nowadays Dancehall usually mixes with elements like Hip-hop, Jazz, African dance. Some renowned songs, like Rihanna's "Work" and Drake's "One Dance”, features Dancehall.

Waacking Waacking was shaped in the 1970s. At first, it was the choreography of an underground gay bar in western America. By using a great number of arm-swinging and coquette poses and movements, it can express Disco and Funk music.

Voguing Voguing is the integration of Waacking, House music, and models’ poses. Its name and style were inspired by the magazine “Vogue.” Voguing has become a part of Waacking in recent years. Last but not least, the audiences of Waacking & Voguing are mostly women.

II.3 Findings and Discussions

We adopted the survey method and distributed questionnaires via Google, form and there were 100 senior high school students participating in our questionnaires. All were valid with no invalid questionnaires. The questionnaire asked questions about their views and opinions about street dance, and we chose 10 graphs to discuss and summarize the information we collected.

73% of the participants are women, while the other 27% are men.

5

A Dance Style That Is Worth Our Attention -Street Dance

Figure 1: The popularity of street dance. Figure 2: To indicate how the participants see.

From Figure 1, it indicates that 70% of the participants have ever engaged in street dance, which is a tremendous number. It means that street dance is becoming more and more prevailing nowadays.

Figure 2 shows that every participant holds an optimistic attitude toward Street dance. Among the figure, 57% of the participants think that street dance is a new fashion, 36% of them think it is a proper activity, and the other 7% think it can strengthen one’s body.

Table 2: To see how much the public knows the street dance As far as you know, what kinds of dance styles are sorts of street dance? (multiple choices) Popping 72 Ballet 14 Locking 64 Breaking 91 Modern dance 27 Waacking 44 New Jazz 18 Dance hall 25 Hip-hop 1 No idea 3 Figure 3: The understanding level of street dance.

Judging from Table 2, most of the participants can tell some common street dance styles, such as Breaking and popping, whereas there are still a few people who confuse other dance styles like Ballet and Modern dance with street dance. Therefore, we should take more actions to make people know more about street dance.

According to Figure 3, to our surprise, only a few participants understand street dance fully, while there are still over half of the participants who consider they have a rough understanding of street dance.

6

A Dance Style That Is Worth Our Attention -Street Dance

% % % % % % % % Figure4: The ways people understand street dance.

Figure 4 reveals how people get information about street dance. The Internet gets the most votes and 61 participants vote for it, while TV shows get 56 votes and the number of its votes is merely five less than the internet. However, schools and clubs both get only one vote, which meant that it still had some room for improvement in terms of its publicity.

What's more, schools and clubs are the places where we teach our children, who will be the pillars of the nation in the future; hence, we can conclude that we need to promote street dance harder in schools and clubs.

Table 3: The pros and cons of street dance. What are the pros and cons of street dance? (Multiple choices) Having sports injuries 75 Hard to become a profitable job 35 Neglecting one's studies 7 Self-achievement 57 Making your body fit 37 Improving body’s coordination 62 Developing one’s teamwork ability 48 Others 1 Figure 5: The discrimination toward Hip-hop dancers.

According to Table 3 and Figure 5, we can see that some people consider teenagers who engage in street dance are more likely to neglect their own studies. Likewise, some people think that street dance is hard to become a profitable job. Those cons may be the reasons why people give street dancers a peculiar look. However, a lot of people think that street dance can not only make your body fit and have a good shape but also improve the body’s coordination. It is very likely that this is the main reason why more and more people take part in this sport.

7

A Dance Style That Is Worth Our Attention -Street Dance

Figure 6: To see whether people support street dance. Figure 7: The feasible methods to promote street dance. In Figure 6 and Figure 7, we can see over 90% of the teenagers support the development of street dance in Taiwan, and most of the people think that shooting promotional videos, holding competitions, and inviting well-known dancers to Taiwan are efficient ways that can publicize street dance.

Figure 8: The acceptance of Breaking becomes formal competitions.

There are 70 percent of the participants agreeing to street dance to become a formal Olympic competition. Nevertheless, approximately one third of the people think that street dance isn’t eligible for it. To sum up, the great majority of teenagers accept street dance as formal competitions, which means street dance has gradually become an acceptable activity for teenagers.

III. Conclusion

To sum up, street dance is a culture which consists of a wide variety of elements, like, Hip-hop music, Rap music, and African culture. At first, street dance has its roots in America; however, as time goes by and the globalization rises, street dance has evolved into various types, such as Breaking, Locking, and popping, which we have elaborated above.

In our thesis, the origin, background of street dance and teenagers’ opinions toward street dance are also introduced and analyzed; in addition, street dance’s development in Taiwan and abroad are also mentioned. The styles of street dance are the things we explore too. On the one hand, most of

8

A Dance Style That Is Worth Our Attention -Street Dance the teens don't understand street dance very well, as shown from the results of the questionnaire; on the other hand, the styles of street dance have much to do with its development.

From our questionnaire data, we can know that people have a basic understanding about street dance and support the promotion of it very much as well. Some people think that street dance may bring some negative impacts to students, like academic regression or sports injuries, but overall, most of the teenagers have a positive impression on street dance. There still are some development spaces of street dance in Taiwan; we can promote it through the short videos about street dance which is taken by the government, holding all kinds of competitions and inviting famous dancers to come to perform.

According to some reports and news, we can see that street dance is steadily flourishing. Although there are still some people who don't know anything about street dance and even reject it, we are still convinced that with the government's and organizations' mutual efforts, it could be known to everyone around the world.

IV. References

1. 吳聲佶 (2009)。臺灣街舞文化的社會意涵。臺灣師範大學運動與休閒管理研究所: 碩士 論文。

2. 李靜怡 (2004)。台灣青少年嘻哈文化的認同與實踐。國立成功大學藝術研究所: 碩士論 文。

3. 維基百科 (2019 年 9 月 14 日)。取自 https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E8%A1%97%E8%88%9E

4. 黃明甘、高小芳、向薇潔 (2006 年 8 月)。 論街頭流行運動文化-街舞運動，取自 https://www.lib.must.edu.tw/catalogs/MHJ/doc/MJ032006.pdf

5. 王心妤 (2011 年 10 月 30 日)。街舞的各種舞風之我愛跳舞，取自 https://www.shs.edu.tw/works/essay/2011/11/2011111421573478.pdf

6. 張為鈞 (2009 年 11 月 9 日)。街舞介紹-街舞的歷史，取自 https://soulshow.pixnet.net/blog/post/2073880

7. 運動舞蹈教室(2017 年 4 月 16 日)。 科普向！什麼是街舞，取自 https://kknews.cc/zh-tw/education/b2v2yzn.html

8. 朱彥霖、鄭維程 (年份未知)。舞動人心，取自 https://www.shs.edu.tw/works/essay/2012/03/2012033022350486.pdf

9

A Dance Style That Is Worth Our Attention -Street Dance 9. 邱詩茵、邱詩茹 (2015)。絕「舞」僅有—臺灣 HIPHOP 街舞文化及淺談 HIPHOP，取自 https://www.shs.edu.tw/works/essay/2015/03/2015033018360372.pdf

10. Anonymous author (2019). Olympic Games: Breakdancing takes step closer to Paris 2024 inclusion, from https://www.bbc.com/sport/olympics/48762089

10