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The Miseducation of Hip-Hop : Authenticity, and the commodification of cultural identities. E. Moncell Durden., Assistant Professor of Practice University of Southern Glorya Kaufman School of Dance

Introduction

Hip-hop dance has become one of the most popular forms of dance expression in the world. The explosion of hip-hop movement and culture in the 1980s provided unprecedented opportunities to inner-city youth to gain a different access to the

“American” dream; some companies saw the value in using this new art form to market their products for commercial and consumer growth. This explosion also aided in an early downfall of hip-hop’s first dance form, breaking. The form would rise again a decade later with a vengeance, bringing older breakers out of retirement and pushing new generations to develop the technical acuity to extraordinary levels of artistic corporeal genius.

We will begin with hip-hop’s arduous beginnings. Born and raised on the sidewalks and playgrounds of ’s asphalt jungle, this youthful energy that became known as hip-hop emerged from aspects of cultural expressions that survived political abandonment, economic struggles, environmental turmoil and activity.

These living conditions can be attributed to high unemployment, exceptionally organized drug distribution, corrupt police departments, a failed fire department response system, and Robert Moses’ building of the Cross-Bronx Expressway, which caused middle and upper-class residents to migrate North. The lost

600,000 jobs and displaced more than 5,000 families. Between 1973 and 1977, and more than 30,000 fires were set in the South Bronx, which gave rise to the phrase “The

Bronx is Burning.” This marginalized the black and Latino communities and left the youth feeling unrepresented, and hip-hop gave restless inner-city kids a voice.

Back in the 1980s, if I mentioned I was a dancer, people would ask what do you dance? Once I said hip-hop, I would get incurious looks, or perhaps hear something to the effect of, “that’s not real dancing.” Even when I was teaching at Drexel University, I remember someone saying my class was just fun—to give students a break from their real technique classes. Studios would usually turn you away if you wanted to rent space to practice your moves, put together routines or rehearse for upcoming performances.

In the early , I spoke with dance studio owners in about their interest in offering hip-hop classes. They mentioned that they felt the need to provide hip-hop as a part of their curriculum in order to stay competitive, even though they did not know much or anything about the art form. There is a large percentage of studios in the U.S. that do not employ instructors qualified to teach hip-hop dance. And in many cases, this overwhelming demand results in students just learning a hybrid of based on motifs from lyrical, , and styles, not hip-hop dance.

Many studios feel that watching videos or training in different disciplines qualifies people to teach , but these methods of teaching hip hop in this authors opinion are damaging and disrespectful to all dance forms. Ask yourself whether you would hire an unqualified instructor to teach ballet. Would you tell a teacher who doesn’t know ballet to just watch a video and copy it? No, because we accept that ballet takes years of training, and has techniques. Well, so does hip-hop. Hip-hop is a vernacular form, similar to authentic jazz, meaning that it is indigenous to a particular community or lifestyle. Vernacular was coined by researcher

Marshall Stearns to describe the of the early twentieth century that came from the ‘street’ and club cultures in New York, “vernacular” addresses the dance and the people, and like jazz, hip-hop is a way to express concerns, frustrations, aggressions, ideals, and exuberance. The outlet of music and dance expression can help maintain daily balance and peace while dealing with day-to-day life experiences; it has been a way of life for African and Afro-diasporic people throughout time. Further, hip-hop is the true continuum of Jazz dance. Understanding how to teach the form means not only comprehending its true techniques, foundations, vocabulary, pioneers, and innovators but also the significance of its deep-rooted structures, behavior characteristics, and cultural identity. These dance practices and their lineages have been dismissed, marginalized, commodified and yet are still appropriated and codified by individuals outside of the vernacular.

Don’t Believe the Hype

Scholar Sally Banes wrote the first article covering hip hop dance and culture.

Her 1981 Village Voice article, “Physical : Breaking Is Hard To Do,” was accurate ground-breaking, (no pun intended) and highlighted the cultures authenticity. Many writers would fall short when it came to writing about the dance and culture—they were misinformed, or misunderstood what they were writing about, accomplished scholars on the lineage and expression of ‘black’ dance who missed the mark when it came to hip-hop. “Black Dance: from 1619 to Today,” written by Lynne Fauley Emery and published in 1988, was an amazing account of the lineage of African-American dance forms, but of its 367 pages of text only a page and a half spoke to hip-hop, with some key names, dancers, and and a meager relationship to authentic jazz.

The 1990 book “Jookin’: The Rise of Formations in African-

American Culture,” by author/scholar Katrina Hazzard-Donald is one of my favorite books to cover the subject. However, in 1996 she contributed an article titled “Dance in Hip-Hop Culture,” which appeared in the publication “Droppin’ Science,” a collection of critical essays on Rap Music and Hip Hop Culture. This article was not the well- researched work in “Jookin’”—at least not when it came to correct identity, terminology, and social structures of the dance. Donald makes statements that hip-hop is clearly masculine in style, and that in its early stages it rejected the partnering ritual between men and woman. In regards to floor-rocking, the aspect of breaking that occurs on the floor, this is true. But Donald fails to realize that there were female breakers (though it was male dominated, hip-hop was not purely masculine). In fact, many male breakers learned how to dance from their sisters. And the earliest form of the dance was rocking, also known today as top-rocking, which men and women would dance together.

Donald mentions that while at a party, a young dancer refused to dance with her because his personal style did not allow for partnering—an experience she took too literally. shows dancers Pat Davis, Dimita Jo Freeman and Locking

Janet dancing with Don Campbell (the creator of the form), Jimmy “Scoo B Doo”

Foster, and other dancers doing the locking form. These dances are not partner dances in the sense that you hold hands, that social decorum was changed with the popularization of the . Social dances of the 60s and 70s, and even 80s, did not require partners to always hold hands.

One of the worst things this article does to aid in the miseducation of hip hop dance is suggest that there are three stages, which are , and

“rap dancing.” This misinformation was cited in Carla Stalling Huntington 2007 book

Hip Hop Dance: Meanings and messages. In fact, there are only two forms of dance that are actually hip-hop: breaking (correctly known as B-boying) and party/social dances this includes Harlem Lite Feet. Today, hip-hop has become an umbrella term that houses other associated with it. Waacking is a west coast dance, created in the

Los Angeles LGBTQ community and based off of an earlier dance called posing. As far as the hip-hop community is concerned, there is no such thing as “rap dance.” That would be like calling dances “song dance,” when performed to R&B. Their music may include singing, but the style of music is called R&B. Similarly, hip-hop artists known as emcees are , but the music is hip-hop, and you dance hip-hop to those records.

Donald’s article and Huntington’s book are full of misunderstood information,

Donald stating that locking was known on the East Coast as pop-locking, but there is no such dance as pop-locking. Because of the technical aspect of each of these dances, it is impossible to perform both forms at the same time. The term “pop-lock” was a West Coast term, probably formed when came out in the mid-.

Locking was still the most popular dance form, and many people who were popping dressed in the locking , which may have caused the confusion. The East Coast did misinterpret the form, but they called it electric , not pop-lock; they were clear on what locking was and how it was danced. Huntington misunderstands the gang-related dance, the , also known as the C-Walk, which she addresses as the “Sea Walk.” She attempts to connect the “Sea Walk” to “Danse de Negros,” a term related to the “dancing” performed by enslaved Africans on slave ships during the

Middle Passage.

Donald says that females are not represented in hip-hop, but a clear of female and male representation of the social dances in hip-hop can be seen in the

1990 movie “House Party,” starring Kid n’ Play. The dance battle that takes place between Kid n’ Play and characters Sidney (played by Tisha Campbell) and Sharane

(played by A.J. Johnson). The scene displays the vigor and fervor both bring to the dance. In the 1980s the woman were just as present as the men, dancers like the Safari Sisters Alison and Kika danced for rapper Queen Laftifah, Selema and Shane dance for rapper Sweet T., Kiam and Shane danced for , The Gucci Girls, Big

Lez, Jossie Thacker, Hi-Hat, Fatimah Robinson danced for multiple artists. One thing I do agree with in Donald’s article is that romantic coupling requires a return to the previous eras, dating back to the slow and even further. However, this is true for many styles, not just hip-hop. Even in the 1960s, if you were doing dances like the

Twist, the Hully Gully, the Slop, the Chicken, the Mashed Potato or the

(which are in the same style as the hip-hop party dances), you would have to return to previous eras’ romantic coupling style. And even in “House Party” after the dance battle, men and women dance together, then later return to what Donald called

“traditional” partnering. Traditional dances throughout the continent of Africa are not always performed in the manner that Donald is suggesting, nor were dances like Bamboula () or Calinda (Venezuela) and other such dances done throughout the West Indies and America. Even dances throughout the West Indies like

Cuban developed out of the colonization of the lands not out of the Taino

Indians traditional dance formations. This kind of partnering, which Donald calls

“traditional,” refers to the Western style of court dancing, which is only one type of partnering.

Before moving on, I should break down the distinctions between hip-hop, B- boying (breaking) and the party dances.

B-boying (Physical Graffiti)

“They didn’t even have a definite name for the form–they sometimes called it

“breaking,” but they also referred to it as “rocking down,” “b-boy,” the “boiyoing,” or just that kind of dancing you do to rap music.” (Banes, 79-1985)

B-boying was first introduced as Rocking and strictly danced up top, not on the ground. Strongly founded in the Latino community rooted in , Rumba, , and other forms, it also finds inspiration from other dance forms like tap and authentic jazz. “I used to copy the movement of and add them to my rock dance,” says pioneering dancer and rock dancer Willie “Marineboy”

Estrade.

Rocking

“If there was a name for it, it would have been considered “Rockin.” (Mr. Wiggles interview, 2007) Rocking is not only the name of the dance; it is how the dance moves and grooves. The word “rockin(g)” itself was widely used at the time to describe almost anything. You could rock the mic, rock a train with a piece (graffiti), rock the crowd on the wheels of steel (turntables) and rock the circle. The term “rock” also extended to fashion: how you “rocked” , fat laces in your , your hat, or whatever represented your individual style. In the early days of the dance, it was referred to as

Boiyoing, Going Off, or Rocking. In , it was referred to as the Brooklyn Rock or the Freak Style. This dance came about before dancers were going to the ground.

According to Trac 2, an early B-boy pioneer, “the Boiyoing included dances done in the Black community, and Rock or Rocking was done in the Latino community in the early 70s. By late 1974, park jams opened up, and Black and Latino communities exchanged dance styles. By 1975, the fusion of Top-Rocking (originally Latino) and floor moves (originally African-American) became a more complete dance form that came to be known as Rocking, then as B-boying. In the 1980s, the dance—called

“breakdancing” by the media—was extremely commodified, promoted and exploited by the media and corporate companies for profit. Because of this, the dance community made efforts to reclaim their art-form, which they knew as rocking and b- boying, to pay homage to the two cultures that really created the dance.

B-boying or breaking is a dance form divided into a few movement practices:

“top-rocking,” (rhythmic upright dancing that introduces a dancer’s style and character) is culturally based in Afro- heritage, fusing Latin dances like

Mambo, , Rumba, Salsa, with authentic jazz dances like the ,

Apple Jack, Mashed Potatoes etc., which includes “drops” (a stylized way of getting to the floor), “floor-rocking,” connected to eccentric comedic dance of the early 20th century but has deep roots in Agya from Martinique, and Brazilian Capoeira, a descendant of Angolan dance; Floor rocking includes influences from gymnastics and martial arts films. According to Joe Schloss the influence of the martial arts films helped breakers develop four devices, strength, skill, creativity and style as well as, disciplined, flowing moves that display , finesse, and creativity), “power moves”

(displaying strength and balance), “air moves” (acrobatics) and “up-rocking,” influenced by everyday living and environmental experiences in New York Youth culture, uses pantomimed characteristics and gestures found in gang life. The equivalent to the verbal insult tradition “The Dozens” today known as “Mama Jokes.” these pantomime movements are called “Jerks and Burns” (a burn is a personal improvisational gesture designed to insult your opponent, while a jerk works in partnership as part of a four-count step or setup to deliver a burn) In his book

Foundation, Joe Schloss suggest that there are three tactics which are 1 Superior dance technique, 2 insulting gestures, 3 mimed physical attacks, and three rules of engagement consisting of 1 understanding the meaning of the gesture, 2 formulate a response and 3 actually do it without losing the flow of the dance. and finally the “” in his article Kung-Fu Cowboy to Bronx B-boys: Heroes and the Birth of hip-Hop. Culter Edwards suggest that the Freeze is a metaphoric posture symbolizing a fatal blow delivered to another dancer. “The fighter has symbolically killed his opponent; in b-boy parlance, one would say that s/he “killed” that move.”

This sub-culture provided an opportunity for young people to engage with social issues on a more abstract level. Creating and naming dance moves and crews helped to establish an identity to be seen and heard. These names were labels for real-life personas that played a role in liberating them beyond the labels imposed by their environment, economical status.

“We transcended and we became those names, proving to ourselves and the world that we really were and are those persona…we are bigger than life in a context and recognized as cultural superstars by our peers first and the world now…making ourselves powerful through a name, an identification that says we are infinitely powerful.” (Graff Writer Sade TCM)

The Break

The word B-boy (break-boy) is credited to DJ Kool Herc, a pioneer who is considered the father of hip hop. In 1970s street lingo, the word “break” or “breaking” meant “going off” on the dance floor, as well as in an altercation. Herc called dancers that “went off” to the break of the record, break-boys and break-girls or b-boys and b- girls. The word “break” was also incorporated in the name of some of the early B-boy

Crews like Breakmasters, Dynamic Breakers, Incredible Breakers, and the New York

City Breakers. In musical terms, the break refers to the part of a song where the instrumentalists take an improvised solo. In dance, a break refers to a dancer’s solo.

The 1980 hit, “The Breaks” by Emcee , describes breaks in various way,

“Brakes on bus, brakes on a car, breaks to make you a super star,” “you borrowed money from the mob, and yesterday you lost your job, these are the breaks.”

The use of the word “break” is not exclusive to hip hop. In buck dancing (an early form of ) in the 1800s. In fact, the use of the word comes from the corn shucking festivals during harvest on plantations. The enslaved black people while shucking the corn would pop the end piece off which is called a-break which lead to the phrase breaking it down which was also a dance that drop to the ground. In vernacular Jazz dance, there is the Cincinnati Breakdown, a popular social dance of the 1940s. In Lindy-Hop, a “breakaway” was a step when two people separated in order to perform improvised steps before coming back together. In soul dances of the

1970s, there was the “back-breaker” (referring to the elasticity of the spine) or the

“breakdown” (a side-to-side movement where the body would change the levels as if breaking down a little lower).

The Rise and Fall of Breaking

The average age for a breaker was between fifteen and seventeen; usually before the age of twenty, one would stop breaking, as it was considered a dance for young people. In the mid 1980s, the dance was known as “Break-dancing” throughout media circles and mainstream America. The early 80s produced two biopic films that gave an accurate presentation of the culture as a whole. “,” produced by

Henry Chalfant and Tony Silver, profiles New Yorkers who practice breaking and graffiti art. “Style Wars” was released in 1983 and aired on PBS in 1984. The second film was

“,” released in 1983 and produced by Charlie Ahearn. The film is regarded as the first Hip-hop motion picture. The film features the actual rappers, deejays, graffiti writers and breakers from who were present for the birth of this new movement called hip-hop. Another feature film that came out that same year was

“,” and even though the film was not about “breaking,” one scene in the film focused on members of the Rocksteady Crew dancing in an alleyway. Rocksteady

Crew, a group of breakers and graffiti writers who were also featured in both “Wild

Style” and “Style Wars,” have a short scene in the film, displaying some of their moves for a minute and twenty-five seconds. The film grossed $201.5 million at the box office and introduced breaking to the world. It was no longer just a Bronx or

New York dance—the whole world saw the dance and attempted to learn it.

Breaking was now being spotlighted on national news shows, talk shows, ads for Burger King, Kool-Aid, Levis, Pepsi-Cola, Coca –Cola and in 1981 ABC aired a special report on “20/20” titled “Rappin’ to the Beat” by Steve Fox. In 1983, a West

Coast documentary called “Breakin’ and Enterin’” was produced by Topper Carrew.

The film introduced pioneers of the culture in and showed the influence New York breaking had on the West Coast dance community. “Breakin’ and Enterin’” was the influence for the 1984 indie film “Breakin’” released in May 1984, produced by Joel Silberg. This film was about a concert jazz dancer who was introduced into the street dance scene. “Breakin’” was less of a biopic and more of a commercialized Hollywood story. “Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo,” released just seven months later, was an even bigger fictional depiction of hip-hop culture. In June of

1984, “” a film produced by , was set in New York and included many of the original Emcees (rapper) Deejays, and breakers seen in “Style

Wars” and “Wild Style.” “Beat Street” follows two brothers—one a DJ, the other a breaker—along with a group of their friends, all invested in hip hop culture. In 1984 there was a huge interest in breakers. Everyone was capitalizing on hip-hop, even the closing ceremonies of the 1984 summer Olympics in Los Angeles, which involved 100 breakers. Among the dancers was a young future Academy Award winner

Gooding Jr.

The heavy exposure of breaking in mainstream media was everywhere: instructional books and videos complete with graffiti designed cardboard, major motion pictures, commercials, and sitcoms. By June 1985, an exploitation of breaking had appeared in the film “Cocoon,” directed by Ron Howard. The film chronicles an elderly group, who find they youthful energy after swimming in a pool occupied by aliens who use to pool to rejuvenate their fellow beings. In one scene, which is held in a , Art Selwyn, played by seasoned actor Don Ameche demonstrates his youthfulness by breakdancing in the middle of the club. As mentioned early on in this article the explosion and commercialism of breaking became a turnoff with the inner- city youth that created the art form. Though hip-hop’s first dance seemed to be fading from the spotlight, the music was picking up. The early 80s saw music from hip-hop artists like Sugar Hill Gang, Kurtis Blow, and and the Furious Five.

Slowly, other groups begin to break into the industry: artists like (who were the first rap act to have dancers) , LL Cool J, Run-DMC, and the pioneering rap trio The Sequence (hip hop’s first ladies) featuring Cheryl “The. Pearl” Cook,

Gwendolyn “Blondy” Chisolm and Angie Stone, just to name a few. As these and other groups came out with music, social dances emerged among their records.

Hip-hop Dances, Crews and Pioneers

Now let me be clear; before “breaking”—even during the time that young people were breaking—there were always social dances. In the 1979 song “Rapper’s Delight” by Sugar Hill Gang, rapper mentions three popular social dances called the “freak,” the “spank,” and the “bump” at 5:40. In the 1982 song “Mirda Rock” by

Reggie Griffin and Technofunk, say, “I want to dance, and rock, and do the

Smurf.” Rock can refer to a number of things: rock was a groove that swayed the body from side to side, rock was an early step before breaking went to the ground, rock was a sexual reference connected to meaning behind the phase rock n’ roll. The Smurf was a popular dance of the time, along with dances like the Patty Duke, Gigolo, Click Clack and the Snake made popular by King Mario. During the first five years of the nineteen eighties, breaking was on the decline as quickly as it rose and these solo party dances were taking over as the popular style of dance. In 1985 one dance became a staple dance to do whenever the DJ played: by Doug E. Fresh and the Get Fresh Crew, featuring Slick Rick or Ricky D., as he was known back then.

“Though the song had nothing to do with the dance, In New York, whenever that song came on everyone would do the .” –Buddha Stretch

Party dances have been present since the beginning of the hip-hop scene in the

1970s, with dances like the Gigolo and the Patty Duke. However, in the 80s, these new social dances took on a flamboyant b-boy-esque battle style, replacing circles of B- boys and B-girls with hip-hop dancers. These new hip-hop party dances came into existence because of hip-hop music, with rappers making call-and-response records such as “Woppit” by B-Fats or “Pee-Wee’s Dance” by Joeski Love, and “Do the

James” by Super Lover Cee and Casanova Rud.

As rap music continued to take center stage, the advent of music videos helped to expose and showcase different regional and communal expressions in slang, fashion, musical backgrounds, and dances. In , the Steve Martin and Biz

Markie were the popular dances, just like the and Bankhead Bounce in

Atlanta, while Californians did the Guess and the Dee-Daa.

In the 80s, there were no auditions to get into a ; rappers of the

1980s involved their friends or popular community dancers in their group or performances. In New York City, there was Scoob and Scrap, who danced for rapper

Big Daddy Kane; TCF (The Chosen Few), with Kool G Rap and Deejay Polo; IBM dancers with rappers Nice & Smooth; The Invincibles with Kid ‘n Play; Leg 1 and leg 2 with MC Lyte, and the Boyz, with rapper Dwight Errington Myes, better known as

Heavy D. California artists witnessed dance teams like the Soul Brothers with Emcee

Def Jeff and the Scheme Team with Divine Styler, and many trendy dance crews. There were also crews and dancers that freelanced for different artists—Leslie “Big Lez”

Segar, Chris “Shaik” Mathis (rip) Marjory Smarth (rip) Jossie Thacker, Rose Perez, Hi- hat, Fatima Robinson, Misfits, who can be seen in the video “Toss It Up” by Zhigge,

IOU dancers, who can be seen in the 1988 Kid ‘n Play video “Getting Funky,” Mop-Top crew in the 1989 Doug E. Fresh video “Summertime,” or the Gucci Girls in the 1988

“Groove Me” video by R&B group Guy. The communities and dance crews gave birth to the ‘80s and ‘90s social dance style, creating dances and influencing as well as hairstyles. These influences led to an international community of hip-hop dances and dance practitioners.

Digging Deeper “To understand the culture study the dance, and to understand the dance study the people.” –Baba Chuck Davis

The deep rooted structure within a culture is found in the retention of characteristics of behavior that exist beyond time and geography. These characteristics belong to the people’s cultural identities.

You cannot separate the people from the dance, nor can you separate the dance from the culture. The narrative of the people is told and retold in our cultural and national histories through literature, the media, pop culture, images, scenarios, historical events, symbols, and rituals which all stand for and represent ideals. Our social and cultural experiences inform our dance practices, shape our behavioral characteristics, and construct our identities. These identities are contained and maintained in the stories of the people, through memory and images. They recognize our past in our present and the imagery identifies and represents the people. The emotional, spiritual, and belief systems are storied in our cellular memory: our biographies become our biology. These practices are incorporated and inscribed in and on the body, which is loaded and coded with meanings and messages that not only tell us what we dance, but why we dance.

Deidra Sklar says movement knowledge is a kind of cultural knowledge, that as a way of knowing, movement implies that the way people move is as much a clue to who they are as the way they speak and dance. In the early days of hip-hop, the way you danced let someone know what part of the city you were from, or what region or

Coast you came from. Sklar also suggests that movement is conceptual and emotional, as well as kinesthetic. How do we identify these characteristics in hip hop dance? And what do they tell us about where we belong, how to behave, where we come from, and what we value? These characteristics of behavior in hip-hop are deeply rooted in the social and cultural fabric of African concepts and traditions, that are reinvented in the ring-shout, spiritual hyms, , jazz, , rock n’ roll, soul and , which culminated into hip-hop. These characteristics include but are not limited to: orientation to the earth, polyrhythm, polycentrism, pantomime, competition, something in hand, improvisation, circle or line formations, importance to community, rhythm, percussiveness, innovative, spirituality, flexed positions, and asymmetrical posture. (Gottschild, Malone, Donald, Glass, Holloway, Hurston).

Party / Social Dances and Connections

Other than these characteristics, hip-hop has also continued a direct lineage from vernacular jazz movements, with dances like the 1980s Kid ‘n Play -Step, by rappers Kid ‘n Play; they originally called this dance the Funky Charleston. Another example is the 2000s dance the Sponge Bob, which is the reverse of the scissor-kick

Charleston of the 1930s. There was also a continuation of animal dances stemming from the African tradition. Ragtime had the Turkey Trot, Grizzly Bear and the Buzzard

Lope, jazz dance had the Snake Hips, Fish Tail, and Camel Walk, 1960s dances had the Bird, the Fly, the Dog, the Monkey, the Chicken, the 1970s did the Funky Chicken, the Funky , and the Philly Dog, while hip-hop had the Snake and Chicken-

Head, the Bird Walk, and the . Hip-hop even used inspiration from television, movies, and toys to create new dances, like the Alf, , Robo-Cop, the Bart Simpson, the Bernie, and . Hip-hop dance also highlights stereotypical characteristics with funk and groove.

For example, the current popular hip-hop dances, like the Nae Nae and Hit Dem

Folks. The Nae Nae takes a satirical approach toward the angry black girl trope.

Inspired by and named after comedian Martin Lawrence’s character Sheneneh from his

1990s hit sitcom Martin; The Sheneneh character represented the angry black girl trope. These stereotypical gestures—talking to the hand, rolling of the neck, side pressing of the lips—were turned into a stylized dance created by We Are Toonz, an

American hip-hop group from Stone Mountain, . Hit Dem Folks, created in

Columbus, Georgia places great emphasis on pantomime with gestures related to sports like dribbling, pass and assist, dunking in basketball, or throwing to stiff arming in football, which is actually a dance called the “Heisman.”

I have given some information about gestural connections, characteristics, and similarities, but what other evidence can we look at in the deep structure in terms of the fundamental foundations or core elements of the dance dynamics? How about the root movement in the Nae Nae? In each dance, there is a primary function that determines the consistency of the dance, separating the dance structure from the improvisation. In the case of the Nae Nae, the root movement belongs to the legs. The movement of the legs are consistent, while the position of the arms and the angle of the torso have more room for creative variations. The correct position and movement of the Nae Nae are achieved when both feet are flat to the ground, knees bent directly over the toes in a reflexed angle with feet about shoulder width apart. The hips rock forward and back on a downward angle holding a steady groove with the knees striking the quarter notes at the lowest part of the movement. Keeping this position and groove, you take a step backward one foot at a time with either one arm in the air or both arms rest on top of the knees. Taking the exact same structure, the movement and groove with both are held in front of you, bent at the elbow, and adding alternating toe taps to the back, this dance is called Tacky Annie and is part of in the

1920s. The same structure, movement and groove apply to this next dance: rest both hands on top of the knees like in the Nae Nae, get your rock going and this time alternate your feet taking forward steps in a half note fashion. This dance is called

Walking the Dog, and is from the 1960s. Three different dances, three different, eras, three different musical stylings with three different generations and the structure of the movement is still the same. The groove didn’t change, nor did the position of body or the root movement.

In each dance, the legs were the core or root structural movement and the rest of the body has creative license, so that anyone can bring their variation as a corporeal orator. See even when everyone is doing the same step there is always room for personal stylization. As Jacque Malone says, “originality and individuality are not merely appreciated, they are expected.” The fundamentals of hip-hop dance rely on polyrhythmic and polycentric awareness, the technical acuity with isolations of muscles and skeletal structure in the neck, shoulders, torso, hips, butt and feet and most importantly the rock and the bounces in hip-hop, there are four particular bounces. To correctly perform hip-hop dance, one must employ one of, or some combination of, these four bounces. These bounces are not implicit to hip-hop, ballet, West African, Cuban, or any other style all of which utilize the four bounce’s; however, they are applied with aesthetic differences. I define these bounces as:

Drop – a fluid, smooth and rhythmically steady descending and ascending motion in time with the quarter notes of the music and sometimes with slightly heavier accented drops on beats 2 and 4. There is a deeper drop, accented on the backbeat which

University of Southern California Hip-Hop professor d. Sabela Grimes calls the H.G. drop, or holy ghost drop.

East Coast Stomp – The ECS is a dance made popular in the late 1980s. It was basically a way for the drop bounce to travel. Picture a rapper on the microphone standing in one place doing the drop bounce, then keeping the same rhythmic timing walking across the stage without losing the bounce. Alternating lifting the knees toward the hips. The foot is flexed and parallel to the ground, at the same time one leg is bent slightly and the torso will bend forward from the bottom of the ribcage. The knee and ribcage move toward the waistline in time with the quarter notes of the music.

Rock Step – the rock-step moves in the opposite direction as the east coast stomp, with a slight flexion of the left knee on the “and” count, and a step on count one.

During the flexion of the leg, the ribcage should curve forward and return to a neutral ribcage with a slight lean back with the left shoulder. The step of the left foot and the lean back of the shoulders both arrive on the count. This movement continues and repeats on both sides. The shoulders sway with each step as the left foot steps, the left shoulder leans back.

Boxers bounce – Stand with weight balanced on the balls of your feet, alternating your weight as you step. The first step (bounce) lands on count one. The second bounce is on the “and” count with an extra lift of the heel and does not step. Then, shifting your weight and stepping with the other foot on count two; continue repeating this pattern, keeping your heels raised slightly off the ground. Your ribcage will slightly shift side to side in a small lateral rotation.

Embodying the cypher: the ring shout and origins of the cypher belief system

Figure 1. Cypher at Redbull BC one battles in Philadelphia

Part of the deep structure of Hip-hop and its combined movement influences can be attributed to the cross-pollination of cultures during the .

The slave trade brought European cultures from France, England, Ireland, and Portugal together with at least fourteen different tribes or nations in Africa—Sierra Leone, the

Bight of Benin, Senegal, Bambio, the Gold Coast, and the Bight of Biafra, to name a few. They all mixed with the Taino Indians throughout the great Antilles, a group of islands located in the Caribbean Sea, including Cuba, Jamaica, Puerto Rico, all the

West Indies, and South America. The cross-pollination of cultures created new languages, belief systems, dances, musical expressions folklore and traditions.

The cypher, sometimes referred to as the circle, is rooted in the ring shout. The ring shout represents a variety of resilient African spiritual, musical and dance traits

(see Figure 2). As a dynamic folk tradition, it constantly adapted to unoccupied spaces and the changing conditions of life on a plantation.

The 20th century writer Ralph Ellison called the ring shout America’s first choreography. The dance was strongly African, including African rituals and saturated with African characteristics. It provided rich and nurturing experiences for both enslaved and free blacks and was the foundation for the . The dance was a prayer or a spiritual gathering, and dancers blessed their lives and the labor with gestures that pantomimed picking cotton, digging for potatoes, and gathering corn. It was an integral part of spiritual and cultural practice, related to Haitian Vodou, and

Cuban Yoruba ritual.

Figure 2. A ring shout.

The direction of the ring-shout moves counterclockwise, based on the movement of the sun, this practice can be found in Cuban Yoruba ritual, Haitian Vodou or Ki-Kongo rituals using the drawing of a cosmogram. (See fig 3).

Figure 3. The Bakongo Cosmogram.

The horizontal line through the center of the cosmogram represents the split between humanity on top and spirituality below. Conversely, the vertical line through the center connects the two. The circle in the center represents water, which is believed to be the passageway that the spiritual world enters into the human world through crossroads.

The smaller circles and the arrows represent the trajectory of the sun. The sun at the top is high noon, and the peak of physical power represented by male energy. The Sun at the bottom sits at midnight and is the peak of spiritual power and is represented by female energy.

The circular shape of a cypher (also spelled “cipher), is amassed by the bodies that keep the shape. In Haitian Vodou, the Mambo is the spirit guide that helps to channel the spiritual energy. In the hip-hop cipher the mambo is represented through the DJ who represents the drummer, who is the caller to the spirit world. The bodies that make up the circle represent the drawing of the cosmogram. They keep the energy circulating, which can help to transcend the dancer into a state of sankofa (from the

Twi Language in , sankofa translates to “go back and get it”), in this case opening the portal for the ancestral spirit, and at this point the cipher can be transformed into a sacred space. The point where, in hip-hop parlance, a dancer blacks-out, zones-out or goes dumb, in spiritual and religious lexicon it is equivalent to catching the holy spirit, speaking in tongues, or shouting. A central aspect in hip-hop culture, is that practitioners participate in the circle/cypher, which represents the water for which the spirit world pass through to the human world.

“The cypher or circle is rooted in traditional cultures. The circle is protection, from that circle you can see you enemies coming from any side. The circle also gives a spirit of love and support which means you’re all facing each other you have too look each other directly in the eye. There is a lot to see when you look a man or woman in the eye…you see the souls of people. When a person is in the center, they are supported by everyone’s love. In that moment, you’re the focus of the whole deal” -

Rennie Harris

The Spiritual Light of the Divine Truth Within

The word “cypher” was introduced into the Hip-hop lexicon by rappers who followed the teachings of Clarence 13 X also known as Father Allah, who left the

Nation of Islam to start his own organization called the Nation of Gods and Earth. This organization was more frequently referred to as the Five Percenters. The Five

Percenters believe that five percent of the people know and speak truth, ten percent know truth but conspire to hide truth, and eighty-five percent of people are blind to the truth and lack K.O.S. Knowledge Of Self. The Five Percenter ideology comes from

“Supreme Mathematics” a belief system comprised of knowledge, wisdom, understanding, culture/freedom, power/refinement, equality, god, build/destroy, born, and cipher. This system was inspired by the symbolic power of the Ten Sefirot or Tree of Life of the Kabbalah. These are the 10 stages that define human growth. With knowledge comes wisdom, with wisdom comes understanding etc. The word cypher comes from the Arabic word Sifr, which means “nothing” or “zero.” it borrows primarily from these ten principles; your person growth is achieved through the process of building and destroying, constructing and deconstructing, testing your limits to gain strength. Energy is born through the cypher space, allowing excavation to a deeper sense of being. The cypher represents completion, the unknown, 360 degrees—120 degrees knowledge, 120 degrees wisdom, and 120 degrees understanding—adding together to comprise knowledge of self.

The cypher is integral to all forms under the hip-hop umbrella, and is a way of building community, critical and creative thinking in real time. Today, there are a myriad of dance forms and styles that exist under the umbrella term “Hip-hop dance.” Some of those forms and styles include Locking, Popping, , Jookin’, Waacking,

Waving, Tutting, and more. These styles appear often in hip-hop choreography and have since been appropriated into what has been termed “commercial” choreography.

Hip Hop choreography vs the “commercial” choreography

In the 1988 music video “Jam Jam (If You Can)” by the R&B group The Gyrlz, you can see dancers Stretch, Tron and Link from Elite Force, then known as Mop-Top, doing hip-hop social dances like the Gucci, Steve Martin, Roger Rabbit, Alf, Running-Man and others. In the 1980s hip-hop choreography consisted of arranging the social dances in creative orders. In the 1990s, their choreography had evolved, but kept the true hip-hop dance aesthetic alive, now called freestyle hip-hop. This choreography utilized the forms under the hip-hop umbrella: locking, b-boying, party dances, house, popping, and other sub-styles related to popping, like waving, tutting, strutting etc. In the music video “Men in Black,” choreographed by Emilio “Buddha Stretch” Austin, you see the foundation hip-hop bounce/groove with modified use of popping and locking, as well as reinterpretations of 80s social dances like the Guess and the Skate.

This style was an Elite Force trademark, in all of the work choreographed by Stretch or other members of Elite Force such as, ’s “Remember the Time,” Layla

Hathaway “Baby baby don’t cry”, Lil Kim “Ladies Night (live, Not Tonight ), and all their work with Mariah Carey. Elite Force kept true hip-hop alive in the “commercial” arena.

In the 1990s, hip-hop dancing in music videos and stage performances saw a shift from community dancers to studio-trained dancers and the rise of the hip-hop video vixens. This shift was due to many factors, including less danceable rap records

(more accurately understood as less energetic records) dancers who aged out went off to college or changed careers, and economic and social changes. The music had shifted from up-tempo, like MC Lyte’s “Ice Cream Dream, or Monie Love’s “Monie in the Middle,” to like WU-Tang Cream, and Dr. Dre’s “Nuthin’ But a G

Thang.” Once the music changes, so does the dances. By the time the 90s rolled around, many dancers from the 80s stopped dancing. Dancers like Leslie “Big Lez”

Segar, and Jossie Thacker were dancing as the Fly Girls on the variety show “In Living

Color.” Fatimah Robinson was still performing with . Elite Force, now

Mariah Carey’s main dancers, made occasional appearances with rappers JD and the

Brat, Missy Elliot, and Ra Digga.

The dancing that once came from the ‘street’ and club community was approximated by studio-trained dancers. The movement followed the lyrics instead of the beat and using less social dances and more unified dance steps, similar to cheerleading. The music videos used quicker edits that didn’t show the choreography. This presentation of dance became known as commercial hip-hop; I call it performance dance. It used the standard cheerleading formations like Bowling Pins, Diamond,

Diagonals, Windows and Squares and tried to assimilate hip-hop fashion, style and attitude. This style of dancing was sharp, and void of individual personality.

The appropriation and approximation of hip-hop left the word a mere marketing tool. Pop artists claimed that they were “hip-hop” to project an edgier image. Many studios began offering commercial hip-hop classes, where dancers trained in techniques from ballet, modern, and concert jazz began teaching and labeling their classes hip-hop. They did so, however, without any consideration for the aesthetic values, history, techniques, or foundation embedded by the community that created the movement. Hip-hop had become a tangible commodity of an intangible cultural expression.

What we see now in the mainstream is not an evolution of hip-hop as much as it is an appropriation of the movement and commercialization of the aesthetic. Hip-hop dance in the deep structure has not changed; these expressions that are born in the

African, and Afro-diasporic communities are still present today. Authentic Hip-hop can be found throughout the wards in the South, or in Harlem, North Philadelphia, the Bay

Area, South Central, Columbus Georgia or the South side of . Many dancers today who have studied the Broadway concert stylings of , Gus Giordano,

Matt Mattox, Bob Fosse, and Eugene “Luigi” Faccutio, and others have been influenced by hip-hop’s concept of freestyle. Some use these other movements and techniques, sprinkled with hip-hop attitude and movement, applying a circle mentality of freestyle. Some choreographers and dancers use elements of hip-hop in a fragmented way, catching particular rhythmic patterns, with static quick postures. The choreography is direct, strong, and aggressive. My aim here is not to suggest that it’s not good choreography or even that it’s not good dancing. The question is, is it hip- hop?

By the late 90s and early 2000s, classes were popping up under labels: Los

Angeles style, West Coast style, commercial, and new style. Here is a brief explanation of each. West Coast style, I believe, is a misunderstood label that denies some of California’s pioneers. Some pioneers in the West Coast styles of Hip-hop in California belong to groups like Scheme Team, Soul Brothers, Knuckle Neck Tribe and other popular crews from black communities up and down California’s coast.

Los Angeles aka L.A. style is a style of dance that came to Los Angeles via New York

City, innovated by Ron Hardy, Keith Williams, and Omar Lopez, who together formed the group Shades. They fused styles like Broadway jazz, hip-hop, house, and , just to mention a few. Their influence on mainstream pop culture came through their time dancing with and choreographing for when she came out with her self-titled album “Janet.”

Commercial, as a prefix for Hip-hop, suggests that commercial is a style of dance.

Commercial is not a style of dance, and commercial technique does not exist.

Commercial simply means commodity. Hip-hop as a form does not change because the setting changes; the venue may change (for example, ballet in a movie is still ballet, not “movie ballet” or “commercial ballet”), but whether on stage or in a movie, studio, or club, hip-hop is still hip-hop. The forms that people are calling commercial are simply a hybrid of choreography based on lyrical jazz and ballet motifs as mentioned earlier. In the 1980s you can see authentic hip-hop dance in its commodified form in music videos, even then it was called hip-hop, not commercial.

New style, correctly spelled Nu-style, is short for New York style, much like means New York Puerto Rican. The meaning comes from the influence that Mop-Top had on people in different parts of the world—many people who wanted to dance like them called their style Nu-style. The 90s pop singers and groups like Justin Timberlake, NYSYNC, Usher, R.

Kelly, Jennifer Lopez, Beyonce, Janet Jackson and Britney Spears relied heavily on choreography based on a hybrid lyrical jazz/ballet motif labeled hip-hop. However, you could still see social hip-hop dances coming out of the South, like in the 90s video

“Bankhead Bounce,” which is a dance out of a neighborhood West of downtown

Atlanta known as the Bankhead. The dance was introduced to the mainstream when

Michael Jackson performed it at the 1995 MTV Video Awards. You can also see it being performed in the 1995 video “Waterfalls” by recording group TLC. It wasn’t until

2001 when hip-hop social/party dances made a resurgence, with multiple artists seeking more social hip-hop dancers for their videos. Rapper music video “Who’s

That Girl” featured Harlem dancers doing , also known as the Harlem Shake.

(the Shake originally named the Albee created by Cisco Al or Al B. in the early 1980s)

Rapper G-Dep music video “Let’s Get it” featuring Black Rob P. Diddy also had young dancers from Harlem doing the Shake. In 2003, song “Shake-a-tailfeather” and

Chingy song “Right Thur” both featured the St. Louis dance, the Monastery aka

Chicken-Head or Nina Pop, and the Flap your Wings aka Get your Eagle On. The first decade of 2000s also so a reemergence of Jamaican dance with the popularity of recording artist Sean Paul and a second shift brought the dances of the people back to forefront; well at least in mainstream America the hood is always in the front with or without outside acknowledgment.

Conclusion Scholar Tricia Rose notes that “for many cultural critics, once a black cultural practice takes a prominent place inside the commodity system, it is no longer considered a black practice—it is instead a ‘popular’ practice whose black cultural priorities and distinctively black approaches are either taken for granted as a ‘point of origin,’ as an isolated ‘technique,’ or rendered invisible.” It is this exact approach in teaching that presents hip-hop dance as arbitrary movement and negates the social values, principles, and techniques that are culturally significant to its meanings and purpose.

The use of hip-hop music does not always mean the creation of hip-hop dance. Most of what is called hip-hop dance today is not authentic hip-hop dance. The idea that mainstream society has about hip-hop dance is usually represented by the showcased choreography from such movies as Step Up (2006) or television shows like So You

Think You Can Dance. While these mediums have been commercially successful and entertaining, they are not completely accurate representations of the hip-hop dance community.

“That Hip Hop aesthetic has now been globalized does not detract from its

Africanist origins; it only further humanizes and universalizes the African culture foundation.” –Halifu Osumare

The fact that hip-hop dance has gone mainstream is wonderful—it has done an amazing job of bringing culturally diverse groups of people together, and more so than any other dance form. As new forms and styles are born and continue to illuminate personal and cultural dynamics of race and , let us not forget about the history and heritage and the stories of the people that created these American art forms. Remember that these expressions were and are still being created and developed by

African American who are often seen as marginalized adolescents. These dances have empowered generations who felt and feel powerless.

These expressions are embedded in and are reflective of the African American community, history and heritage. In the same way that the ring-shout cultivated community and spiritual awareness, hip-hop creates space for belonging, particularly for people who may feel marginalized in a country that constantly appropriates its cultural expression while dismissing the very people that created the expression. The same thing that happened to jazz dance has happened to hip-hop. When a person wants to study jazz dance, they learn all about Bob Fosse, Gus Giordano, Matt Mattox,

Bob Fosse, and Eugene “Luigi” Faccutio. They learn their names and stories, but the movement reflects the Eurocentric appropriation of jazz, and does not represent the people for which the dance form was created. They never learn about dancers like

Mabel Lee, Al Minns, Sugar Sullivan, Jeni LeGon, , Normal Miller or

Leroy Stretch Jones. These are just a few of the dancers that created jazz dancing.

Concert dance seems to value performance over social dance, but without social dance, performance dance would not exist. Without social dances like the Minuet and

Volta you wouldn’t have ballet.

Hip-hop dancing is about individual development: as an individual you have something to say, and the community listens. You speak your truth, rather than just learning how to do someone else’s choreography as an ensemble, only expressing how the choreographer feels about the music. Hip-hop wants to see and know how you feel, what you have to say, who you are. Many of these classes are not teaching students how to dance, but only how to mimic the teacher’s ideas. Many dancers in the studio world are uncomfortable with the cypher, because they are not learning how to speak their truth. Learning how to dance is like learning a language. You learn the grammatical structure, terminology, vocabulary, lexicon, syntax, and morphology, you are able to have a conversation with someone in their language when the time comes.

Some of these studio-trained dancers aren’t learning how to be corporeal orators, they are merely repeating words and phrases that has been told to them without any definition or comprehension, and when it’s time to speak in the cypher they have nothing to say. As a dancer, your ability to generate concepts of communication in your dancing—concepts that are part of African American values such as exhibition of cool, ideals in style, use of multiple , musical awareness, gestures, attitude, pantomime, improvisation, fashion, spirituality, originality, innovation and individuality— is the very essence of the hip-hop dance aesthetic. If you are going to be a teacher, be clear whether your students are learning how to dance, how to perform, or both. When they are learning a culturally specific dance like hip-hop, make sure they’re capable of having a conversation with the community and learn the importance of its cultural, historical context. Hip-hop culture has now gone mainstream; it has brought more culturally diverse people together than any other thing in the world. Hip-hop speaks through the dance and shows the world that people have a voice regardless of class or cultural ideology. It values the individual, but also uplifts the community. As new styles are born and continue to illuminate personal and cultural dynamics of race and diversity, let us not forget about the lineage—about the stories and people that created these art forms. These expressions were and are still being created by youth of Afro- diasporic descent. The art form empowered generations who felt and feel powerless; these marginalized adolescents created the art form, gave it an identity. They invented and named movements, gave them value, purpose and intention. They developed techniques that are continuously shared and learned around the world. Let’s appreciate how these art forms build community, and let’s honor the people that shed blood, sweat, years, and tears, because they are part of American history. Hip-hop is for everyone. It is not something you do; it is something you live. It doesn’t care about your social, cultural, political, economic or religious faith. Hip-hop only cares about one thing: Can you rock? Can you rock the mic, the turntables, the wall and the dance floor? Remember dance stands for discovering the auto-biographical self, negotiating creativity and express. I wish you all the best on your journey; now go and express yourself and know that your feelings, your ideals, your dance, your body, your expression, is invaluable and it matters. Ase (pronounced ah-shay, a Yoruba word meaning power, command, and authority; it is the ability to manifest words to reality and produce change.