HIP HOP

Hip-Hop dance refers to social or choreographed dance styles primarily danced to hip-hop music or that have evolved as part of hip-hop culture.

Hip-Hop dance has over 30 years of history with the first professional breaking, locking, and popping crews forming in the 1970s.

Main hip-hop dance styles: breaking, locking, and popping. Theses styles are the oldest and most established of all the hip-hop dances.

Locking, originally called Campbellocking, was created in Los Angeles by Don Campbell and introduced to the country by his crew The Lockers. Modern locking looks similar to popping and thus gets confused with popping all the time. In locking a dancer holds their positions longer. The lock is the primary move used in locking. It is similar to a freeze or a sudden pause. A locker's dancing is characterized by consistently locking in place and after a quick pause moving again. It is incorrect to call locking pop-locking.

Popping was created by Sam Solomon in Fresno, California and performed by his crew the Electric Boogaloos. It is is based on the technique of quickly contracting and relaxing muscles to cause a jerk in the dancer's body, referred to as a pop or a hit. Each hit should be synchronized to the rhythm and beats of the music.