All Together

Ballet is the foundation to all styles.  Ballet, modern, jazz, and hip hop all call for great strength, flexibility, and passion.  Each of these styles connect with each other through similar technique, feet positions, and movements.  Being aware of the dancer's body will help the dancer to execute tricks easier.  It's important for a dancer to have some type of training in ballet because with knowing where an arm, focus, leg, or feet position is important to performing the style to it's fullest potential.

This video is a combination of the styles ballet, modern, jazz, and hip hop in one routine.  This was too choreographed by the well-known Travis Wall.  Are you able to point out the different styles and techniques used?

Krumping

Here is what krumping looks like.  This style is the most newest style to hip hop.

Popping and locking

Here is a video of two boys popping and locking.  Mastering this style takes many years to do.

Breaking

This video is of a B-Girl name Bonita Lovett.  She is a part of a crew from ABDC called "Break Freaks".  She battles at all different competitions, and was the person who choreographed HPU's Dance Team's Hip Hop Nationals routine this year.  In this video, she does all different types of foot work, and break dancing moves (stalls) which is done mainly on the ground.

HPU Dance Team NDA Championships 2011 Hip Hop

Here is our hip hop video:) This routine involves some break dancing, old school, freezes, and popping.

Hip Hop Poses

Here are a few break dancing poses called hip hop freeze or stalls.  As you can see, hip hop (break dancing) involves the dancer to have a lot of strength to hold these poses.

Hip Hop

Hip hop is a dance style that is very energetic, and is usually danced to hip hop music.  It is a unique style that allows the dancer to perform with freedom of movement, adding in their own personality or "flavor" to it.  The style of hip hop has many different small styles within the 'hip hop' style.  The first dance associated with hip hop is breaking.

Hip hop was first mentioned in the 1970's when new moves were introduced to the dance world to accompany the sounds of hip hop music.  It all started in the Bronx of New York, and was found most popular among African Americans, and Latin Americans.  Then, it traveled to the 'Beat Street' corners of Compton, California where young people everywhere took notice of this style.

Because hip hop is more like a culture rather than just one style, there are many aspects to the 'hip hop culture'.  The culture of hip hop was influenced by several things; disc jockeys (also known as DJ), graffiti art, MCs (also known as rappers), and B-Boys and B-Girls.  Each of these things contribute to the dance style of hip hop as well.  The styles that are involved within the style of hip hop are breaking, popping, locking, gliding, ticking, and krumping.

Source:
-Bedinghaus, T. (2001). Hip hop - All About Hip Hop. Allabout.com. http://dance.about.com/od/typesofdance/p/Hip_Hop.htm.

HPU Dance Team NDA Championship 2011

Here is a video of our very own, Hawai'i Pacific University Dance Team at a college cheer and dance competition in Daytona Beach, Florida in April.  This is a different style of jazz which is done to a more hard hitting song (rock).  But technique and facial expressions are still the same as the other videos.  Hope you enjoy watching it, we worked really hard for this one shot:)

Jazz Video

This video is a group from California at a competition.  In this video, there are many tricks going on all at once, with high energy movements.  You can also see big facial expressions and movements from each dancer.  This style is way different from ballet and modern, although technique skills remain the same.  I hope you find this amazing, because I sure do!

Jazz

As you can see, learning ballet is very important because dancers use the same type of technique in other styles.  Whether they use it properly, or throw it all out of proportion, the basic steps still originate from ballet.  Another style that uses great ballet technique is known as jazz.

Jazz is a style that originated in the late 1800's, but took popularity in the mid 1900's.  The birthplace of jazz has various origins like New Orleans, St. Louis, Memphis, and Kansas City.  But New Orleans still remains the mains as the center of jazz.  Today, the style of jazz is performed all over the world.  Throughout Broadways, musicals, movies, and studios.  The movements used in jazz are bold and dramatic.  This style is a fun and energetic dance style that is usually danced to an upbeat song.

Source:
Borade, Gaynor. "History of Jazz Dance." Buzzle.com. 2000. Web.