What is the difference between Hip Hop and Street Dance?
This is a question we get asked a lot. Firstly, before we delve into our answer, there are many interpretations of what that answer is, this is our take.
Here's how we see and understand it from the 19 years of experience running a successful dance school, from the vast training we've had, the street dance pioneers we've met and the views of some respected advocates of the genre today that we communicate with.
Is street dance the same as hip hop?
"Street dance is not the same as hip hop dance directly"
What is street dance?
Street dance is an umbrella term for a large number of social dance styles, Hip Hop dance is one of them, however 'hip hop' is not solely a dance style - it's a culture (more on this in a moment) . What are 'social dance styles' I hear you asking? These are styles, with many accompanying steps, created organically from a culture, a moment in time, a way of life, by the natural social interaction between people.
What is hip hop dance? Hip hop is a culture, not a dance style on its own, however dance is a huge part of the culture as well as music, graffiti and so on. So when we say we offer 'hip hop dance classes' what we mean is we will teach you our knowledge of the dance, and associated music, part of the culture, and do our best to pay homage to the culture, its origins and pioneers along the way in our dance classes, here at Hip Hop Pop.
At our Hip Hop Pop dance schools in Harlow and Bishops Stortford we teach 'street dance', which as we said, is an umbrella term for social dance styles and dance steps. Street dance styles, other than hip hop, within the street dance umbrella that we teach in our classes here at Hip Hop Pop are: House, Locking, Popping, Breaking, Krump and more, all of which come from different eras, backgrounds, locations and cultures, we do our upmost to respect their origins in our delivery during our street dance classes.
We focus on the dance element of hip hop culture here at our Hip Hop Pop dance schools classes, and we vary the delivery of other street dance styles into our street dance classes too.
When it comes to the Choreography element of our street dance classes, routines we teach are influenced by these social street styles and their dance steps, then produced with originality; our individual invention of a 'street dance fusion' you could call it, full of creativity, expression and intention.
In summary, it's not a case of street dance vs hip hop, hip hop (dance element) is a part of street dance
"There you go, that's the serious stuff on the table - now let's get into the juicy, fun, active stuff, getting yourself and/or your child to a street dance class at our Dance School in Harlow or Dance School in Bishops Stortford"
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