Ask hip-hop dancers to describe what they do and they might have a hard time. Instead, ask them to show you.
There’s a new school of hip-hop dance that is evolving beyond ’80s-style break dancing or the moves you see on MTV. It’s new enough that it has yet to form a solid identity.
Another difference is diversity. What used to be a primarily an urban art form has jumped to places like Orange County, Calif., particularly among Asian Americans.
It’s also no longer underground. This year, urban dance has popped up in movies such as “Step Up 2” and in reality TV shows such as MTV’s “America’s Best Dance Crew” and “So You Think You Can Dance?”
“It’s not a fad,” said Elm Pizarro, founder of Boogiezone.com, a social networking site devoted to hip-hop dancers. “It’s a culture, a way of life.”
Pizarro picked up hip-hop dancing as a teen while living in Seattle practicing in his back yard, at the clubs, anywhere but inside a studio.
“For me, it was the ’90s when hip-hop dancing emerged, right around when I started watching music videos for MC Hammer, Kwame and Public Enemy,” said the 33-year-old, who now lives in Aliso Viejo, Calif. “A lot of my dancing now is still rooted in that basic style.”
When Pizarro moved to Orange County about five years ago, he was surprised to find a thriving hip-hop and street dance scene with collegiate and exhibition teams performing in an established competitive circuit.
There are an estimated 15 to 20 urban dance crews in Orange County now, from various teams at the University of California, Irvine like the Chinese Association Dance Crew and Common Ground, to exhibition teams like Mavyn Entertainment and Breed, which was formed by Pizarro to market the Boogiezone site.
The first was UCI’s Kaba Modern, founded in 1992 by Arnel Calvario. As a UCI freshman, Calvario joined the campus’ Kababayan, or Filipino student organization. Every year, the club sponsored a culture night, an event that drew a crowd of 1,500 to 2,000 for a showcase of traditional Filipino dances and performances.
Calvario – who had been dancing hip-hop routines with his friends at high school talent shows and at house parties – wanted to add hip-hop dancing to the event.
“I thought it would help blend the traditional with the more American aspects of our generation,” Calvario said. Calvario was approached by so many students who wanted to dance that he started Kaba Modern and modern hip-hop routines became a regular part of the culture night.
From there, the group performed at import car shows and other community events. Soon, other Filipino student organizations in California followed suit, forming groups like Cal State Fullerton’s Team Millennia and Cal State Long Beach’s PAC Modern.
That eventually led to annual competitions like Vibe, which draws some 3,000 spectators and some of the best collegiate hip-hop dance teams from all over California to vie for trophies and notoriety. Stage shows are elaborate and consist of co-ed teams of 30 or more dancers performing choreographed routines.
Today, there are at least four major events in the competitive collegiate dance circuit, including Prelude, in both Northern and Southern California, Fusion in San Diego, Vibe in Irvine and Body Rock in San Diego.
“The scene is definitely exploding,” Calvario said. “I think it’s a good thing for the dance community to grow and for more people to recognize hip-hop dance as an art form.”
Riding the top of the wave right now are six members of UCI’s Kaba Modern dance team. They are one of several groups across the country vying to win the title of “America’s Best Dance Crew” on MTV and a $100,000 cash prize.
In the early 1990s, when guys like Calvario and Team Millennia founder Danny Batimana started, hip-hop dance styles were less complicated.
Batimana, who’s trained in jazz and funk, said he didn’t even get into hip-hop dancing until junior high.
“We’d get all dressed up in our Hammer pants and creepers and go battle,” recalled Batimana, who co-owns Team Millennia Dance Center in Fullerton. “Back then it was all about energy and entertaining the crowd … it wasn’t so difficult.”
Today, hip-hop dancing is so versatile that it blends elements of more classical forms, including jazz and ballet. Any hip-hop or street dancer can spout off a mind-bending laundry list of current dance styles: breaking (break dancing), krumping, whacking, bucking, popping, locking, house, tutting, old-school, waving, grooving and then some. All basically stem from street styles of dancing that emerged in the ’70s.
“It’s having a certain posture, bending your knees right, how you control your body, how your face looks and how you execute the moves,” said John Abas, who danced with Team Millennia in 1994. “I know it when I see it.”
Today’s almost-anything-goes vibe lends itself to what’s being called the new school or new-style hip-hop.
The goal now is to innovate new ways to move or contort the body in manners that don’t always resemble dance. The emphasis is to be different from everything else that’s out there. Smaller, more controlled and intricate movements also are popular.
“People out there might not realize how diverse hip-hop dancing can be,” Calvario said. “Some of the best b-boys and b-girls (break dancers) are ballerinas and gymnasts, because breaking takes a lot of discipline and poise. And popping is so difficult to do because you have to isolate every muscle in your body.”
Instead of going by counts for steps, many instructors now go by beats, too. So instead of the traditional “5-6-7-8,” instructors can now be heard vocalizing the beats to teach the steps: “Crack, boom, crack.”