Intro to Freestyle Hip Hop Dance Moves

Series Summary

Hip hop dancing covers a large range of styles and specific moves and techniques, but the cornerstone of the style is undoubtedly break dancing. Over time, that so-called old school way of dancing and participating in hip hop culture has evolved into many different off-shoots. Funk dancing, popping and locking, jigging, freaking, krump, and hyphy are examples of types of hip hop dance, and each style contains certain moves that distinguish it from other forms. Throughout the world, there are competitions and there is no doubt as to the influence hip hop and that style of dancing have had on the cultures it touches. Here in the United States, many people opt to take hip hop dancing lessons, and although some critics believe that teaching orchestrated steps in that fashion is adverse to the true roots of the culture and the history of the dance, many people enjoy taking the lessons and learning how to break with the best of them. Does all of this sound like Greek to you? Turn on your favorite music video station and watch for ten minutes, you'll know exactly what you're up against.

In this free video series, our expert Safi Thomas will show you how to dance freestyle to hip hop music. He will teach you how to pop, tut, wave, body wave, glide, and attenuate. He will show you exercises you can do to learn each of those hip hop dance moves, and how to apply those moves when your dancing to hip hop. Safi will teach you about syncopation, directional glides, lines and level, and cypher dos & don'ts. He will even combine elements, dance to slow hip hop, and have fun while dancing, but we don't think that will be a problem!

Video Transcript

"On behalf of Expert Village I'm Safi Thomas from the hip hop dance conservatory, here in New York City. We are here to bring you freestyle techniques in hip hop dance. So today what we are covering is freestyle within a hip hop dance. Checking you from how to put different elements to hip hop into your freestyle. How to to turn to different music, how to develop yourself into a dancer that has that balance between the dancer that does choreography and the dancer who just can get down. So don't become what is called a studio dancer. So you have the ability to be just a well rounded dancer. So we are going to take you through a lot of things today between popping, a little bit of waving, gliding. Taking some of the funks out of the elements and putting it into your freestyle and understanding to pull that out as you jump into Seyfert. So welcome to freestyle. "