Dance as a free expression of oneself: rhythm, interpretation, personality and creativity, all in a few minutes, on stage. Or on the road. This was the intent of Red Bull Dance Your Stylethe exclusive and original event staged at the Rimini Ferris wheelone of the hundreds that were held around the world to crown a Johannesburg the king or queen of world street dance.
Red Bullwhich has always been close to sport as an expression of culture, history and stories, for many years has turned the spotlight on street dancethat is the dance that comes from below, from popular neighborhoods, from the ghetto, as a manifestation not only of a need to get out of the usual places, but also from the usual patterns, plus an urgency to get what moves inside out of oneself .
So Red Bull Dance Your Style was an opportunity to gather around 16 talented dancers, who competed in one-on-one knockout battles, among which it triumphed. Michael Rossi, aka Miky-Boopopping dancer, who had to challenge in the last bar Deborah Pini, aka D-Nasty.
But it was also the opportunity to get to know and experience everyone more closely street dance styles: Hip Hop, House, Locking, Popping, Waacking and Vogueing. We did a real full immersion: this is what we discovered.
Street dance is a generic term used to describe more styles that were created in the streets. Beyond the global visibility that these dance styles have today, also thanks to the sounding board on Tik Tok and Instagram, why is it important to know their history? Because it can help you understand that they are not just born out of a celebration of music, but as a kind of fight against the system.
People went in clubs or on the streets looking for something more than a party. They wanted emotional and physical release. The gospel vibes, powerful bass and mesmerizing house lyrics created the perfect atmosphere for it. Underground clubs have thus become a place of freedom and expression. Hip-hop, locking and popping were a means to convey deep and often unspeakable emotions. But let’s take a closer look at these styles, scrolling through the article to the bottom.
Do you know the dance that mimics the flight of butterflies?
Sunset Experience, the dance that uses the soft energy of the sun, immersed in the forest
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Mauro Puccini / Red Bull Content PoolHip hop
Street dance style performed based on hip-hop music and which is distinguished from other forms of dance by its own “freestyle” essence, based on improvisation. Hip-hop exploded on the streets of the Bronx in the 1970s. Breaking, DJing, MCing and graffiti they constituted the four elements of culture and became a way of life for the black and Latino communities, at that time deprived of rights.
Lack of money was not an obstacle to creativity and spirit, quite the contrary. Dancers from rival teams or neighborhoods have resolved their differences, with bars or breaking moves. Block parties, park jam sessions, and freestyle sessions on the ice rinks and clubs were held regularly, with dancers thronging the rink, most of whom unknowingly laid the foundation forhip-hop, the musical genre.
Photo credit: Mauro Puccini
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Mauro Puccini / Red Bull Content PoolLocking
The locking mix robotic movements to comic expressionscombining them with distinct and rapid movements of the arms and as many fluid and springy movements of the legs, performed on funk music. Like hip-hop, locking also started off the streets of Los Angeles and then depopulated on the global dance floors. Much of this success is due to a dancer named Don Cambellock, who created the genre by accident. His son Dennis D. Danehy Campbell remembers that his father was trying to make a call move “Robot Shuffle”. Instead, Don Campbell ended up creating an entirely new dance that everyone in the room loved even more, much to his surprise. The rest is history.
Photo credit: Mauro Puccini
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Mauro Puccini / Red Bull Content PoolHouse
L’house it is mainly based on the “House Music”a musical genre belonging to the electronic dance music. It is characterized by complex and fast movements of the feet combined with fluid movements of the torso and elements of floor work.
The early house pieces contained positive and uplifting messages for all people from different walks of life, but they mainly addressed those who were considered the excluded, especially African Americans, Latinos and LGBTQ + subcultures. The house scene was one of the most integrated and progressive spaces of the 1980s.
House DJs aimed to create a “dream world of emotions” with “stories, keywords and sounds” to help build communities. Many house songs encouraged the audience to “break free” or “let go”. Some house texts contained messages calling for equality, unity and freedom.
Photo credit: Mauro Puccini
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Mauro Puccini / Red Bull Content PoolWaacking
The waacking it is a style that incorporates the movements of actresses and singers of the seventies to enhance its distinctive characteristics and peculiarities, mixing them with the exaggerated ones of comic book heroes the sixties and the fast-moving martial arts films of the seventies. The arms move in vaulting around the shoulders, elbows and wrists, above the head or behind the back, inspired by the use of the nunchaku.
Waacking originated in Los Angeles gay clubs in the 1970s, where high-energy funk and disco music dominated the scene. It was in these clubs that minorities of color found the freedom to express themselves through the movement, despite the oppressive environments they faced in everyday life. Originally called punkingwaacking thus emerged as a style focused onempowerment and on the strength to choose oneself to the end.
Photo credit: Mauro Puccini
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Mauro Puccini / Red Bull Content PoolVogueing
The Vogueing is based on the imitation of plastic poses of fashion show modelswhich are symbolized by the covers of the well-known magazine Vogue, from which it takes its name. It originated in the New York of the 1970s and 1980s in Harlem’s predominantly black gay community.
At the time, there was a veritable epidemic of homosexual black boys being thrown out of their homes or ostracized by their families. So they gathered on the streets of Harlem, where real catwalk battles were held, judged by costume (handmade), appearance and dance skills.
Photo credit: Mauro Puccini
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Mauro Puccini / Red Bull Content PoolPopping
The popping it is based on the technique of contraction and immediate muscle relaxation that cause a sudden body vibration, with which the beats of the track are underlined. Born on the scene of Fresno And Oaklandin Californiain the sixties, it was created by a dancer called Boogaloo Samwho taught his brother, Popin ‘Pete and later his cousin, Skeeter Rabbit, how to be a popper.
Together they formed the legendary dance group Electric Boogaloos, catching the attention of the Boogaloo Shrimp and Pop N Taco dancers who joined them on stage. Each of them has become an icon in its own right, becoming choreographers of the likes of Janet Jackson, Chaka Khan and even Michael Jackson – it is said that it was Boogaloo Shrimp who showed him the “back slide”, known to most as Moonwalk.
Initially linked to musical genres such as funk And disco dancein the eighties many poppers began to use electronic music and started dancing with artists such as Kraftwerk and Egyptian Lover.
Photo credit: Mauro Puccini
Source: Vanity Fair
