Home » Misc » How to bop dance chicago

How to bop dance chicago


An Intro to Chicago Bop, the City's Latest Collision of Dance and Rap

The video for drill pioneer King Louie's "My Niggaz", a highlight from his late 2012 tape Drilluminati, is fairly typical as far as what you'd expect from a Chicago rap video in 2013: glimpses of Louie and friends posted up on icy corners and stoops, all fairly grim aside from Louie's charisma. What really catches your eye is the kid dancing in the background-- all elbows and knees, fluid yet precise, almost silly but enigmatically sexy. The style is called bopping, and the majority of the comments on the video (now at over a million views) are about this scene-stealing dancer, Kemo-- known in his hometown as the King of Bop. When one commenter asks who the dancer is, another replies, "that's Lil Kemo look him up, you got 'thots' in yo name like you from Chi and you don't know him?"

"People send me their songs, hit me up for videos, cause when I bop to it, their song gets a buzz," Kemo says when I talk to him over the phone, confident but still a bit incredulous at his celebrity. He started uploading videos of himself bopping on his Youtube channel last summer, usually in the basement or backyard. "It used to be everyone would just do a simple move with their elbows and call it the bop. We started to get creative with it, and everyone's doing it that way now. We don't really practice moves, we just do it. It's just turning up."

Aesthetically bopping tends toward business on the bottom, party on top—quick and loose butterfly knees and steps, a weird hybrid of footwork's freneticism smoothed out with a touch of stepping (as popularized by Chicago's own Pied Piper of R&B), coupled with freestyle arm moves often reminiscent of Lil B's cooking dance on steroids. In essence it's a physical representation of Chicago music in 2013: the warped yet indelible imprint of house, mutating under hip-hop's influence into juke, growing more combative and experimental and shifting the focus from ass to feet via footwork, with rap ultimately reigning supreme. Bopping, like most of the music and dance incubated in the south and west sides of Chicago over the last few decades, strikes a fine balance between approachability and experimentation. Heavy doses of weirdness are mitigated by the democracy of the pure, undeniable turn-up.

2013 has been the summer of bop in Chicago. "If you come out here, I guarantee you, you will see kids from three years old, 15 years old, doing this dance somewhere right now, to Future, Rich Homie Quan," Kemo says. "When I first started doing it I wasn't really thinking nothing of it. It's to the point now where I can't even really go outside anymore. It's overwhelming."

As the dance has become more ubiquitous, the accompanying music has grown more specific, though the musical counterpart is still far less of a solidified "thing." Kemo's early Youtube videos were usually set to nationally recognizable hits (Future's "Double Cup & Molly," Chief Keef's "Love Sosa"), but more recently, likely due to increasing amounts of requests from Chicago rappers, the track selection has become localized, featuring songs like Shawty Doo's "It's Foreign" and Stunt Taylor's "All I Know" that the average non-Chicagoan would presumably be hearing for the first time. Meanwhile the influx of tracks explicitly about bopping (either with "bop" in the title, or the hashtag #BOPPIN appended to the description) on Chicago-centric Youtube channels and blogs like Fake Shore Drive has increased exponentially over the course of the year.

The style of music rising along with bopping is easier to define in contrast with the current stereotypes of popular Chicago rap, namely drill—lurching, foreboding beats, deadpan delivery, nihilistic lyrical content (though clearly artists considered to be part of the drill scene defy these stereotypes with regularity). Bop songs, like the dance itself, are buoyant, upbeat and heavily reliant on autotune rap-singing, indebted far more to the Atlanta Future currently dominates than the Atlanta Luger once did (as the drill sound tends toward). There are certainly moments of overlap between drill and bop sounds: see Lil Durk's "Molly Girl," Chief Keef's "Save That Shit," King Louie and Lil Durk's "Want It All." But a crop of up and coming artists—Breezy Montana, Lil Chris, Sicko Mobb, Shawty Doo, Lil Tay, Trilla, Stunt Taylor, and the producer/rapper Leekeleek (Chicago's answer to Nard & B, Atlanta's go-to production duo for sparkly, hook-y autotune perfection)—have made the sound a staple over the past year, typically either featuring bopping in their own videos or sending their songs to Kemo, his friend and peer D. low and other dancers (including Wala Cam, a long-standing local dance-centric website and youtube channel run by promoter and talent scout Wala Williams, who's gradually shifted his focus from footwork to bop). Like drill in its infancy (and other localized dance scenes like the late-00s jerkin wave), bopping is a grassroots movement, spreading primarily through youtube, local schools, and at fiestas, the colloquial term for bopping functions.

Although, like juke and footwork before it, the exact origins of the bopping movement are nebulous, it's not a stretch to view DJ Nate's transition over the last couple years from footwork wunderkind to autotune rap-crooner as pivotal in its development. Though largely known for his geeked-up pop and rap-sampling footwork tracks, ultimately released as a compilation on London's Planet Mu in 2010, Nate shifted drastically to rap and r&b with his 2012 "Flexx Washington" mixtape. Though the transformation was largely seen as a downgrade by fans of his older productions, it included the chirpy, triumphant "Gucci Goggles," which would become a youtube hit and local radio success.

"Gucci Goggles" contains the DNA for much of the 2013 bopping soundtrack; in the hook itself Nate sings, "I jack, I ball, I bop, I flex." But the boundaries of bopping are still being felt out, and for now, one can bop to anything with an infectious enough beat. "French Montana, Waka Flocka... but especially techno," says Kemo. "That's the best, when techno come on? We gonna kill everything."

Here Are 4 Dance Styles Born In Chicago To Mark The 'Year Of Chicago Dance'

  • Credibility:

  • This article contains new, firsthand information uncovered by its reporter(s). This includes directly interviewing sources and research / analysis of primary source documents.

  • As a news piece, this article cites verifiable, third-party sources which have all been thoroughly fact-checked and deemed credible by the Newsroom.

CHICAGO — Chicago has a penchant for dance — and it’s celebrating the hop, cha-cha slide and other moves all year long.

This year has been dubbed the Year of Chicago Dance, with officials paying tribute to Chicago’s long love of dancing while encouraging residents to think about the future of the art and how to support dancers.

The Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events is teaming up with other city organizations to celebrate the year — and the reemergence of the dance community from the pandemic — with events like the Chicago SummerDance series and Chicago Dance Month in June.

The city has more than 400 dance schools and studios, plus hundreds of clubs — including a branch of an online-only dance club, Dance Dance Party Party. A historical program, the Chicago Dance History Project, documents Chicago’s dance roots through a community-based archive.

Want to learn more about dancing in Chicago? You can celebrate by learning about four styles that originated in the city.

Footwork

Footwork is at once a style of a music and a style of dance, and they’ve gone hand-in-hand since their creation on the West Side.

Footwork evolved out of house music and the genre’s solo dancers. One dance move that came out of the West Side in the ’80s is called the Holy Ghost, and it’s designed to look like the dancer was overcome with the spirit at church — and dancing along to music at a whopping 160 beats per minute, according to South Side Weekly.

That particular move caught the eye of house music dance crews on the South Side, particularly House-O-Matics. They took the dance and added side-to-side movements, helping the style to evolve.

In the ’90s, electronic musician RP Boo created music to go along with the hyper fast and repetitive dance style, which is now known as footwork music. Today, the dance and music are best known for dance battles, with tracks designed to throw off other dancers.

Cha-Cha Slide

Born in Englewood, the Cha-Cha Slide wasn’t supposed to be a dance phenomenon at all. It was created by DJ Casper as a fitness routine.

Casper’s nephew worked at Bally’s Total Fitness and wanted something new to teach in 1999, according to WTTW. He asked DJ Casper to come up with something, and the stomp, hop and cha-cha of the Cha-Cha Slide was the result. DJ Casper put music to it, and people began to ask him for copies of the song. By the following year, the radio station WGCI picked it up; by 2004, it hit the Billboard Top 100.

“The best part about the ‘Cha-Cha Slide’ is you don’t need any lessons, you don’t need any rhythm — you can just follow along. … Sometimes special can mean simple, and when simple means you can connect with the human spirit … it’s in a category by itself,” V103 radio personality Glenn Cosby told WTTW in 2018.

Chicago-Style Stepping/Steppin’

If you like romantic music and the South Side, you’re already deep into the origin story of Steppin’.

The dance style emerged in the ’70s, pioneered by Black Chicagoans on the South Side who were already dancing to a style called The Bop. The Bop, popular in the ’40s and ’50s, featured a pair of dancers gliding around the floor like they’re ballroom dancing. Steppin’ is similarly slow paced, but the dancers separate and appear to walk back to one another.

“Well, I had a friend of mine who would be dancing, and he would break away from his partner and he would sort of … walk back to her. It was like he was stepping. So, I kept saying steppin’ and steppin’, and the word Steppin’ just caught on,” DJ Sam Chatman, the man that coined the dance name, told ABC in February. “The rest is history!”

Polka Hop

During and after World War II, surges in Polish immigration to Chicago led to the formation of the Polish Broadway in the 1950s. It was a stretch along West Division Street — most notably in the Wicker Park and Bucktown neighborhoods — with a high concentration of Polish residents. Polka bars dotted the street, full of live music and dancing. From there emerged the Polka Hop. 

The Polka Hop is a slower version of the frantic dance of Eastern-style polka, and it includes a small hop between steps. Local polka musician Li’l Wally Jagiello was behind its invention.

Jagiello created Chicago-style polka — which features slower music, fewer musicians and more improv — to appeal to Polish Americans — and to keep patrons in bars and drinking longer. The music gave dancers a chance to move a little slower and add that iconic hop.

Subscribe to Block Club Chicago, an independent, 501(c)(3), journalist-run newsroom. Every dime we make funds reporting from Chicago’s neighborhoods.

Click here to support Block Club with a tax-deductible donation. 

Thanks for subscribing to Block Club Chicago, an independent, 501(c)(3), journalist-run newsroom. Every dime we make funds reporting from Chicago’s neighborhoods. Click here to support Block Club with a tax-deductible donation.

Listen to “It’s All Good: A Block Club Chicago Podcast”:

House. Style description - MARKS - modern dance competitions

Technical Regulations

  1. CHARACTERISTICS AND MOVEMENTS

House (House) - is a group of club dance styles that danced mainly to house music, and which originated in the clubs of Chicago and New York. House ( House ) - has absorbed movements from many other sources, such as: capoeira, tap, jazz, be-bop, salsa, hip-hop, break, etc.

House ( House ) is based on three main components: Jacking , Footwork, Lofting. Jacking - original House style ( House ), originally from Chicago and includes

undulating swaying of the body, characteristic of African dances. Jacking is a ripple action, a slight wavy swing of the spine, starting from the center of gravity of the body, which can be performed in various directions (forward and backward, side to side). Jacking is the foundation0007

which initiates more complex movements and footwork. Footwork - a combination of various basic steps and their variations, in different rhythmic interpretations. All foot movements in House style dance originate from Jacking, which moves the center of gravity in space.

Lofting - includes soft movements that are often performed on the floor and include acrobatic elements typical of breakdancing, but, unlike the latter, have their own style of performance, which has a greater smoothness of transitions from one movement to another and stretching of movements in time.

Some basic House elements:

“Stomping”, “Loose leg”, “The train”, “Farmer”, “Swirl”, “Jack in the box”, “Salsa step”, “Side walk”, “Cross walk”, “Crossroads”, “ Set up”, “Tip tap toe”, “Scribble foot”, “Criss cross”, “Heel-toe”, “Roger rabbit”, “The skate”, “Shaffling” and many more.

  1. MUSIC CHARACTERISTICS

House music is a style of electronic dance music that originated in Chicago, Illinois, USA in the early 1980s. Initially, it became popular in the mid-1980s discos, which were organized for the African-American, Latino-American communities. This happened first in Chicago and then in other US cities such as Detroit, New York, Los Angeles and Miami. She then reached Europe before becoming part of the mainstream of pop and dance music around the world in the early to mid 1990s.

House is heavily influenced by the soul and disco flavors that have been infused with funk. House usually imitates the percussion (rhythm) of disco, especially the use of a prominent bass drum on every beat, but can also use a prominent synthesized bass line, electronic drums, electronic effects, samples (samples) of funk and pop, as well as vocals, with reverbs or underlined delay. The tempo of House music ranges from 118 to 135 beats per minute, with the most common frequency being around 130 beats per minute. A common element of House is the prominent kick kick on each beat, usually generated by a drum machine or sampler.

  1. House (solo male, female).
    • Preliminary rounds and final: organizer's music.
  • Performance time - up to 1 minute.
  • Tempo - 30/34 bars, or 120/136 beats per minute.
  • Acrobatic and gymnastic elements are permitted;
  • No props may be used unless they are part of the costume. When using props, dancers must wear them throughout the dance. It can be used, but it must not be discarded or placed (placed) on the floor. Violation of this rule will result in disqualification. Disqualification does not apply if a piece of costume or accessory falls to the floor by accident.

  1. House couple/duo (two (2) dancers male/female, male/male, female/female)
  • Preliminary rounds and final: organizer's music.
  • Performance time - up to 1 minute.
  • Tempo - 30/34 bars, or 120/136 beats per minute.
  • Acrobatic and gymnastic elements are allowed.
  • Lifts and lifts permitted;
  • No props may be used unless they are part of the costume. When using props, dancers must wear them throughout the dance. It can be used, but it must not be discarded or placed (placed) on the floor. Violation of this rule will result in disqualification. Disqualification does not apply if a piece of costume or accessory falls to the floor by accident;
  • Interactions: the duet dance must contain both synchronized movements and various interactions between partners using shadow, diagonal, mirror positions with and without capture. The combination of options is important.

  1. House small group of three (3) to seven (7) dancers
    • Preliminary rounds and final - OWN MUSIC;
  • If the small group does not have its own music, the organizer's music is used;
  • Performance time - up to 2 minutes.
  • Tempo - 30/34 bars, or 120/136 beats per minute;
  • Acrobatic and gymnastic elements are allowed.
  • Lifts and lifts are permitted.
  • All dancers must be on the dance floor during the performance.
  • No props may be used unless they are part of the costume. When using props, dancers must wear them throughout the dance. It can be used, but it must not be discarded or placed (placed) on the floor. Violation of this rule will result in disqualification. Disqualification does not apply if a piece of costume or accessory falls to the floor by accident;
  • Solo parts may be played, but must not dominate.

  1. House formation eight (8) to twenty four (24) dancers
    • Preliminary rounds and final - OWN MUSIC;
  • If the formation does not have its own music, the organizer's music is used;
  • Performance time - 2:30-4:00 minutes;
  • Tempo - 30/34 bars, or 120/136 beats per minute;
  • Up to 30 seconds of music may be outside the above tempo;
  • Acrobatic and gymnastic elements are permitted;
  • Lifts and lifts permitted;
  • All dancers must be on the dance floor during the performance;
  • No props may be used unless they are part of the costume. When using props, dancers must wear them throughout the dance. It can be used, but it must not be discarded or placed (placed) on the floor. Violation of this rule will result in disqualification. Disqualification does not apply if a piece of costume or accessory falls to the floor by accident;
  • Solo parts may be played, but must not dominate.

  1. House production twenty-five (25) or more dancers
    • Preliminary rounds and final - YOUR MUSIC
  • If the production does not have its own music, the organizer's music is used;
  • Performance time - 2:30-4:00 minutes;
  • Tempo - 30/34 bars, or 120/136 beats per minute;
  • Up to 30 seconds of music may be outside the above tempo;
  • Acrobatic and gymnastic elements are permitted;
  • Lifts and lifts permitted;
  • All dancers must be on the dance floor during the performance;
  • No props may be used unless they are part of the costume. When using props, dancers must wear them throughout the dance. It can be used, but it must not be discarded or placed (placed) on the floor. Violation of this rule will result in disqualification. Disqualification does not apply if a piece of costume or accessory falls to the floor by accident;
  • Solo parts may be played, but must not dominate.

Keep the Beat: Movies about Dance and Dancers

A selection of vibrant projects with powerful choreography to find your style.

The documentary Solo about dancers who hope to one day perform a solo number in their genre is released. They are professionals who do not see their life without movement. And the passion with which they dance and talk about their work encourages you to enroll in the next section. Well, in order to decide on preferences, KinoReporter has collected the best films about professional dances.

All That Jazz (1979)
Jazz dance

Bob Fossey is a brilliant choreographer who practically invented jazz dance. However, a talented person simply cannot confine himself to a single scene: Fossey, as a director, presented the world with Cabaret (Oscar for Best Director), Dear Charity (three Oscar nominations), Lenny (6 Oscar nominations). ”) and “All That Jazz” (“Golden Palm” in Cannes). In addition, he adapted the script for the film-musical "Chicago" (2002), but this time it was limited to a nomination.

“Because this jazz” is a kind of biographical film: in the center of the plot is the talented and self-absorbed choreographer Joe Gideon. He has no luck with women (or women with him?), and therefore no one lingers near him, and the working music and dance hall is evenly seasoned with meetings with his wife, mistress, daughter ... And only with the mysterious muse, whom Joe can trust, seems to be lucky She doesn't expect or demand anything. Perhaps she will free the director, tortured by life, workaholism and bad habits. If he's ready, of course.

And he is not only ready - he seems to have been living in anticipation of a heart attack for a long time and does not even slow down at the finish line. The result of the film is a brilliant show - a figment of the dying Gideon's imagination, completely devoid of the gloomy colors of the dying state. Portraying the perfect end for himself, Bob Fossey combined amazing choreography, music, drama for a beautiful and sad cinematic extravaganza. And he deservedly received the main prize of the Cannes Film Festival - the Palme d'Or.

The Fossey style is the informal name for a type of jazz dance with elements of burlesque and vaudeville, which was invented and developed by Bob Fossey. Features: clear poses, elaborate gestures of the hands, shoulders, feet and sliding body movements, as if not dependent on gravity.

Flash Dance (1983)
Break dance and ballet

The main character of the film, Alex, survives in the world of men. Works as a welder (!) during the day, dances exotic striptease in the evening. She dreams of doing ballet. However, despite the strong support from her mentor - also a ballerina in the past - the girl avoids auditions, fearing failure. But in the end, a fairy and / or a prince appears in the life of every Cinderella. The owner of the steel mill, having seen Alex dance, gets to know her, and then offers his help in organizing the audition. Nervous, the girl first makes a mistake and falls, however, having gathered herself, she still passes the entrance exam to the dream dance school.

This film marked the beginning of free expression in dance: in the climactic "number" Alex improvises using techniques from several different styles, such as breakdancing, ballet and strip plastic. Hence the name: flash dance is something unpredictable and beautiful.

The painting's legacy is astonishing: it has been quoted by music artists in dozens of different clips, and an accident in the form of a Jennifer Beals sweatshirt with an extremely wide neck has become the main dancewear. Pop icon Jennifer Lopez created a video for the song I'm Glad, in which she copied some episodes of Flash Dance frame-by-frame (for which, however, she received a lawsuit, but this does not count). But the song Flashdance... What A Feeling, played in the audition scene, won an Oscar.

Ballet is a type of theatrical dance in which the performer conveys certain emotions through movements.

Breakdance is a sports street dance, belongs to the culture of hip-hop and is a mixture of elements of plasticity, acrobatics and power tricks.

Chorus Line (1985)
Chorus Line

Broadway is the ultimate dream for many dancers, and the characters in Chorus Line are no exception. However, after a series of auditions, only eight will be accepted. After the preliminary selection of candidates, twice as many remained, but they are all so good that it is not possible to weed them out quickly. Then the director Zak asks each dancer to tell about himself (by the way, Gaspar Noe resorted to a similar technique at the beginning of the film "Ecstasy").

Each story is a musical number in which, with the help of song and dance, a person recreates the story of his life. Frank, painful, difficult. The corps de ballet reminds us that dance, despite the beauty of performance and synonymous with the celebration of life, is work, overcoming, and sometimes a real struggle for survival.

The film is based on the Broadway musical of the same name, choreographed by Michael Bennett. Hollywood producers were interested in a film adaptation even before the premiere of the production, but almost all the directors who were offered work on the film turned it down. There is only one reason: it is difficult to transfer the production to the screen. However, at 19In 84, Richard Attenborough took over the project - and the film adaptation was a success. True, for all its nominations (three for the Oscars, two for the Golden Globe and two BAFTAs), the film did not receive a single award.

Corps de ballet - an ensemble of ballet dancers performing a group number (in the original the film is called The Chorus Line). Essentially, Attenborough's film is dedicated to the hard struggle of talented dancers for a place under the pines, but does not illustrate the corps de ballet in its classical sense.

Dirty Dancing (1987)
Mambo/Salsa

Resort, 1960s. One evening, a girl (Baby) watches the performance of dancers specially hired to entertain the guests. Intrigued, she comes to an “underground” event that same evening - a party where the hotel staff dances with all their heart and passion ... And there she meets Johnny, a professional dancer who will soon become her partner not only in "dirty dancing", but also in love.

The film had a powerful impact on both pop culture and the interest in erotic couple dancing. Moreover, the final number of Baby and Johnny to this day serves as the basis for professional performances and even for the wedding "first dance". And the song (I've Had) The Time Of My Life , which was performed in this episode, even received an Oscar. It is interesting that the supports, which became the main decoration of the last performance in the film, were borrowed from modern dance. And rotations, hugs, rhythmic steps are already features of Latin American dances, like mambo, rumba and salsa.

The difference between “dirty dancing” and classical dances is that they are more intimate and passionate, and also that the working class danced this way in the middle of the 20th century (read - African Americans, Latin Americans). In fact, the film popularizes dance, which is inherent in a certain social stratum. Although dirty dancing as such appeared in the film only in one scene: during a party in a boarding house.

Mambo, like salsa, rumba and other Latin American pair dances, originated in Cuba. It is a mixture of jazz and Afro-Cuban motifs, has a clear rhythm. Mambo came to the United States with black slaves, who, after hard work, relaxed with the help of dancing to rhythmic music. But its origin was hidden for a long time due to its popularity among the white population during the heyday of racism.

Showgirls (1995)
Striptease

Striptease can be professional: it requires a strong stretch and good character. It is this frank dance - and several of its varieties - that can be considered the main character, or rather, the anti-hero in Verhoeven's most underestimated picture. According to the plot, Nomi comes to Las Vegas in order to succeed, but is forced to do striptease at first. The girl is stubborn enough to still get into a burlesque show. But, once "behind the scenes" of show business, Nomi realizes that crime flourishes there even more luxuriantly than her street past.

The poor thing repeated a hundred times in the film: "I'm a dancer" , and then she will be written down as a stripper, then as a prostitute, then as a thief. Ironically, it was the same with the film itself. All critics, as one, called it vulgarity and pornography, and the audience suddenly turned into puritans. Hollywood did not understand or did not want to understand Verhoeven, but his heroine Nomi, who left the dirty business for the sake of full-fledged realization, had already managed to win back for the director. Now Showgirls has a cult status, and at one time received a record number of Golden Raspberry anti-awards. But so far it is the only picture with an "adult" rating of NC-17, which received a wide release.

Director Paul Verhoeven and screenwriter Joe Esterhaz (who also wrote Flashdance) listened to the stories of 50 dancers to use as the basis for a realistic story. And the lead actress Elizabeth Berkley danced in high heels for 16 hours a day and after filming she fired her agent, because the result of such work was the actual “cancellation” of the actress in Hollywood: she was simply not taken to a big movie. However, Showgirls not only became an unsightly portrait of show business, but also showed that dance - namely, for which Nomi worked until she lost her pulse - can be very different, and its frankness does not detract from the talent of the performer.

Striptease is an erotic dance that is divided into several types. For example, strip plastic does not involve undressing, but it requires good physical fitness from the performer. And strip dance includes elements of acrobatics and modern choreography. The general dance number at Showgirls can be attributed to the burlesque style.

Let's Dance (2004)
Ballroom dancing

In the film, where Jennifer Lopez and Richard Gere dance passionately, everything is beautiful: the music, the cast, and, in fact, the dancing. However, this rom-com deserves special attention also because it works with a template. If you remember, the main character John was ashamed of being passionate about dancing. Moreover, against the backdrop of a wonderful life with a loving wife and a good job, he did not even realize what he was missing. And therefore, when he saw Paulina through the window of the train, one fine evening he decided not to go home.

The girl, however, greeted John briskly: from the threshold she announced that she was not in the mood for romance, but she would teach the man to dance. He tried and ... he could not imagine more of his life without dancing. But he was so embarrassed by his (according to the pattern of not courageous) passion that he could not confess to his wife. The case was decided by chance, and in the end everything fell into place, and John continued to dance - but with the woman he loved.

The first thing that comes to mind about this film is the passionate tango, but we have already dedicated a whole selection to it, so let's talk about other couple dances. For example, Paulina teaches John how to waltz, teaches him the right support, helps him express his feelings through movement. Perhaps this is the main property of the dance - to free the mind, feelings, become yourself and enjoy the process. And John finally finds himself through a new hobby.

Ballroom dance is the most sensual kind of dance that used to be performed at a ball (hence the name). The peculiarity of the style is that the main movements are performed only through the contact of two partners. Classical ballroom dancing includes waltz, foxtrot, tango, quickstep and so on.

Step Up (2006)
Breakdancing and ballet

The film tells the story of a "lady and a bully" who have a common passion: dancing. While Tyler is cleaning the floors while working off his punishment, Nora is actively training to get a job after dance school. One day, Tyler sees a girl during class and brings elements of ballet into his street dance, so masterfully that in the end this symbiosis becomes the basis for a group performance.

Nora sees this, and when her partner gets hurt, she turns to a street dancer. A spark runs between them ... Yes, such that Channing Tatum and Jenna Dewan got married after filming the film. Well, then everything is like in a fairy tale: the couple creates an amazing dance, Tyler is taken to school, and Nora gets a job.

The leading actors were professional dancers even before filming the film, so they did not have to turn themselves inside out to perform a dance number on the screen. However, if we consider the film in isolation from the dances, this is a weak project that critics scolded. But the box office ($ 114 million with a budget of $ 12 million) suggests that the audience liked the picture.

As for the styles, it didn't seem to you: we are repeating ourselves. In Flash Dance (1983), the main character combines elements of ballet and break dance, but it looks like pure improvisation, and the number is designed for one person. But "Step Forward", on the contrary, offers a well-developed group dance, honed to the smallest detail. Guys are in charge of breakdance, girls are in charge of ballet, at the climax the team creates a mixed dance with elements of both styles. And at the end we get a performance full of contrasts and passion, from which it is impossible to take your eyes off.

Rapture (2018)
Vogue, waking, crump

Gaspard Noé's painting references a reckless party in the 1990s that ended with a couple of deaths. There is no reliable information, but the director himself visited parties where people “did all sorts of things”, and was able to create a confusing bad trip an hour and a half long. A third of which, by the way, is occupied by a collective dance number, filmed in one take. The characters meet away from the city at a special base in order to work out the performance properly, they are led by an amazing choreographer, and everything goes well. Until someone puts a drug in the sangria...

Noe planned to make a film with the best dancers in France - and in fact assembled a "dream team", before that he inspected all the krump battles and vogue balls in Paris. Well, for the main role, the director chose Sofia Boutella, who before Hollywood was engaged in acrobatic hip-hop. Gaspar Noe was familiar with some of the dancers: Lea Vlamos, for example, once invited the director to a vogue dancing party, where he came up with the idea to make a dance film. And the first person Noé decided to call was the Russian vogue dancer Sherlene Temple. In addition, during the filming, it was decided to give the dancers freedom of action - and in all episodes, except for the first, they improvised.

Vogue (French vogue - fashion) is a dance style based on a podium walk and model poses. Includes mannered gait, quick and precise hand movements, rotations, falls, etc.

Waacking (waacking, from the English. whack - blow) - a style of dancing to disco music and funk, emotional, active and intense. The most graceful among street dances.

Crump stands for the Kingdom of the Absolute Power of Spiritual Praise, in the original Kingdom Radically Uplifted Mighty Praise. The style appeared as an alternative to street fights in disadvantaged areas of the United States, and therefore krump is a synonym for strength, the most energetic dance, with the help of which the performer gets rid of accumulated emotions.

Suspiria (2018)
Contemporary

In the center of the story is a young dancer Susie, who has entered a ballet school and is soon to perform with a number prepared by choreographer Madame Blanc. This is the ballet "Folk", which resembles a ritual dance mixed with ballet and has magical powers. The victim of one of the performances, for example, is a ballerina who suspected that the school was a front for a bloody cult. However, Susie is not afraid of this: she is ready for anything for the sake of success, and she is not embarrassed by sacrifices. So she stays in a school full of witches.

The dances in the film were directed by the choreographer Damien Jalet, based on his own performance of Medusa, which he presented at the Louvre in 2013. Luca Guadagnino chose Jale after seeing him dance in a museum. Interestingly, while working on Medusa, Damien was inspired by the original painting Suspiria (1977) by Dario Argento.

However, his Folk dance for the 2018 non-remake contains some elements of Jerome Robbins' ballet The Cage (1951) as well as the Indonesian folk dance Saman. But from the dance of Jale, the Gorgons migrated to the Guadagnino film under the guise of the Three Mothers, and the costumes for the dancers, also borrowed from Medusa, were dyed blood red.

Contemporary (eng. contemporary - modern) - modern stage dance, formed on the basis of modern dance. The main feature is improvisation and the use of techniques from other styles, including jazz dance and even martial arts.

Ema: Dance of Passion (2019)
Reggaeton

Versatile Pablo Larraín makes a specific auteur film between biopics like Jackie (2016) and Spencer (2021). "Ema: Dance of Passion" is a hysterical, repulsive and terribly uncomfortable story of a married couple on the verge of divorce. Ema is a talented dancer who lives, thinks and dances exclusively with her heart.

Her husband Gaston is a choreographer in danger of oblivion. He dislikes Ema and condemns her for what happened to their ill-adopted child. The girl builds the path to understanding and forgiveness through a dance of passion and pain, and in the end she hopes to return her son, who has become unbearably dear to her in a very short time.

According to the plot, the main character abandons contemporary music in favor of reggaeton and leaves the troupe in order to find a language in which she will express what she feels. The phenomenon itself - reggaeton on the streets of empty Valparais in an embrace with a flamethrower - turns into one continuous rejection of an outdated paradigm and a search for a new way to live in the old world.

Pablo Larraín didn't plan to base the plot around a specific genre, but after finding out on Spotify that the top 10 popular songs are Latin American hip-hop, aka reggaeton, the director was forced to take it as a basis. Interestingly, such music was regularly criticized for sexism and excessive attention to violence, and in "Ema" reggaeton served the opposite purpose - to save the sensual and fragile female soul.

Reggaeton is a relatively young form of dance. It assumes an active and liberated movement, it may include elements of strip plastic, latin, dancehall and, of course, hip-hop.

Solo (2022)
6 types of dance

An exception in our selection is a documentary about real people who dream of the top of the dance Olympus. Six dancers - six types of dance: ballet, contemporary, pole-dance, krump, hip-hop and vogue. Solo gives an excursion into another, not the most comfortable world of fierce competition, euphoria, which gives way to obsession, and plastics of incredible beauty.

The stories collected in the film deviate from stereotypes: tough “male” dances like krump are performed by girls, the pole dance is performed by boys. And each of them leads his story precisely with the help of movement, which for four years was recorded by a passionless camera. But director Olga Pankratova, on the contrary, approached her project with all her passion. She was professionally engaged in dancing, but in the end she made a choice in favor of directing. Rigid stereotypes influenced: society still does not perceive dance as a serious profession.

Solo (2022)

In addition, Solo to some extent explores the development of the dance movement in Russia, where the emphasis is exclusively on the classics. Street dancing in our country is not considered as a matter of life, and therefore many performers do not receive proper support - even from their closest ones. However, the dance community is very open and cosmopolitan, there is no division on any basis, only the skill and dramaturgy of the dance is important.

You can talk about dance as a phenomenon for a long time and intoxicatingly, but since its essence is in movement, the ideal way to enjoy it is to start dancing.

Learn more

10841 Bluegrass Parkway, Louisville, KY 40299
Site Map
(502) 836-2348

.