The so-called HIP-HOP DANCE. is one of the most widely popular types of street dance nowadays. If we look at it from the point of view of dance, it can be divided into two categories: NEW SCHOOL and OLD SCHOOL. How to distinguish between these two types? We can differentiate between the two types of dance by the age and movement or the type of music.
HIP-HOP is an umbrella term for all kinds of street dance
In fact, the so-called BREAKING DANCE or OLD SCHOOL is also a kind of HIP-HOP. This kind of OLD SCHOOL dance contains LOCKING (locking dance), POPING (mechanical dance), BREAKING (breakdancing), WAVE (electric current) these things (this breakdancing style of dance is a famous group is Rock Steady Crew). He originated from the improvised dance moves of dancers in the streets of America. These street dancers were mostly black or Mexican. Perhaps the so-called "poor man's entertainment", these popular street dances originated in Brooklyn, New York (a neighborhood of poor blacks and Mexicans). These black and Mexican children mix in the street all day, dance, naturally line into a variety of factions, but also naturally in their dance on the development of different styles.
The Evolution of Hip-Hop Dance
The key to the evolution of OLD SCHOOL to NEW SCHOOL. This can be traced back to the early OLD SCHOOL music, which had very fast beats to match these BREAKING moves, and then as HIP-HOP music evolved, people started to understand that BREAKING didn't fit into this NEW SCHOOL, HIP-HOP music (because so-called NEW SCHOOL music is slower, and if you're in this type of In this kind of slow HIP-HOP music, if you do something like footwork, you will feel that there is no explosive power at all, and you will even lose the sense of dance). At this time OLD SCHOOL and NEW SCHOOL dance began to separate, that is in 1986 or so early NEW SCHOOL dance steps are very simple, such as the familiar "slide" (running man) This in the former MC HAMMER and Bobby Brown's VIDEO
The emergence of NEW SCHOOL HIP-HOP
However, in today's world, these MC HAMMERs have become more and more popular, with the emergence of the new HIP-HOP. However, the street dance that was popular during the MC HAMMER and Bobby Brown era has gradually become OLD SCHOOL, because in the early '92, a black dance group called MOP TOP (ELITE FORCE) (consisting of HENRY LINK, LOOSE JOINT, and BUDDHA STRETCH) appeared and developed a new style of HIP-HOP. They developed a new style of hip-hop, which I call "in situ hip-hop", unlike the big, explosive, wide-range movements of MC HAMMER and Bobby Brown, not to mention the breakdancing moves on the floor, which are like gymnastics. His unique style is that he focuses on the coordination of the body (what we call rhythm). He emphasizes on the rhythm of the upper body and adds a lot of hand movements, unlike the old style of hip-hop which focuses on wide range of movement and footwork. HENRY may have started out as an unknown street dancer, but it was when Mike Jackson's "Remabe the Time" MTV came out that people first saw this new style of what I call "in situ" dancing. This new style of dance was featured on the King of Pop's MTV, and it was an instant hit. We can't say what made Mr. Henry so popular, but the dance in "Remabe the time" is his masterpiece. Later on, in MTV's "Dreamlover" song by Malia Kelly, we see a group of black men wearing nothing but pants in a meadow dancing in a strange style. These dances are interspersed with hip-hop, locking, popping, and waving, but they are accompanied by the R&B style hip-hop music of "Dreamlover". It was hard to believe what we saw. It was hard to tell what kind of dance it was. But it was an important part of the history of NEW SCHOOL HIP-HOP, and it was the origin and the culprit of the worldwide popularity of NEW SCHOOL.
The mature stage of NEW SCHOOL HIP-HOP
The definition of NEW SCHOOL HIP-HOP is the combination of different types of dances in a fast and slow HIP-HOP or R&B. (This is what NEW SCHOOL is all about). (This is also a type of NEW SCHOOL in the early days.) We can see that in the song "Dreamlover", the black dance group, led by Henry, made an incomprehensible dance movement, they put the locking, which can only be matched with a fast tempo, in a new way in the slow R&B dance rhythm. They take LOCKING, which used to only go with a fast beat, and put it into a slower R&B beat with a new feel. They no longer do the nunchaku-like hand-holding maneuvers to show LOCKING, they simplify a lot of LOCKING moves. They simplified many of the LOCKING movements and used the standard hip-hop left-right rhythm to express POPING and LOCKING, and also added WAVE from time to time in the dance. Simply put, it is to interpret these old dance steps with a new feeling. The new single "Jingle Bells" released by ZOO, a famous Japanese street dance group and singer, also uses this kind of NEW SCHOOL HIP-HOP to express the dance in MTV. Check it out at ....... This new style of street dance has become popular all over the world. Later on, HENRY was the choreographer for Malia Kelly's song "Fantasy" and the recent "Honey", followed by the song "Creep" by TLC, a girl hip-hop group that broke up after its popularity in the past. The hip-hop scene is starting to mature with songs like "Creep" by the previously popular and disbanded female hip-hop group TLC and the MTV for the movie "MIB". （Of course, HENRY can be seen in these MTVs as well.) One of the most famous MTVs of the past few years was TLC's "Waterfalls," which featured the "magical shoulder shaking" move that brought NEW SCHOOL HIP-HOP to a whole new level.
Current NEW SCHOOL HIP-HOP DANCE
The Japanese had to be impressed with the fact that when this new school hip-hop became popular in Japan, the Japanese developed their own style of dance, which is also hard to understand. These Japanese hip-hop dancers started to do NEW SCHOOL hip-hop with OLD SCHOOL music, which originated from the expression of old dances in new music styles. Now it's becoming a new dance with old music style. It's really a strange thing.
In terms of movement, recent NEW SCHOOL HIP-HOP has changed even more, especially when the WAVE (current) thing is added, it becomes more irregular. From the audience's point of view, it seems that the NEW SCHOOL dancers are all polio victims, as their bodies are twisted more and more and there is less and less regularity in the dance.
HIP-HOP DANCE is also regional
We can divide it into NEW YORK STYLE and L.A. STYLE. This two regions present polarized styles. For example, NEW YORK STYLE is the style that we generally see where the body is twisted and distorted and all kinds of street dance is done in big strings. Perhaps NEW YORK is HENRY's home base, so naturally the hip-hop style of this region is also more inclined to HENRY's style, with in-situ dances plus strange body distortions and LOCKING, POPING, and WAVE, it's not hard to imagine that it's exactly a kind of black people's spontaneous style. As for L.A. Style's hip-hop, it inherits and continues the street dance popularized by MC Hammer and Bobby Brown. The big movements and footwork changes have retained its explosive character, only that many new tricks have been added to the changes in movements. Because HIP-HOP is divided into these two main factions, many dancers and magazines no longer refer to them as HIP-HOP DANCE: they call NEW YORK STYLE HIP-HOP NEW SCHOOL, and L.A. STYLE HIP-HOP STREET DANCE.
What exactly is NEW SCHOOL HIP-HOP? SCHOOL HIP-HOP?
In a nutshell, NEW SCHOOL HIP-HOP encompasses all types of street dance, including locking, popping, wave, MC Hammer and Bobby Brown-era grooves. You just don't see BREAKING DANCE in NEW SCHOOL HIP-HOP. As mentioned earlier, it is a fusion of various street dance styles, so perhaps we can say that it is a kind of integrated dance. Nowadays, however, NEW SCHOOL DANCE has a wider scope: not only does it incorporate many kinds of dances, such as Popin' and Boogie, but it also has a wider range of materials! Some people abroad think that NEW SCHOOL's moves are much simpler than the windmills and headspin of the 90's. However, NEW SCHOOL's moves are much simpler. However, NEW SCHOOL's moves also require technique, which is similar to the concept of "footwork" in breakdancing, which is spontaneous but also contains a lot of technique in it. However, is OLD SCHOOL or NEW SCHOOL better? We can't really make a distinction or comparison. But I don't know when there will be a newer style of street dance, and by then ...... the NEW SCHOOL that we have now become popular with will have to become history again, and another kind of OLD