Hip Hop Dance (The American Dance Floor)

This guide provides an overview of the history of hip hop culture and an exploration of its dance style, appropriate both for student research projects and general interest reading.

Rapping. Breakdancing. MCing. DJing. Beatboxing. Graffiti art. These are just some of the most well-known artistic expressions spawned from hip hop culture, which has grown from being an isolated inner-city subculture in the 1970s to being a truly international and mainstream culture that has taken root in countries as diverse as Japan, France, Israel, Poland, Brazil, South Korea, and England.

This insightful book provides not only an overview of hip hop's distinctive dance style and steps, but also a historic overview of hip hop's roots as an urban expression of being left out of the mainstream pop culture, clarifying the social context of hip hop culture before it became a widespread suburban phenomenon. Hip Hop Dance documents all the forms of street music that led to one of the most groundbreaking, expressive, and influential dance styles ever created.

• A chronology of the development of hip hop from the 1970s to the present

• Black and white photographs of the various dance movements

• Bibliography of significant materials for further reading

• Detailed explanations of dance terms

• Helpful indexes with convenient access to various topics of interest throughout the book