Masion, Nhea France T.

BSED ENGLISH 1-A

PHED 1002

HISTORY OF STREET DANCE

Street dance, also more formally described as vernacular dance, originated in New York
in the 1970s. Evolving on the streets of Manhattan and the Bronx, it was developed as
an improvised, social dance form, reacting against traditional, high-art dance styles.

Street dance evolved from popular culture and social dance in America during the
1970s and it has since spread internationally. People would dance anywhere that had
an open available space: a park, a street or a party. An important feature of street
dance is that this was not a style that was ‘learned’ within a studio under formal tuition,
but it was improvised in an informal space. As such, it involved interaction between the
dancers and dancers/watchers and encouraged creativity in the making up and
structuring of movement.

Popping, Locking and Breaking are three foundation funk styles which come under the
umbrella term of Street Dance. Popping and Locking started in the early 1970’s funk era
in California, USA. Breaking or Bboying started in the Bronx in New York in the late
1970s but came to the world’s attention through films such as Wild Style and
Breakdance in the 1980s.

The significant feature of the history of Street Dance was that it was the dance of young
people. It offered opportunities for creative expression, gave a sense of freedom and a
‘voice’ to unrepresented and often invisible communities through the means of music
and dance. Despite the improvisational nature of these street dances, participants
wanted to learn their vocabularies and skills, to enable teachers to pass these on with
safety and a high level of execution, Street Dance was incorporated in to the DFR
Faculty and the first syllabus was offered in 2010.