Popping is a street dance and one of the original funk styles that came from Fresno, California during the late 1960s-1970s. The dance is based on the technique of quickly contracting and relaxing muscles to cause a jerk in the dancer's body, referred to as a pop or a hit. This is done continuously to the rhythm of a song in combination with various movements and poses.
Closely related illusory dance styles and techniques are often integrated into popping to create a more varied performance. These dance styles include the robot, waving and tutting. However, popping is distinct from breaking and locking, with which it is often confused. A popping dancer is commonly referred to as a popper.
As one of the earliest funk styles, popping is closely related to hip hop dancing. It is often performed in battles, where participants try to outperform each other in front of a crowd, giving room for improvisation and freestyle moves that are seldom seen in shows and performances, such as interaction with other dancers and spectators. Popping and related styles such as waving and tutting have also been incorporated into the electronica dance scene to some extent, influencing new styles such as liquid and digits and turfing.
Video Popping
Terminology
As stated earlier, popping has become an umbrella term for a group of closely related styles and techniques that have often been combined or danced together with popping, some of which are seldom seen outside of popping contexts.
Maps Popping
Characteristics
Popping is centered around the technique of popping, which means to quickly contract and relax muscles to create a jerking effect (a pop or hit) in the body. Popping can be concentrated to specific body parts, creating variants such as arm pops, leg pops, chest pops and neck pops.
Music
Having its roots in the late 1970s funk era, popping is commonly danced to funk and disco music. Popular artists include Zapp, Dayton, Dazz Band and Cameo. During the 1980s, many poppers also utilized electro music, with artists such as Kraftwerk, Yellow Magic Orchestra, Egyptian Lover and World Class Wrecking Crew. More mainstream hip hop music was also employed by poppers during the 1980s, including Afrika Bambaataa, Kurtis Blow, Whodini and Run DMC. Today, it is common to see popping danced to more current music genres such as modern hip hop (often abstract/instrumental hip hop) and various forms of electronic dance music such as dubstep.
Songs that are generally favored have a straight and steady beat at around 90-120 beats per minute, a 4/4 time signature and a strong emphasis on the back beat, normally by a snare drum or a drum machine. The pops performed by the popper normally occur on every beat or on the distinct back beats. The popper can also choose to follow the music more freely such as by timing the pops to the rhythm of a melody or other rhythmic elements.
Variations
There are a number of dance styles that are commonly mixed with popping to enhance the dancer's performance and create a more varied show, many of which are seldom seen outside of popping contexts. They can be seen as separate styles related to popping or as a part of popping when using it as an umbrella term.
- Animation
- A style and a technique where you imitate film characters being animated by stop motion. The technique of moving rigidly and jerky by tensing muscles and using techniques similar to strobing and the robot makes it appear as if the dancer has been animated frame by frame. Walt Disney was the first to use this term, referring to his character Steam Boat Willie's motions as "the animation dance" in 1929. This style was heavily inspired by the dynamation films created by Ray Harryhausen, such as The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad (1958).
- Animatronics
- A style that imitates animatronic robots. Related to the robot style, but adds a hit or bounce at the end of each movement.
- Boogaloo
- Boogaloo or boog style is a loose and fluid dance style trying to give the impression of a body lacking bones, partly inspired by animated movies and cartoons. It utilizes circular rolls of various body parts, such as the hips, knees and head, as well as isolation and sectioning, like separating the rib cage from the hip. It also makes heavy use of angles and various steps and transitions to get from one spot to the next. It was developed in 1975 by Boogaloo Sam. In the original boogaloo you do not pop, but combined with popping it becomes the electric boogaloo, the signature style of The Electric Boogaloos (the dance crew).
- Bopping
- A style of popping in which the chest is isolated by being pushed out and brought back while flexing the chest muscles. As this movement is performed to the beat the popper can incorporate different moves in between the chest bop. When practiced the chest bop can be done at a double-time interval adding a unique effect to the move.
- Crazy legs
- A leg-oriented style focusing on fast moving legs, knee rolls and twisting feet. Developed in 1980-81 by Popin' Pete, originally inspired by the fast and agitated style of breaking by Crazy Legs from Rock Steady Crew.
- Dime stopping
- A technique of moving at a steady pace and then abruptly coming to a halt, as if attempting to stop on a dime or freeze in a moment of time. This is often combined with a pop at the beginning and/or end of the movement.
- Gliding (also called Floating or Sliding)
- A set of footwork-oriented techniques that attempt to create the illusion that the dancer's body is floating smoothly across the floor, or that the legs are walking while the dancer travels in unexpected directions. This style encompasses moves such as the backslide, aka the moonwalk, which was made famous by Michael Jackson.
- Lowrider
- A ground move where the dancer imitates a lowrider car. The dancer drops to the ground with his/her knees inward (reverse indian style) and feet outward. He or she would move up, down, and around imitating the hydraulic movements of a lowrider auto.
- Miming
- Performing techniques of traditional miming to the beat of a song. Most commonly practiced are various movements with the hands as if one could hold on to air and pull their body in any possibly direction. Miming can also be used to allow a popper to tell a story through his or her dance. This style is often used in battles to show the opponent how they can defeat them.
- Puppet
- A style imitating a puppet or marionette tied to strings. Normally performed alone or with a partner acting as the puppet master pulling the strings.
- Robot/botting
- A style imitating a robot or mannequin.
- Scarecrow
- A style imitating the scarecrow character of The Wizard of Oz. This style is supposedly pioneered by Boogaloo Sam in 1977. Focuses on outstretched arms and rigid poses contrasted with loose hands and legs.
- Strobing
- A style of popping that gives the impression that the dancer is moving within a strobe light. To produce this effect, a dancer will take any ordinary movement (such as waving hello to someone) in conjunction with quick, short stop-and-go movements to make a strobing motion. Mastering strobing requires perfect timing and distance between each movement.
- Strutting
- Strutting is a dance style originating from the San Francisco Bay Area in the 1970s. Notable contributing cities include San Francisco, Oakland, San Jose, and Fillmore (though not a city in the Bay Area). Distinctions of this style include the execution of angular arm, leg, and body movements while stepping to the beat in any direction. Strutting routines are often performed in groups, with 2 or more members lined up side to side. Classic examples of strutting can be seen from members of the dance group Playboyz Inc. such as "Money B."
- Ticking
- A way of popping where the dancer pops at smaller intervals, generally twice as fast as normal.
- Toyman
- Based on action figures such as G.I. Joe and Major Matt Mason, developed by an old member of the Electric Boogaloos called Toyman Skeet. Goes between straight arms and right angles to simulate limited joint movement.
- Tutting/King Tut
- Inspired by the art of Ancient Egypt (the name derived from the Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamun, colloquially known as "King Tut"), tutting exploits the body's ability to create geometric positions (such as boxes) and movements, predominantly with the use of right angles. It generally focuses on the arms and hands, and includes sub-styles such as finger tutting.
- Waving
- Waving is composed of a series of fluid movements that give the appearance that a wave is traveling through the dancer's body. It is often mixed with liquid dancing.
- Isolation
- A dance technique that consists of separating, or isolating the movement of one or more body parts from the rest of the body. One common type of isolation performed by poppers is the head isolation, in which they seem to take their head out of place from the rest of their body and move it back in creative ways.
Notable poppers
- Boogaloo Shrimp (aka Michael Chambers)
- Nam Hyun Joon
- Popin Pete
- Salah
- Suga Pop
See also
- Hip Hop dance
- International competitions
- Locking (dance)
- Turfing
References and notes
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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