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I love hip-hop dance. In my opinion, the most exciting thing that happens in the Bay Area every year is the annual San Francisco Hip-Hop Dancefest in November. I always get tickets to both nights AND buy a shirt and usually buy DVDs, and every year I'm just blown away by how much talent I see at the Festival.
Because it's so cool to watch, and we have so many great choreographers in the Bay Area, I try to take a hip-hop class whenever I can, and there is nothing like being in a dance studio and hearing the bass start to pound in your ears as you try to learn some complicated new dance step. Of course, when I say "complicated", I mean "pathetically simple for anyone who isn't a white chick raised on ballet and jazz" - I've taken dance for a lot of years, so I can memorize a sequence of steps fairly quickly and make a reasonably approximation of my teachers' movements, but I've never been the most graceful or flexible person in any of my dance classes (not that you'd think it would matter for hip-hop, but it still does). And as much as I love going to class, I feel a sort of identity crisis every time I walk into, say, Allen Frias's class at Dance Mission and find myself surrounded by younger, cooler people who, in my mind, just look more like hip-hop dancers, even when they're not trying. They always seem to have the right clothes, which are infinitely cooler-looking than mine, and most of them are at least 10 years younger than I am - comparatively, I feel a bit like somebody's mother trying to hang out at a dance club. These days, I'm most likely to attend Allen's class, mostly because he is such a great guy and makes even dorks like me feel like we belong in the class and can learn to do this stuff. I spent several years before this taking class with Micaya , who teaches at a few different schools here, and while she is also incredibly cool and very sweet to beginning dancers (and her class is a lot easier than Allen's - I'd recommend it if you don't learn very quickly, since Allen's choreography is TOUGH) - when I took class from her, I not only felt old and uncool, but fat, since Micaya and all of her assistants are perfectly thin and stunningly beautiful. It always made me wonder if the reason I looked so stupid doing the dance steps was because I was doing the steps wrong or because I needed to lose about 15 pounds, and it's hard to enjoy a dance class when you're obsessing over that kind of a thought. Anyway, Allen is a big guy, as are most of his dancers, and yet all of them are totally sexy and confident, which makes me feel much better about myself; it's like a big shot in the arm of self-esteem every time I actually make it to class, which is really cool. Another really great place to take class is New Style Motherlode in Oakland, where I used to go all the time when I lived over there; lately, I keep telling myself I'm going to go and take a class there, but on the day I planned to go, I decide I need to grade papers instead. Depressingly enough, this happens 9 times out of 10 these days when I have "Hip-hop class" on my calendar: I realize that I'll never finish my grading, or my housework, or something, if I take the 2 hours out of my day to get across town to class and take the class, and so I don't go. Which leads me to wonder: can you actually consider yourself to be " a person who studies hip-hop dance" when you've only been to two actual hip-hop classes in the last six months? Is identity about who you WANT to be, given enough time to pursue your interests, or is it about what you actually spend your time doing?
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Posted by jmolinari on 2008-02-27 19:14:33 | Rating: | Views: 86
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I think no matter what age a person is, if they have enough guts to participate in any dance class they get an auto 10 points. Hip hop dance is so intense and takes alot of practice to make it look good. Igive you alot of props for just going and doing your thing while there. I really dont have enough guts to do some dance class or anything similar but I like break dance and break dancing (ok more like when I had time). I really think dancing is such a great way to fight stress and help overcome hardships.
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Posted by junkndatrunk
on 2008-02-29 21:58:54
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