Popping: the dance style of the future

2024 Author: Leah Sherlock | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 05:25

From the time when funk music appeared, many styles of dance were born, each type tried to fit the music and adapt more favorably to it. Moreover, everyone wanted to outshine each other. The movements were striking in their technicality and plasticity. To this day, popping is considered the most spectacular and multifaceted. This bright and illusory dance is full of expressiveness, freedom and fantasy.

What is popping?

A distinctive feature of this dance is a sharp contraction and relaxation of the dancer's muscles: you need to create the effect of shuddering the body, like from a stun gun - this movement is called "dad" or "hit", hence the name. The performer of this style of dance tries to create the illusion of a non-human body making unnatural and physically impossible movements.

History

The popping dance style originated in the 70s on the streets of California, and was promoted by a group of poppers calling themselves the Electric Boogaloos. Its leader - Sam Solomon (Boogaloo Sam) - created the movements that are performed today in the style of popping and locking.

With every muscle contraction, Sem shouted out the word "pop", since then the technique of his movements is called popping. The history of origin is rather unsightly,but this did not stop the dance from spreading very quickly among young people, and after watching the movie Breakin, the majority of the population mistakenly considered popping and its branches to be the top break.

Overview of dance popping: types of movements

The dance is based on many movement techniques - this is necessary to create variety in performance. At the same time, they can exist as separate styles or be an addition to the main one. Popping includes seven basic techniques.

• The most popular is waving. The dancer must depict a wave that passes through the entire body or through its individual parts. This technique is very often used in other street styles, such as breaking and locking. You need to have very good control over your body in order to perform this movement believably. The most famous representative of this style is David Elsewhere.
• The next known technique is gliding. Here the situation is much more complicated: rolling from toe to heel, you need to depict sliding on the floor, and when the steps become more technical, it will seem that the dancer is moving through the air. The peculiarity of this style is that the body and hands are not involved and should not move at all, then the technique itself looks very impressive. There are more than forty types of gliding, but the most popular are sliding forward and backward, left and right, kneeling, and zigzag. They were first performed by mimes performing on the streets, calling such movements “walking against the wind.”

• King tut, or tatting, representsare movements that copy the Egyptian pharaohs. It is performed mainly by hand. The task of the dancer is to create the most direct angles between the palms, shoulders and hands. It is believed that tatting became popular after the release of the next series of the Bugs Bunny cartoon, in which he depicted a series of movements using right angles.
• Finger tut - all movements are performed only with fingers. Quite an impressive sight. Sometimes geometric figures are built very quickly, which is incorrect execution. The movements must be performed in time with the music, and then the beauty of the performance is fully revealed.
• When a dancer stops several times for a fraction of a second, and his movements resemble movement in the light of a strobe, this means that you have another popping technique - strobing, and it is performed on relaxed muscles for a more believable result. B-boys first learn familiar moves like putting on a hat or gloves, then gradually increase the challenge.

• Slow motion technique is based on moving slowly, like a videotape has stuck.
• Puppet is a puppet style in which the dancer transforms into a puppet and copies her movements. Sometimes this style is called robot dance.

Moonwalk history

The popping dance style has become so popular that some artists and singers have included it in their musical productions. The most famous performer of this style was Michael Jackson. In theirIn his performances, he used the gliding technique (sliding): it was the famous "moon walk" that became his hallmark. Many believe that this movement was created by Jackson himself, but this is not so, the technique was used before by other artists. The moonwalk first appeared in the 1945 film Children of Paradise.

The authors are considered Etienne Decroix and Jean-Louis Barrault: working as mimes, they repeatedly applied their innovation. Ten years later, the tap dancer Bill Bailey repeated it, slipping backwards backstage, then the famous mime Marcel Marceau used this technique in his performances for forty years. He was replaced by the eccentric James Brown: the soul singer performed gliding in the movie The Blues Brothers. Many other stars have repeated the moonwalk in the hope that it will bring them at least a modicum of popularity, but only Michael Jackson was able to conquer billions of people with the ability to "glid through the air".

Dancers' clothes

In the dance style, popping was previously considered a tradition to perform it in a classic costume: a white shirt, black trousers and a hat served as an indispensable attribute for poppers, their performances in such clothes looked very elegant and unusual. Over time, interest in the classical style faded, today dancers look at it much easier. Elegance has been replaced by loose-fitting trousers and oversized T-shirts, but whatever one may say, the hat has remained the hallmark of popping.

Les Twins - Bourgeois brothers

Today, popping is a dance boom that has broken into the lives of many dancers, andevery advanced hiphoper dreams of learning how to move like a robot, or "walk against the wind." But only a few reach the heights of mastery and impeccable control of their bodies. One of these was the Bourgeois twins from France.

Children from early childhood admired their idol M. Jackson and dreamed one day to learn how to master the body as well. On the streets of their hometown, the twins got acquainted with hip-hop, popping and locking. Combining these styles, the guys created something new, as they themselves say, "hip-hop new style." Lauren and Larry have mastered all the popping techniques and master them to perfection: today they conduct many master classes in all street styles, they can often be seen as judges at competitions. Les Twins is a vivid example of the fact that thanks to perseverance and work, you can achieve heights even in such a style of dance as popping.