Street Dance is Coming

Britains Got Talent has started a street dance craze after Diversity and Flawless

battled it out in the final. Up and down the country dance and theatre schools are seeing

increased enquires for street dance lessons.

Street dance is a bit of an umbrella term and underneath it you have breakdance,

popping, locking, krumping and so many different niche styles. What was was done on the

streets as a social dance form, has now become more commercial in classes.

When a dancer pops, they jerk their body by quickly contracting and relaxing the

muscles. The movements they make are correspondingly referred to as pops or hits. Locking

refers to fast, exaggerated, movements which then freeze into a rigid position (a lock),

whereas waving describes a more fluid style where movement appears to ripple through the

limbs (as if a wave were traversing the dancer's body). Krumping is characterised by

free, expressive and energetic movement of the arms, legs, chest and head. Proponents of

these different styles can correspondingly be described as poppers, lockers, wavers and

krumpers. If you'd like to see these moves in action, check out the video in this

article

Though the term was already established within youth/dance culture, recent media

interest in 'Britain's Got Talent' winners Diversity and rival group Flawless seems to

have now planted the expression firmly into mainstream British English.

Street dance is to gain even more exposure over the summer with a film to be shot in

3D. The team, alongside fellow TV contest finalists Flawless, were approached to be in

the movie after they were spotted last year by the film's producers at the UK Dance

Championships. The film begins shooting in August and tells the story of a street dance

crew who have to work alongside ballet dancers.

I hope you enjoyed reading my article, I own a local theatre school based in Romford and Brentwood. Types of classes

offered are street dance, musical theatre and singing.