Hip-Hop Happenin’ in Auckland, NZ

The emergence of the hip-hop culture has revolutionized not only its music but also its style of dance. The world over, hip-hop is a very famous dance. Everybody seems to be attracted to the energetic movements characterized by the popping, locking and breaking techniques. These movements, which were developed by Afro- and Latino-Americans, are now finding their way to dance and fitness classes all over the globe – even to Auckland.

To begin with, hip-hop is not just about the music and the dance. To many fans of this cultural revolution hip-hop is, first and foremost, a way of life. Indeed, it has come a long way from its beginnings in the South Bronx, a borough of New York. Some famous music artists are also hip-hop artists - like Tupac and MC Hammer - who all live and breathe the hip-hop way of life. They produce and rap the hip-hop beats and dance the hip-hop groove.

People are used to finding Latin dances offered at various dance schools, but gone are the days when dance lessons geared towards fitness were restricted to the more formal types of Latin and/or ballroom dance. Nowadays, it’s not unusual to discover that a lot of people are jumping onto the hip-hop bandwagon. The highly energetic characteristic of this dance have attracted a lot of dancers and fitness buffs the world over. This type of dance has even inspired various movies, such as You Got Served and the Step Up series (which has become a moneymaking movie franchise) and has further solidified the widespread influence of the hip-hop culture.

Like other dances, hip-hop is largely improvised. Dances are either individual or in groups. Individually, dancers tend to dance in a freestyle manner using various steps along the way. These steps don’t have to follow any certain rule - unlike other more formal dances. As long as they have popping, locking and breaking techniques and you’re able to dance it like a real hip-hop star, you’re good to go. Hip-hop also has group dances which can escalate to dance battles where the best hip-hop dancers bring home that hard-earned bacon. These dance battles often appear in hip-hop movies and prove to be the highlight of such films.

The exhilarating feeling you get once you see that amazing hip-hop dance scene has served as an inspiration not only to hip-hop star wannabes, but also to fitness buffs who want to integrate hip-hop into their workout. Thankfully, various dance schools were able to read their minds and were able to come up with hip-hop dance lessons in their fitness clinics.

People tend to be intimidated by this type of dance at the beginning of each lesson but, once you familiarize yourself with the basic concepts of popping, breaking and locking and, of course, some practice you’ll be strutting your stuff like a real hip-hop star in no time. Hip-hop dance is really cool and is useful if you want to hit the clubs and show off your awesome dance moves. And most definitely, it’s a very effective workout.

With energetic music used as background to most of its dances, hip-hop, along with the newer forms of dance like zumba, is attracting dance enthusiasts and fitness buffs everywhere. If you’re in Auckland and wish to take hip-hop classes, you can rely on the Urban Beat Dance School to teach you how. Other dance schools that offer hip-hop classes are the City Dance Recreational Dance Studio, Dance Pro Dance Studio and the Performing Arts School of New Zealand.

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