Urban Dances
Although the denomination ‘street dance’ in Portuguese means ‘’dança de rua’’, it is not necessarily a style to be danced in the streets. In that case, the proper term would be ‘’dança urbana do povo’’. A style close to that notion would be the B.Boying style, which was created in the streets, resulting in Hip Hop culture.
Nowadays, some styles of street dances are Locking, Vogue, Wacking, Popping, House dance and Hip Hop freestyle.
Street dance is a designation for some dance styles that appeared in guetos and urban centers during the twentieth century. The term first appeared during the emergence ‘tap dancing’ in the 1930’s. African-Americans, influenced by the classic tap style, created a new dance with a mix of African-American dance techniques. As it was not related with the classic anymore, they called it ‘street dance’. Between the 1930’s and the 1960’s the tap became popular, accompanied by a decline in use of the term ‘street dance’. Just when Don Campbellock created the ‘locking dance’, the term appeared again. After that, during the 1970’s, some other styles were being created in the United States.
Gustavo Okajima
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