Hip Hop Revolution

You can teach an old girl new tricks, but she might strain herself learning them. I’m taking a hip-hop dance workshop with some of my hooping friends. I crack myself up with my middle aged white girl moves but it is even fun when I am flailing, you know what I’m saying?

Hip-hop isn’t quite what I anticipated. It’s athletic, graceful and spunky all at the same time.

Our instructor, Virg, is good dancer. He is smooth and straight and relaxed all at the same time. He pushes hard without looking like he’s working at all. I watch him carefully to see exactly what nuances make his dance so good. I am slowly picking up on them, even though I can’t do them yet.

It’s hard to describe the moves, exactly. There are a lot of unexpected influences including outright mimicking motions like some we did tonight:

Picking up a basketball and shooting it;
Pushing your shoulders to the side and downward, sort of like Marcel Marceau plays molecule in a very small box;
Lifting yourself up by the shirt;
Being pushed from behind and stumbling forward

And then there were steps that evoked something for me, but it wasn’t hip-hop: a backwards hoedown step; a Russian line dance; Steve Martin’s “wild and crazy guy” Somehow I think I am not quite getting it.

Anyway, I might not entirely get it, but I’ve learned two routines in two classes. I tried hooping some of the steps and they sort of work. Amanda figured our a beautiful way of using one of the arm motions continuously. It has applications, you know what I’m saying?

Posted by kuri at May 28, 2009 10:39 PM