Beginning Hip-hop Dance

Beginning Hip-Hop Dance is a part of Human Kinetics’ Interactive Dance Series. The series includes resources for ballet, modern, tap, jazz, musical theater, and hip-hop dance that support introductory dance technique courses taught through dance, physical education, and fine arts departments. Each student-friendly text includes a web resource offering video clips of dance instruction, assignments, and activities. The Interactive Dance Series offers students a collection of guides to learning, performing, and viewing dance.

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Since its development in the United States in the 1970s, hip-hop has grown to become a global dance phenomenon. In Beginning Hip-Hop Dance, students gain a strong foundation and learn the fundamentals of hip-hop techniques as they venture into the exciting world of this dance genre.

Written by dance educator, historian, and scholar E. Moncell Durden, Beginning Hip-Hop Dance gives students the opportunity to

• explore hip-hop history and techniques, foundational information, and significant works and artists;

• understand the styles and aesthetics of hip-hop dance as a performing art and cultural art form; and

• learn about the forms of hip-hop dance, such as locking, waacking, popping and boogaloo, and house.

The text comes with a web resource that includes 56 video clips to support student learning and aid in the practice of the techniques. The web resource also offers

• extended learning activities and prompts for e-journaling to help students understand how the dance form relates to their overall development as a dancer;

• glossary terms with and without definitions so students can check their knowledge; and

• chapter review quizzes to help students assess their knowledge and understanding of hip-hop dance and its history, artists, styles, and aesthetics.

As students move through the book, they will learn the BEATS method of exploring hip-hop through body, emotion, action, time, and space. This method opens up the creative and expressive qualities of the movements and helps students to appreciate hip-hop as an art form. Students will also learn how to critique a dance performance and create their own personal style of movement to music.

Beginning Hip-Hop Dance is a comprehensive resource that provides beginning dance students—dance majors, minors, or general education students with an interest in dance—a solid foundation in this contemporary cultural dance genre. It intertwines visual, auditory, and kinesthetic modes of learning and offers students the techniques and knowledge to build onto the movements that are presented in the book and video clips. Beginning Hip-Hop Dance is the ideal introduction to this exciting dance genre.

E. Moncell Durden is a dance educator and historian who specializes in the cultural and historical context of American Afro-Latin social dance. Durden is an assistant professor of practices for the Glorya Kaufman School of Dance at University of Southern California and has been a senior lecturer of hip-hop at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia. He was also part of the adjunct faculty at Drexel University in Philadelphia, Wesleyan University in Connecticut, Yale School of Drama in Connecticut, and the Eugene Lang New School in New York City.

Durden is a member of the pioneering hip-hop crew Mop-Top out of Brooklyn, New York. He spent 12 years performing with Philadelphia hip-hop theater company Rennie Harris Puremovement. In 2009 he released History and Concept of Hip-Hop Dance, a documentary produced by Dancetime Publications. In 2013, Durden founded Intangible Roots, a program dedicated to the education and preservation of African American intangible cultural heritage. He is a member of the National Dance Education Organization, the Council of International Dance, the Congress on Research in Dance, and the Society of Dance History Scholars. He was a contributor for Jazz Dance: A History of the Roots and Branches and The SAGE Encyclopedia of African Cultural Heritage in North America. He is highly sought after as a guest lecturer and workshop presenter, and he has given performances throughout the United States and internationally.