Degrees of Separation

I never thought I’d study House Dancing. I’m not really sure why, and to be honest, I wasn’t really sure of what it was before this weekend. The third and final day of the Reclaim the Street Hip Hop conference at Pavilion Dance South West in Bournemouth focused on this less-known dance form. House music came from sampling disco tunes with drum machine beats. House music was originally very popular on the gay scene, and spurred on the development of Whacking and Vogueing. But House Dance didn’t arrive until the 80s, when the Hip Hop clubs closed (largely to the violence that was associated with them) and the Hip Hop dancers decided to go to the House clubs instead. They saw the other varieties of movement that were on display at these clubs, and mixed a bit of everything in with their own brand of Hip Hop.

This just goes to show, and certainly not in a negative way, that nothing in this world is new; it’s all an evolution of something else that came before, and that’s true in all aspects of life, not just dance. Thinking about it like this, it’s still a shock to find out that some of the great dancers of the previous generation, who claimed to the originators of some of the most famous styles or dance moves, were not actually quite telling the truth. For example; Michael Jackson is thought to have invented the Moonwalk, when in fact the move came much earlier and was originally called the Backslide.

I found learning the House steps much harder than the Hip Hop steps of yesterday’s workshops. Having said that, I managed to master the Cross Step, which involves a quick tangling of legs and feet that I thought I’d never get! House seems to be even less me than the original Hip Hop style, but there’s certainly some moves that I’ll take with me, to influence my own choreography. And man, did we sweat! I could hardly see in the mirrors at one point, we’d steamed them up so much!

Unfortunately, towards the end of today’s workshops, I was suffering a little with two old injuries in my back and tailbone. However, the pain did kick in a rather interesting realisation; I need to find the right way to engage the right muscles when I’m learning unfamiliar dance styles or steps. It’s a shame that, when you receive training that isn’t classical, you’re rarely taught this – I certainly wasn’t when I was younger. Something to aim for now though.

Something else that has come out of the conference, which I’d certainly like to try in the future, is the idea of connecting with other performers as well as the audience. All forms of Street Dance have come from social dance steps and it’s important not to ignore that. Connect with those who share your stage; you’ll find that you’ll have more fun, and in turn your audience will too.

Huge thanks go to conference tutors Kashmir Leese and Corina Best for changing my entire outlook on Street Dance, in a very positive way.