Since the time when funky music appeared, a lot of dance styles were born, each kind tried to match the music and better adapt to it. Moreover, everyone wanted to outshine each other. The movements were striking in their technicality and plasticity. The most spectacular and multifaceted to this day is popping. This bright and illusory dance is full of expressiveness, freedom and imagination.
What is popping?
A distinctive feature of this dance is a sharp contraction and relaxation of the muscles of the dancer: you need to create the effect of shuddering the body, like from a stun gun - this movement is called "dad" or "hit", hence the name. Performing this style of dance is trying to create the illusion of a non-human body making unnatural and physically impossible movements.
History
The popping dance style originated in the 70s on the streets of California, and it was promoted by a group of poppers who called themselves Electric Boogaloos. Its leader - Sam Solomon (Boogaloo Sam) - created movements that today perform in the style of popping and locking.
With every muscle contraction, Sem cried out the word “pop,” since then the technique of his movements has been called popping. The history of the occurrence is rather plain-looking, but this did not stop the dance from spreading very quickly among young people, and after watching the Breakin movie, the majority of the population mistakenly considered popping and its branches to be the top break.
Popping dance overview: types of movements
The basis of the dance is a lot of movement techniques - this is necessary to create variety in performance. Moreover, they can exist as separate styles or be in addition to the main one. Popping includes seven basic techniques.
- The most popular is waving. The dancer should depict a wave that passes through the whole body or in its individual parts. This technique is very often used in other street styles, such as break and lock. You need to be very good at owning your body in order to plausibly carry out this movement. The most famous representative of this style is David Elsewhere.
- The next known technique is gliding. Here the situation is much more complicated: rolling from toe to heel, it is necessary to depict sliding on the floor, and when the steps become more technical, it will seem that the dancer is moving through the air. The peculiarity of this style is that the body and hands are not involved and should not move at all, then the technique itself looks very impressive. There are more than forty types of gliding, but the most popular are gliding forward and backward, left and right, on the knees, and also with a zigzag. They were first performed by mimes performing in the streets, calling such movements “walking against the wind”.
- King tut, or tatting, - is a movement that copies the Egyptian pharaohs. Performed mainly by hands. The task of the dancer is to create the most right angles between the palms, shoulders and hands. It is believed that tatting became popular after the release of the next series of the cartoon about Bugs Bani, in it he depicted a series of movements using right angles.
- Finger tut - all movements are performed only by the fingers. Pretty spectacular sight. Sometimes geometric shapes are built very quickly, which is an incorrect execution. Movements must be performed in time with the music, and then the beauty of the performance is fully revealed.
- When a dancer stops several times for a split second, and his movements resemble moving in the light of a stroboscope, this means that you have yet another popping technique - strobing, and it is performed on relaxed muscles to achieve a more plausible result. At first, B-Boys learn to practice familiar movements, such as putting on a hat or gloves, then gradually complicate the task.
- The technique in the style of slow motion is based on slow movement, as if stuck in a videotape.
- Puppet is a puppet style in which the dancer transforms into a puppet and copies her movements. Sometimes this style is called robot dance.
Moonwalk: A Story
Popping dance style has become so popular that some artists and singers have included it in their musical productions. The most famous performer of this style was Michael Jackson. In his speeches, he used the gliding technique (gliding): it was the famous "moonwalk" that became his hallmark. Many believe that this movement was created by Jackson himself, but this is not so, the technique was used earlier by other artists. For the first time, the moonwalk appeared in the film "Children of the District" in 1945.
Etienne Decroix and Jean-Louis Barrot are considered authors: working as memes, they repeatedly applied their innovation. Ten years later, it was repeated by the tap-taker Bill Bailey, slipping backwards behind the curtains, then the famous mime Marcel Marceau used this technique in his performances for forty years. He was replaced by the eccentric James Brown: the soul singer glided in the movie “The Blues Brothers”. Many other stars repeated the moonwalk in the hope that it would bring them at least a drop of popularity, but only Michael Jackson was able to conquer billions of people with the ability to "glide through the air."
Dancers clothes
In the style of dance, popping was previously considered a tradition to perform it in a classic costume: a white shirt, black trousers and a hat served as an indispensable attribute for poppers, their performances in such clothes looked very elegant and unusual. Over time, interest in the classical style faded away, today dancers look at it much easier. Elegance was replaced by loose cut trousers and t-shirts of large sizes, but, anyway, the hat remained the hallmark of popping.
Les Twins - The Bourgeois Brothers
Today, popping is a dance boom that has burst into the lives of many dancers, and every advanced hiphopper wants to learn how to move like a robot, or "walk against the wind." But only a few reach the heights of mastery and impeccable possession of their body. One of these became the twins of the Bourgeois from France.
The children from early childhood admired their idol M. Jackson and dreamed once of learning to master the body as masterfully. On the streets of their hometown, the twins met with hip-hop, popping and locking. By combining these styles, the guys created something new, as they say, “hip-hop of a new style”. Loren and Larry have mastered all the techniques of popping and are fluent in them: today they conduct many workshops on all street styles, they can often be seen as judges in competitions. Les Twins is a vivid example of the fact that thanks to perseverance and work you can achieve heights even in such a dance style as popping.