Dance
It’s time to familiarise yourself with the coolest styles of street dance
Red Bull Dance Your Style events are happening again, so get to know the differences between everything from locking and popping to hip-hop and house.
Red Bull Dance Your Style is a dance competition that features dancers from different street dance backgrounds. It's all about introducing you to the most important disciplines of street dance and some of their most accomplished practitioners.
Street dance – what's that?
When you watch different street dancers, they can appear totally different. The reason for that is that street dance isn't a single dance style, but a catch-all term we use for all the dance styles that have their origins 'in the streets'. Also, every dancer strives for their own unique style within the dance they do.
The most common street-dance styles are: locking, hip-hop (aka hip-hop freestyle or new style), popping, house (aka house dance) and breaking (aka B-Boying or its media-created name breakdancing). Below we will briefly introduce those five styles and show a videoclip to understand how they look.
While watching, you should pay attention to the different styles of music, which ultimately lead to the differences in the dance styles.
Locking
Locking looks light-hearted and happy. This is probably because the music is funk, which is played by real musicians (not produced on a computer) and feels much more alive as a result. The second point is that the inspiration for a lot of the moves comes from comic characters that were on TV when the dance was created. Some of the names even reference the character that inspired them – the Scooby Doo or the Tom and Jerry are both good examples of this.
The legend says that the 'lock', which gives the dance style its name, was created when American dancer Don Campbell tried to do a move called the Funky Chicken but couldn't get it right.
Watch the Locking Final of Juste Debout 2017 below.
11 min
Locking Final
Vovan and Funky-J (Paris, France) go up against Black A and JP Black (Sorocaba, Brazil) in a funk-filled face-off for the Locking Championship.
Hip-hop
Hip-hop is a dance style based on freestyling with techniques originating in the social dances from the beginning of hip-hop culture and other influences. These can range from other dance forms, movement from everyday life to nature or even fictional characters from movies. Hip-hop dancing can look very different from one dancer to the other. The personal interpretation of the movement and the music is what gives the dance its ultimate flavour.
Watch the Hip-Hop Final of Juste Debout 2017 below.
11 min
Hip-Hop Final
This is a dance battle that’s all about personal expression and making conversation through movement – this is the Juste Debout 2017 Hip-Hop Final.
Popping
Another style that originated on the USA's west-coast is popping. It has a slower pace and is defined through hard muscle contractions called pops. When music production shifted from musicians with instruments to drum machines and synthesisers, the dance music was infused with a very precise and robotic vibe, which further shaped the look of this style. Poppers create illusions in their movement by using isolation techniques to create seemingly impossible moves and the style is often used as a catch-all term for similar styles even though pioneers of these styles disagree on that and have their own separate names for them.
Take a look at the Popping Final of Juste Debout 2018 below.
11 min
Popping Final
Ness and Poppin'C face off with bold moves against Greenteck and Nelson to bring the judges to their feet and win the championship street dance competition in the Popping category.
House
House dance originated in Chicago and New York, and is different from the other styles on this list for many reasons. It's the only style performed to house music, while all the others have a funk or hip-hop soundtrack.
While the dancers usually have a relaxed vibe in the upper body and arms, the style emphasises fast and complex footwork. The steps and combinations are like a kaleidoscope of different cultures, borrowing inspirations from African dance, Latino dances, Native-American dance and many more.
See some of the finest house dancers in the final battle of Juste Debout 2018 in the player below.
13 min
House Final
Toyin & Frankie J get into the groove against Kwame & Serge to win the street dance championship. Feel the vibe that’s expressed by the dancers as they improvise their moves based on the music.
Breaking
Breaking originated in the Bronx in New York City. It was an artistic outlet for the youth and is considered to be one of the four original elements of hip-hop culture. The unique features of breaking include acrobatic movement and an emphasis on ground moves, while the other styles prioritise dancing while standing up.
Watch the final battles of Red Bull BC One 2018 for examples of B-Girls and B-Boys breaking in the players below.
6 min
B-Girl final: San Andrea vs Ami
Japan takes on France in the fight to be crowned the first ever Red Bull BC One B-Girl world champion, as Ami battles San Andrea for the biggest B-Girl title out there.
7 min
Final: Lil Zoo vs Luigi
2018's two best B-Boys, Austria's Lil Zoo and the USA's Luigi, go head-to-head in the final battle to fight it out for the ultimate prize, the 2018 Red Bull BC One world champion's crown.