Growth Of Hip Hop Dance

According to Hugues Bazin, “among the hip-hop disciplines, dance is undoubtedly the expression that best allows the understanding of the development of hip-hop in France” because of the nature of hip-hop’s stunted and often denigrated development throughout France, which actually helped facilitate the development of hip-hop culture through outlets such as hip-hop dance, rather than rap music. As a result, hip-hop dance was able to flourish, despite some early missteps, and become a cultural tour de force in France, as its own industry and societal expression of art. From the early years of hip-hop’s inception into French culture, almost all aspects of the culture were considered grassroots, and naturally, aspects such as the dance and music

The rhythm of the growth of hip-hop dance is also asserted to have created a common set of techniques, of styles, and movement hierarchies, even as the ebb and flow introduces new generations of dancers (Durand 100-101). In addition, as hip-hop dance become fully realized as a cultural sensation, it formed an entire industry dedicated to the teaching and development of hip-hop, regionalized just like French rap music, which eventually led to an evolution of dance into an art form within theater, which made the stage more accessible to the modest hip-hop dancer (Durand 103,

The evolution of hip-hop dance in France reached a pinnacle where the dance genre became appreciated as a tenet of hip-hop as a whole, and sparked the creation of an entire business industry. As the ebb and flow that Bazin noted continued, this eventually led to the development of a hip-hop dance company industry, that instigated a regionalization of dance forms, much like what arose within French rap music. Among the metropolitan regions are Paris, which is home to the Akutel Force, Black Blanc Beur, Boogi Saï, and Choréam dance companies, and the Lyon regions, home to Traction-Avant, Azanie, Accrorap, Kafig, and Art Mouv’in Silence, which Bazin describes as “cradles of hip-hop dance”, allowing for the “spurring on of emulative creativity” within hip-hop dance. Outside of these cities, companies in smaller regions sparked the same creativity, such as those within Lille, like the Melting Spot, Funk Attitude, Dans la Rue la Danse, the region Toulouse’s Olympic Starz, Bordeaux’s Révolution, Montpellier’s Mega Cool Rap, Strasbourg’s Magic Electro, and Nantes’s Hb2 (Durand 103). Though some of these companies still exist today, dance companies that have attracted the attention of American cultural organizations include Par-Alleles, De Fakto, and KLP