Popping is a street dance and one of the original funk styles that came from Fresno, California during the late 1960s-1970s. The dance, first seen in the 1968 movie Chitty Chitty Bang Bang during a scene where actress and singer Sally Ann Howes acts as a music box doll, is based on the technique of quickly contracting and relaxing muscles to cause a jerk in the dancer's body, referred to as a pop or a hit. This is done continuously to the rhythm of a song in combination with various movements and poses.
Closely related illusory dance styles and techniques are often integrated into popping to create a more varied performance. These dance styles include the robot, waving and tutting. However, popping is distinct from breaking and locking, with which it is often confused. A popping dancer is commonly referred to as a popper.
As one of the earliest funk styles, popping is closely related to hip hop dancing. It is often performed in battles, where participants try to outperform each other in front of a crowd, giving room for improvisation and freestyle moves that are seldom seen in shows and performances, such as interaction with other dancers and spectators. Popping and related styles such as waving and tutting have also been incorporated into the electronica dance scene to some extent, influencing new styles such as liquid and digits and turfing.
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Terminology
As stated earlier, popping has become an umbrella term for a group of closely related styles and techniques that have often been combined or danced together with popping, some of which are seldom seen outside of popping contexts. However, the use of popping as an umbrella term has been criticized on the grounds that its many related styles must be clearly separated so that those who specialize in more specific styles aren't classified as poppers (ex: a waver, a tutter, a strober).
It is often assumed that popping is a style of breakdance. This is due in large part to the movies Breakin' and Breakin 2: Electric Boogaloo. In these movies all styles of dance represented, (breaking and the funk styles: popping, locking, and electric boogaloo) were put under the "breakdance" label, causing a naming confusion. This caused the media to associate funk styles with hip hop music and assume that popping and electric boogaloo were the same as breaking. The difference between the two is that breaking originated in the Bronx, New York and is danced a lot on the floor while popping and boogaloo developed in various places in California and are danced almost entirely standing up.
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Characteristics
Popping is centered around the technique of popping, which means to quickly contract and relax muscles to create a jerking effect (a pop or hit) in the body. Popping can be concentrated to specific body parts, creating variants such as arm pops, leg pops, chest pops and neck pops. They also can vary in explosiveness. Stronger pops normally involve popping both the lower and upper body simultaneously.
Normally, pops (or hits) are performed at regular intervals timed to the beat of the music, but the popper can also choose to pop to other elements of the song, or pop at twice or half the speed of the beat. To transition between poses, most poppers use a technique called dime stopping, common in robot dancing, which basically means to end a movement with an abrupt halt (thus "stopping on a dime"), after which a pop normally occurs. To create variation, poppers often mix in other styles as well, such as waving or tutting, which creates a sharp contrast to the popping itself.
Poses in popping make heavy use of angles, style movements and sometimes facial expressions. Common facial expressions include "stank faces," and feigned expressions of concentration and seriousness. The lower body has many ways to move around from basic walking and stepping to the more complex and gravity defying styles of floating and electric boogaloo. Movements and techniques used in popping are generally focused on sharp contrasts and extremes, being either robotic and rigid or very loose and flowing.
As opposed to breaking and its floor-oriented moves, popping is almost always performed standing up, except in rare cases when the dancer goes down on the knees or to the floor to perform a special move.
Music
Having its roots in the late 1970s funk era, popping is commonly danced to funk and disco music. Popular artists include Zapp, Dayton, Dazz Band and Cameo. During the 1980s, many poppers also utilized electro music, with artists such as Kraftwerk, Yellow Magic Orchestra, Egyptian Lover and World Class Wrecking Crew. More mainstream hip hop music was also employed by poppers during the 1980s, including Afrika Bambaataa, Kurtis Blow, Whodini and Run DMC. Today, it is common to see popping danced to more current music genres such as modern hip hop (often abstract/instrumental hip hop) and various forms of electronic dance music such as dubstep.
Songs that are generally favored have a straight and steady beat at around 90-120 beats per minute, a 4/4 time signature and a strong emphasis on the back beat, normally by a snare drum or a drum machine. The pops performed by the popper normally occur on every beat or on the distinct back beats. The popper can also choose to follow the music more freely such as by timing the pops to the rhythm of a melody or other rhythmic elements.
Variations
There are a number of dance styles that are commonly mixed with popping to enhance the dancer's performance and create a more varied show, many of which are seldom seen outside of popping contexts. They can be seen as separate styles related to popping or as a part of popping when using it as an umbrella term.
Notable poppers
- Popping Zero
- Dokyun Kang
- Hozin
- Popping J
- Junior Boogaloo
- Kei
- Acky
- Gucchon
- Seen
- Kite
- Hoan
- Crazy Kyo
- Tetsu-G
- Popping Pete
- Bruno "Pop N Taco" Falcon
- McKenzie Christiansen
- Dytto
- Poppin John
- Boogie Frantic
- Mr Smooth
- Jonathan "Bionic Man
- Ticking Tiny from the world famous LA breakers who dominated the west coast
- Michael "Boogaloo Shrimp" Chambers
- Steffan "Mr. Wiggles" Clemente
- Suga Pop
- Nam "Poppin'" Hyun Joon
- Stephen "Skeeter Rabbit" Nichols
- Boogaloo SaM
Source of the article : Wikipedia
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