Movies The entertainment industry has been largely responsible for introducing hip-hop dance to mainstream audiences around the world. Early hip-hop films
Wild Style,
Beat Street, and ''
Breakin' were made in the 1980s. When Wild Style'' opened in Japan, Rock Steady Crew performed breaking in Tokyo's
Harajuku shopping district to promote the film.
Wild Style was the first movie centered around hip-hop culture; however,
Flashdance was the first commercially released film to feature breaking. In 1984,
Beat Street was released in
West Germany and screened at the
Cannes Film Festival, which helped to introduce breaking, graffiti writing, and
turntablism to this part of Europe.
Breakin' and ''
Breakin' 2: Electric Boogaloo brought the funk styles to the cinema. Breaking, locking, popping, and waacking were performed in these films. At this time in the 1980s, the United States was not the only country producing hip-hop films. In 1985, Yuen Woo-ping directed a hip-hop themed romantic comedy in Hong Kong called Mismatched Couples starring Donnie Yen. Another hip-hop film, Electro Rock'', was released the same year in the United Kingdom. This film featured a then 14-year-old Hanifa "Bubbles" McQueen Hudson, the UK's first b-girl.
Saigon Electric was Vietnam's first hip-hop film. It was written, produced, and directed by Vietnamese-American filmmaker Stephane Gauger. The film is about two female dancers (a ribbon dancer and a hip-hop dancer) and how their respective romances, the threat of their community center being torn down, and the stress of an upcoming dance battle affects their friendship. The film was choreographed by Viet Max and Ricky Cole. In 2012, it won a
Golden Kite Prize (the Vietnamese equivalent of
The Oscars/
BAFTAs) for "Best Film" and "Best Actress".
Television Before reaching movie audiences, hip-hop dance was already being broadcast on television.
Soul Train was a
syndicated, music
variety show that featured social dancing and performances by African-American soul, funk, and R&B singers. The show was broadcast in South Korea via the US Armed Forces Korea Network. Before officially becoming a crew, The Lockers made several appearances on this show. After becoming a crew, The Electric Boogaloos also appeared on the show.
Soul Train premiered in 1970. During its 36 year run, the resident freestyle dancers were referred to as the Soul Train Gang. Auditions were held in 1971 when the show moved from Chicago, Illinois to Los Angeles, California. Dancers who wanted to get on
Soul Train after this time had to rely on word-of-mouth recommendations from dancers who were already employed by the show. A regular feature during the broadcast was the Soul Train Line. To participate, the dancers formed two lines of equal length facing each other with a large space in between them. Each dancer in line would take their turn dancing down the middle. Other music variety shows on television at this time were
American Bandstand,
Solid Gold, and
Top of the Pops. Unlike
Soul Train, which focused on soul and funk, these shows promoted
Top 40 music and pop acts.
Solid Gold employed a permanent dance troupe called the Solid Gold Dancers who performed choreographed routines to musical performances.
Lucinda Dickey, an actress and dancer who played the lead role in the ''Breakin' '' films, appeared on the show during the 1982–1983 season as a Solid Gold dancer. In 1983, street dancers Marc "Mr. Freeze" Lemberger from
Rock Steady Crew, Timothy "Popin' Pete" Solomon and Dane "Robot Dane" Parker from the Electric Boogaloos, and locking dancers Alpha "Omega" Anderson and Lewis "Deputy" Green also appeared on Solid Gold during a performance to the song "
What a Feeling" from the movie
Flashdance. In 1982 during a performance in London on
Top of the Pops, street dancer
Jeffrey Daniel performed popping and the
backslide during the song "
A Night to Remember". This was the first time popping was shown on British television, thus spreading its popularity in the United Kingdom. A year later, Michael Jackson also performed the backslide during a performance of "
Billie Jean" on the
Motown 25 TV special. He called it the
moonwalk and his performance spread its popularity all over the world to much larger extent than Daniel's performance did. It was Jeffrey Daniel who taught Michael Jackson how to do the backslide/moonwalk. , California.|alt=Four members of the hip-hop dance crew JabbaWockeeZ performing in a night club wearing white masks and white gloves. A few hip-hop dance shows appeared on television in the 1990s such as 1991's
The Party Machine with Nia Peeples and 1992's
The Grind. Several hip-hop dance shows premiered in the 2000s including (but not limited to)
Dance Fever,
Dance 360,
The Wade Robson Project,
MTV Dance Crew, ''
America's Best Dance Crew, Dance on Sunset, and Shake It Up. In 2006, MTV France documented the creation of a dance crew for an original series called MTV Dance Crew
. Viewers were able to see the crew from auditions to the selection of the final eight who were subsequently named Original Soul. Original Soul was coached by three professional choreographers who mentored them and helped refine their dancing. Over the course of 32 episodes they routinely participated in professional dance battles including the popping battle at Juste Debout, the Seven 2 Smoke battle at The Notorious IBE, and b-boy battles at Chelles Battle Pro. On the show, different crews competed in dance challenges against each other every week. ABDC contributed to the exposure of several crews such as Jabbawockeez, Quest, Beat Freaks, Poreotics, and Kinjaz. These crews now have official websites, work with musical artists, and perform at live events. The JabbaWockeeZ had a show in Las Vegas, Nevada called MÜS.I.C.'' at the Monte Carlo Resort and Casino. In 2012, the Jabbawockeez performed the show during a five-month residency at the Jupiters Hotel and Casino in
Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia. Both Poreotics and Hokuto "Hok" Konishi from Quest were nominated for a
2011 MTV Video Music Award for Best Choreography. Poreotics was nominated with singer
Bruno Mars for his video "
The Lazy Song". Hok was nominated for
LMFAO's video "
Party Rock Anthem"; the rest of Quest crew appeared in the video as featured dancers. After the battle, hip-hop dancer
Joshua Allen was declared the winner of season four of the competition. The same year
Mona-Jeanette Berntsen, a hip-hop dancer from Norway, won the first season of
So You Think You Can Dance Scandinavia. In 2017, hip hop duo
Les Twins won
the inaugural season of World of Dance. Hip hop dance crew The Lab won
the following year. Hip-hop dance has also been popular among viewers of the
Got Talent series. French hip-hop dancer
Salah won the first season of
Incroyable Talent in 2006. French b-boy Junior won the second season in 2007. In 2008, hip-hop dancer
George Sampson won ''
Britain's Got Talent, Danish popping and roboting duo Robot Boys won Talent 2008
(da), and hip-hop dance crew Quick won the Norwegian version of the show. After George Sampson, dance crew Diversity won the next season of Britain's Got Talent
in 2009. The same year, Brazilian crew D-Efeitos won Qual é o Seu Talento? (What's Your Talent?
). In 2010, Justice Crew won Australia's Got Talent. After signing a recording contract with Sony Music Australia, Justice Crew shot a video for their single "Dance with Me" featuring rapper Flo Rida and America's Best Dance Crew
alumni Beat Freaks. In 2015, nine years after he won Incroyable Talent
, hip-hop dancer Salah won the fourth season of Arabs Got Talent''.
Theater Though hip-hop dancing is established on film and on television, it has not gained the same level of exposure in theater. This may be due to the fact that the dance is performed more in film and in television than it is in a theatrical setting. B-boy and popper Stefan "
Mr. Wiggles" Clemente and hip-hop historian Jorge "Popmaster Fabel" Pabon were involved in hip-hop theater at its inception. Their dance company, GhettOriginal, produced the first hip-hop stage shows: 1991's
off Broadway musical
So! What Happens Now? and 1995's
Jam on the Groove. Both shows were performed by the Rock Steady Crew, Magnificent Force, and the Rhythm Technicians. Aside from the pioneers in New York City was
Rennie Harris' Puremovement hip-hop theater company. Harris founded Puremovement in 1992 in
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. In 2012, Harris and his company toured Egypt, Israel, and the Palestinian territories as part of Dance Motion USA, a program sponsored by the
US State Department to showcase American dance to other countries and promote cultural exchange. German b-boy pioneer Niels "Storm" Robitzky has his performance roots in hip-hop theater. In 1991, Robitzky—who went by the name "Swipe"—left Germany with his crew Battle Squad for New York City to look for b-boy legends they could study under. When he got to New York, he met b-boy Gabriel "Kwikstep" Dionisio who personally mentored him and introduced him to New York techniques. It was Dionisio who gave Robitzky a new name, "Storm". Dancers in the United Kingdom have had success in hip-hop theater. In 2006, hip-hop dance company Boy Blue Entertainment won a
Laurence Olivier Award for their show
Pied Piper. In 2008,
Into the Hoods became the first hip-hop theater show to perform in London's
West End. It eventually went on to become the West End's longest running dance show ever.
Online content YAK Films is a three-man team that films urban dance around the world. It was founded in Oakland, California by Yoram Savion and Kash Gaines. Their first videos were of the Turf Feinz dance crew performing
turfing—a regional hip-hop dance style from Oakland. After generating significant views on YouTube, they started YAK (Yoram And Kash) Films and added music producer Ben "B'zwax" Tarquin to the team. and the
Huffington Post. Juba Films was founded in Germany by
Julien Bam and Gong Bao. Rather than film freestyle content, Juba ("Ju"lien and "Ba"o) produces short films with a storyline. For their short b-boy film "More Than Bread", they won first place at the 7th International Online Dance Festival in 2011. Both Juba Films and YAK Films appeared at
The Notorious IBE's New Dance Media Conference discussing the relationship between street dance and
visual arts. Although Juba Films has won an award and YAK Films has booked high-profile events, they are not the only film production teams distributing hip-hop dance videos on the Internet. House of Crews, Strife TV, Pacific Rim Video Press, ProDance TV, Battle Fest Extreme, Urban Dance Show, Ocke Films, World of Dance Network, and Canal Street TV also produce hundreds of high-quality hip-hop dance content.
The Legion of Extraordinary Dancers (
The LXD) was a good-versus-evil themed
web series created by
Jon M. Chu about a group of dancers who discover they have super powers through their dance moves. Each character specializes in one dance style. Consequently, a wide range of styles are displayed including krumping, tutting, breaking, locking,
boogaloo, and popping. The majority of the dancing shown in the series is hip-hop; however, other styles were also performed including jazz, tap, and ballet. AdvertisingAge.com gave the series a favorable review stating "...each episode of 'LXD' packs a wealth of narrative sophistication into its eight or nine minutes. Combine this with the theater-worthy production values and a cast that exerts itself to an ungodly extent, and the end result is – pun time! – extraordinary." ==International competitions==