Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Essay: Dance and the remix culture

by Bob Burt - Pure Funk Dance Adelaide
In an era when all media is being reduced to bits and bytes and individual expression is devalued in favour of the grouped online experience, what role does dance play in present online community and where is it posited for the future?

I've decided to start with a style dear to my heart and possibly yours.

Hip-Hop

Dance and Hip-Hop have always gone hand in hand.  Ask any hip-hop enthusiast about the role dance plays, and they will immediately tell you it's one of the four elements (graffiti, mc'ing, dj'ing, b-boying).

Hip-hop as a musical medium has moved beyond it's geographical and sonic boundaries.  For example, Kanye West is the most popular rapper out there these days, yet in recent years he's leaned towards more electronic influences, whilst also auto-tuning his voice.  Although I'm cherry-picking, it's one of a number of signs that Hip-Hop has moved on from the staple two turntables and a microphone of yesteryear.

As genre-hopping in Hip-Hop continues to flourish and be accepted in the broader musical landscape, it moves further away from it's old-school roots, and from Hip-Hop dance.

Without the support of mainstream Hip-Hop, does this mean it's the end of Hip-Hop in dance?  Hardly. 

Rather than being choked of life without its musical backdrop, Hip-Hop dance has taken on a life of it's own.  Traditional B-boys and B-Girls and their crews are finding more and more avenues to grow and show their talents and creativity.

Comps and Battles are held all around the world every year, and competition is fierce.  Innovation fights against traditional consistency as battlers take cultural and musical influences to create new styles and ways of interpreting the original moves.

Dance TV shows are coming and going, but there are always more to take their place, and the lowest-common-denominator of the big screen, the dance movie, is still selling tickets.  The worlds awareness of a genre that was once known only to those with a love of New York Hip-Hop has been amplified by web innovations like Youtube and the permutations now seem endless.  So where is it going from here?

Creation has always been a staple of the B-boy culture.  Just check how many variations there on traditional breakdance moves and you'll see a movement that has branched out into strongly identifiable subcultures all their own. 

Maybe we'll see a move toward different types of dance styles based on a rise in popularity of different musical genres.  Already we see a lot of crews dancing to the hard, syncopated urban soundscapes of dubstep and grime.  Then again, considering the speed at which genre's like these build upon themselves and mutate, maybe we wont.  Who knows?

Technological advances online may propel Hip-Hop dance further into the spotlight, with it's rapid movements and musical accompaniment seemingly tailor-made for the short attention span of the present-day internet user.  

People may spend increasing amounts of time on Facebook and other social networking activities, but the human community still values real life connections, and so it begs the question, will we humans prefer in the future to actually participate in Hip-Hop dance, or will be satisfied immersing ourselves in downloaded dance media?   




RedBull BCOne 2010 Trailer from action.by on Vimeo.


Poreotics at Fusion X from Cindy Torrey on Vimeo.

No comments: