The Middlebury Campus

Issue date: 2/28/07 Section: Arts

Media Credit: Lizzy Zevallos Last Sunday, Middlebury students were treated to a workshop given by Brian Green, a specialist of Hip-hop and house dance. [Click to enlarge]

Most students slept in late after hours of ceaseless torso twisting at the Winter Carnival Ball. Others woke up to find themselves face to face with a different form of rigorous club dancing - the juxtaposition must have been quite striking.

The Hip-hop & House workshop, hosted by the RIDDIM World Dance Troupe and co-sponsored by the Inter-Commons Countil and the Dance Department, attracted an array of students. Some were clad in tights, others in baggies, but very few knew exactly what was in store for them. As workshop participants Kate Leyland '07 and Christina Winkler '07 said, "We heard there was a hip-hop workshop, and we came." Nevertheless, "hip-hop" is exactly the misnomer that instructor Brian "Footwork" Green set out to dismiss, together with the other popular, commercialized images associated with the dance form.

The affable New York-based artist is experienced in both the commercial dance business and the street style. As he demonstrated the two styles, knowing grins spread across the studio. The difference was easy to spot: the street style is less ostentatious, less outpouring, but a lot more vigorous and fulfilling.

As the story goes, visceral awareness does not only belong to such sacrosanct arts as yoga and contact improvisation - this funky dance form has its share of anatomical prerequisites. The students learned this the hard way as they struggled to rotate the trapezium muscle and to locate their "inner stomach."

This was, however, only the beginning of the challenge. Students gasped as Green performed a snippet of "popping" - the robot-like movements that did not seem quite humanly doable, and in no way resembled a "hip-hop" dance. The first step to producing the popping effect was to tense and relax the arm muscles, which proved to be a physical conundrum to most. Green stressed to the bewildered students that diligent practice is the key, as the students jerked and twitched in the attempt to "pop it."

Continued...

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