Street Dancing, Popping and Locking

Stronger dance Rdm16 by N.I.L crew Ben & Paul in Bognor

This is the latest video by the very talented hip hop dance instructor Paul Thompkins. It demonstrates further progress of his best student Ben. In this video, Paul and Ben are in the park of Bognor Regis on the south coast of West Sussex, popping and locking in a rather well choreographed series of dance routines, but with room for imagination and free style improvisation.

Paul begins the routine and Ben joins, pretending to be a robot. They appear to fight at times. One hi-light is at the 2 minutes 20 mark some clever comedy included where Ben pretends the robot he is acting out has broken down and Paul adjusts his imaginary control box to get him dancing again.

Latest video by Experienced Hip Hop Dance Instructor and Choreographer

It is great viewing, see for your self at the above link.

On Thursday 11th September I had an operation to address a frozen left shoulder. I had had immobility in that shoulder for 4 months since a fall. It seems to be successful although it is early days. I was fortunate enough to have a Norwich Union Insurance policy arranged by my work place, so was able to have the procedure performed privately at a Spire ( previously known as Bupa ) hospital. This hopefully has improved my chances of success and recovery. At the very least during my short stay it was luxurious to have a private room to myself with my own television and radio. It did not feel like staying in hospital.

Back to the core focus of this blog, in an earlier edition of this blog I mentioned I had learnt some of the foot work for hip hop urban style dancing. If/when my shoulder fully recovers I will be able to start learning the arm movements. If that is possible, hopefully I will be able participate in the hip hop competition my friend Paul and I have planned for the winter. The operation has meant I am signed off work so I can at least work on the websites, posters etc. to promote the dance competition.

On another note in order to get this blog more traffic I have joined technorati, here a link to it. Technorati Profile

On the 29th August, Mark my mobile disco business parter and dance instructor friend Paul and I threw a party for my birthday which had been on 14th August. The venue was Bognor Regis Railway club.

This gig was a reasonable success, 30 or 40 people turned up. Paul and I did some dancing towards the end of the party. My frozen shoulder did not affect my feet so I did some smurfing. Paul commented on the fact that the technique looked good but went off time occasionly.

Unfortunatley I did get any footage of our dancing as my digital camera' s rechargable batteries had become flat after testing the video facility earlier that night. We had some claps for our dancing and my West Sussex and Hampshire based mobile disco business may have gained some trade because despite the fact my business partner Mark and i had opted to use the clubs' s own apmplifier and speakers which sounded distorted we played a range of music which everyone seemed to like, as they were dancing much of the night.

Other updates on the hip hop promotion is a website under construction, which will cover a range of types of music.

Also Paul has now decided on a new name and theme for his hip hop dancing company, Dance Factory. We have already put a poster up at Bognor Regis train station. Here is the design for Paul' s poster which I created with Paintshop Pro:-

Paul has loads of new and interesting content about hip hop and break-dance now on his site. I have advised that he put a contact link on dance related pages so if someone wishes ot book him for dance lessons then they will be able to, without wading through the rest of his site. The promotion and network has already had some success, we have a possible new member of the promotion and dance team. In the winter time of this year Paul and I have plans for a dance competition, so we hope to have many new project members, then things will be really exciting.

I introduced myself in the last episode of this blog but I did not mention that I compose and mix music. Hip Hop is one of the many genres I produce, although I tend to like to add a twist of my own own style or other genres to it.

The track mentioned in this blog actually tells a story about a young afro-carribean woman who has left her x boy friends gang culture after she finds success with a well paid 9 to 5 job, new friends and a new life away from guns, drugs and violence.

The style of the track is hip hop with elements of house music. It took around 3 days to complete. The vocals came from music sample librarys which were permitted for use in music eirther for non-commercial or commerical publication. Some of the melody is also sample based but some I composed as original material using software synthesizers. The mp3 of the track in question can be streamed or downloaded from the following website . It is called "Leave The Gang Behind".

First let me introduce myself. I am a DJ and music producer who does a little dancing now and again. My project is to promote myself and a very talented dancer by the name of Paul. He is very versatile and dynamic at hip hop related popping and locking.

Paul has started to teach me the hip hop moves but I have recently injured my shoulder which has impaired my instruction. Although my injury has meant I am not practicing with Paul he has his son to practice with who is extremely talented at dancing for a twelve year old. During their dance routine they continuously pop to the rhythm of a song in combination with various movements and poses.

Popping is a funk and street dance style based on the technique of quickly contracting and relaxing muscles to cause a jerk in the dancer's body. In hip hop circles this is commonly referred to as a pop or a hit. Popping is also used as an umbrella term for a group of closely related illusionary dance styles and techniques that are often integrated with popping to create a more varied performance. The moves include locking and robotics. The origins of such dance routines date back to 1969, when a young afro-carribean man by the name of Don Campbell became known among street dancers in Los Angeles for inventing a dance called the Campbellock (he put out a record called ""Do the Campbellock""). Don Campbell took the hydraulic robotic movements, which were all about total control and mixed it with wild, out of control body movement dances of the tap-flash dance days plus exact stop and start movements and spiced it all with comic facial expressions and clown-like costumes to develop a whole new dance movement which is still going strong called "Locking" (Campbellocking to the hip hop veterans). Since then the original dance has evolved into many sub styles. One of them being robot dancing amongst others.

Paul and his son have a dance routine that comprises all the above styles blended well and expertly choreographed so that they flow smoothly into each other. Despite this it is evident which aspects of the dance routines Paul and his son favour. Paul is best when popping and locking and his son despite only having a few months practice already does an excellent Robot dance.

Their efforts can be read about or witnessed at the following urls:-

From their first efforts at:-
First Moves
To their most recent routines in June and August of this year (2008) at:-
Latest Dance Routine

I reccommend anyone wishing to learn the hip hop dance routine have a look.