Body Poetics of Hip Hop Dance Styles in Copenhagen (Engel)

Body Poetics of Hip Hop Dance Styles in Copenhagen
Author(s): Lis Engel

Source: Dance Chronicle, Vol. 24, No. 3 (2001), pp. 351-372
Published by: Taylor & Francis, Ltd.
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DANCE CHRONICLE, 24(3), pp. 351-372 (2001)
BODY POETICS OF HIP HOP DANCE

STYLES IN COPENHAGEN
Lis Engel
In his pioneering article, "Body Techniques," Marcel Mauss (1) pointed to the
relationship among body technique, function, and culture, emphasizing that "ev-
ery body movement has its own form and style. The different ways of moving,
the body techniques, vary not just between individuals but even more between
societies, educations, proprieties and fashions and that different ways of moving
mirror cultural ways of thinking." Classical and modem phenomenology also
underline this relationship among movement, consciousness, and event (2-5). In
phenomenology this condition of the interrelatedness and interdependency of
body-mind-event is expressed as the situatedness and the incorporatedness of
human existence. Individual, situational, and cultural differences are expressed
through movement styles mirrored through body dynamics in everyday move-
ments, in sport, and in dance; the ways we move and use our bodies influence
the ways we experience and understand the world. According to the Danish phi-
losopher Ole Fogh Kirkeby, the body is constantly giving form, that is, expressing
the way the body-mind is connecting to the event. Our perceptual and experiential
"styles" give us an important link to our ways of relating to the world. The new
cognitive science has the embodiment of mind as the key to a new understanding
of what it means to be a human being (6). Because our conceptual systems grow
out of our bodies, meaning is grounded in and through our bodies. Our ways of
experiencing are embodied in our body-mind "attunement," which is at the same
time the key to individual and cultural ways of perceiving and experiencing life.
The movement styles incorporated in our body-selves can be seen as a guide to
different collective and individual ways of experiencing and expressing life (7-
9). The consequence of this is that all body-techniques, whether everyday body
movements, sports, or different dance techniques and styles, are manifestations
of symbolic life forms and important dynamic metaphors for our way of experi-
351
? 2001 by Lis Engel

Published by Marcel Dekker, Inc. www.dekker.com
352 ENGEL
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BODY POETICS OF HIP HOP DANCE STYLES IN COPENHAGEN 353
cluded participating in dance training sessions, watching ma

and attending teaching sessions both actively and as an obse
My work is based on theories from classical and modern
while the experience analyses are based on theories from the
culture analysis of Alfred Lorenzer (15) and the figurational s
Elias (16), theories that I have adapted to the subject of mov
analysis. My experiences have been written in what I call "s
(17-18) as a way of creating a multidimensional text of the ev
terns and figurations that are experienced as sensory registratio
ences. The specific possibilities of this method, anchored in
balance among open awareness, the sensing, the doing, and r
method that intends to balance practice and theory. The figur
dynamics produce symbolic forms that can be interpreted as b
bodily sensitivity, mirroring ways of expressing the dynamic
body-mind-event. The figurations are the sensory processes t
felt with the experience of body, movement, time, and spa
patterns of interaction. The sensory figurations of body-mind
collective symbols of the life situation of human beings that
tive and a collective function. My scenic descriptions are supp
individual and group interviews, inspired by the ethnographi
(19), and all the interviews have been taped and transcribed f
article. I am using the interviews primarily as background m
and add different perspectives to the field work and the scen
Music, art, and dance are the elements of hip hop culture
focus only on the dance styles. According to the Danish hip
dance styles began in New York.* Danish boys know break da
and from what are called B-movies, especially Flashdance
Breakin'.t One of the most important places for the beginn
hip hop story is the Youth Club Thomas P. Hejle in the cent
Kenneth of Out of Control tells a story from the mid-1980
friends met each Friday night at Norre Port Station in cent
dance, and Thomas P. Hejle was the only hip hop discotheque
* My sources for the history of Danish hip hop dance are my intervi
from 1995 to 1997 with especially Kenneth and Sten of Out of Cont
Funk.
t B-movies mean break dance movies. Of the important early on

is known for the break dance scene with Rock Steady Crew, while B
first West Coast film of the hip hop culture. Here the styles are
electric boogie and also break dance. Beat Street (1984) is an East
style is primarily break dance with uprock, footwork, and power m
354 ENGEL
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Figure 1. Sten (in the air), Henrik (right), Ken

Out of Control. Photograph from the author's co
neth, who was then fifteen years old and living in Rodovre, a Co
went to school during the day, as did all his friends, but in the
just one thing: dancing break dance. "When you came there yo
to show what you had learned during the week, to show that
much better." Two years earlier there had been no hip hop di
Youth Club and not many in Denmark knew the term hip hop
came each Friday night to dance break dance. "You got into an
Friday-night discotheque and then you would flip out a little m
feeling."
Kenneth and Sten Koerner, the artistic director of Out of Control, explain
that the styles of hip hop dancing reflect a lot of different influences. The four
main dance styles-breaking, electric boogie, locking, and plain hip hop dance,
also called MTV dance or funk-use a fusion of dance styles and body techniques
from many cultures. There are inspirations from traditional African dance, show
dance, tap dance, the Brazilian martial arts known as capoeira, and just freestyle
agility. It is a dance form that was first danced by males only, but both Sten and
Kenneth emphasize that it can be danced equally well by male and female dancers
and that there are now more female dancers, even in break dance. They also
stress that the most important characteristic of hip hop culture is creativity. It is
not regarded as strong just to imitate a move. It is all right to learn a new move
by imitation, but then you must take the move and change it so that it is something
special that you have influenced. All the dance styles evolved with this spirit.
The inspiration for these dance styles spread quickly from videos circulating in
the youth culture throughout Europe, including Denmark.
SCENIC DESCRIPTION I
September 1995. 9:00 p.m., before the show, a Youth Event at

warehouse in Osterbro in Copenhagen. It is dark, cold, and windy
groups have already gathered in front of the warehouse. Two me
hip hop dance group Out of Control whom I already know, Peder,
and Henrik, one of the dancers, tell me that they will not be perf
one o'clock in the morning, but it does not seem to mean anythi
them. They are preoccupied with what is to happen. "This is a hu
lots of exciting things on the program: Master Fatman, Stand Up,
ion show, and hip hop dance." They gesture animatedly while the
everything. "It's really cool. A fantastic band. A whole lot of well-
are coming. And there is a fashion show too."
As the audience begins to arrive, the place swiftly becomes cr
ple stand in small groups, staring over their large plastic cups of b
thin smoke spirals from cigarettes. The space is large and open, wit
356 ENGEL
and loudsp
and everyt
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the hand a
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unmoving,
An orches
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music. The
cup of beer
are dressed
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and direct,
and dynam
female sin
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The other
a loose top.
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of the feet
possibility
signaling w
chained to
Members
presentatio
very short
from an or
* Master Fa
Age philosop
jackets in pinstripes and very white shirts with huge collars and
points. There are also many black leather jackets and jeans. Unco
styles and conspicuous hair color are presented, Bordeaux-red
alternating with coal-black and platinum blond. Hairstyles can
cut, preferably in geometrical lines, and some people are comple
garde curlers in green and blue in short hair make some heads
of comic-strip robots, underlining the brilliantly colored techn
also a few young men with soft curls and longish hair and some
loose hair. The girls are wearing very heavy makeup, preferably
such as pink eye shadow framed by thick black, blue, or violet l
lips are thickly outlined with shiny, dark-red or blue-violet lips
The light show is filled with sweeping spotlights and two larg
with changing slides, so that the movement of the lights and t
music bombard the senses, very dramatic and nearly hypnotic.
pening on the stage can be followed on giant television screens
emphasizes the feeling of being a spectator. Although the large h
the rhythmic music, the exciting light show, and the huge crow
three small tentative attempts to dance during the whole night.
cool, laid-back, the ever present cigarette accentuating the bodil
are "cool." One man swings raptly to the music and looks as if
into a trancelike state. Only two couples make movements tha
beginning of bodily surrendering to the rhythm. A girl in a sh
pattern" skirt and bare midriff, with Bordeaux-red hair and eyes w
eye-liner, dances with a boy in pinstriped dandy clothing. The
back and forth to the music, each holding a cigarette. Another
leaning back a little from each other, while they hold cigarettes
them. Everybody else is standing, chatting, and looking around
there are no signs of physical contact: no people touching each ot
making intense eye contact. All eyes are directed outward in a co
search. The surface looks controlled, observing, and conspicuous
are there to see and to be seen, while the sound level is so high t
or nearly impossible to have a conversation. The music continues
to rhythmic exertion, but even so, almost no one seems to brea
style that characterizes the bodies in the space.
Master Fatman enthusiastically announces the coming fashi
the new era. The fashion show offers more artificial hair and w
than the styles the audience is wearing. The models look like pl
in a science-fiction film, in neon colors of apple green, cherry
shiny patent black, and shiny plastic white. The material look
of oilcloth. The cut of the clothing is somewhere between r
Louis XV, science fiction, and comic-strips. The most characte
that everything is very clinging, with bare midriffs, bare armhol
358 ENGEL
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Figure 2. A model
collection.
completely bare to the waist, with only body paint. Most of the outfits look impos-
sible to sit down in, or for that matter to move in-never mind dance in. The
shoes are a form of sculpture, stiff, with very high heels or platform soles, almost
like plinths that lift the wearer up on a pedestal, all together helping to give an
impression of "loftiness," a literal remoteness from the masses, figures raised
above the normal floor level and, above all, crowned by expressionless masklike
faces with empty, faraway eyes. Dead figures in a wax cabinet. The stilted, pomp-
ous, forward-moving style, suggesting pictures from the old French court and
courtly manners, is underlined by the women's elaborate hairstyles and exagger-
ated headdresses, which can make them look taller or function as a sort of half-
mask for the face. The perfect plastic person, purged of movements, feelings,
wrinkles, and expressions of life. The ideal person as a flawless wax sculpture,
with no expression of a possible longing of the feet or the body to be able to
move fluently and freely, laugh, cry, move, and be moved.
The models step extremely sedately in a laid-back way down the catwalk
to rhythmic techno music. They turn around and stand for a while, stare distantly
out in space, and then disappear. Only one model breaks the pattern. She is diffi-
cult to judge, as she seems like an exaggerated transvestite in a drag show. Wear-
ing a red "femme fatale" outfit, she strides forward, as if she were being trans-
ported on wheels, and then stops suddenly, dramatically looking

audience. She pauses-and it feels as if the whole room holds
attention of the audience is intensified, and when she breaks out
with a distinctive deep sensual voice, with a timbre in between m
they respond with spontaneous clapping. Afterwards, she disapp
and silently behind a curtain. Finally the stage is cleared and th
begin, the dance show with the hip hop group Out of Control.
Sten, dressed in big gray trousers and a loose gray shirt, beg
in perfect rhythmic control. Every part of his body moves in a so
in a continuous stream of stop and flow. He is moving in the el
style, an isolation technique that is expressed, robotlike, as little m
through the spine and through the arms and the legs, but also flu
running through the body and limbs in surprising patterns. Th
performance by a young male dancer and rap artist with dark cur
He expresses the rhythm through his voice and through the lyri
human beat box, but also through his body with percussive, rh
steps. Then comes a duet at a frantic speed with an indescribabl
energy from Sten and Henrik. They are dancing in the locking sty
ments that are strong, sharp, and very directional, suggesting a f
art technique. Kenneth break dances acrobatically, finishing his s
longed head-spin. The way they present themselves is simple, d
gray working clothes and small caps, and on their backs in big le
Dr. Psycho. The whole session is ended by Sten, with a soft, delic
mically sharp "moon walking," backward sliding steps that look
walking forward on the spot. The overall impression from their d
energy, aliveness, spontaneity, joy, and virtuosity.
SCENIC DESCRIPTION II
March 1995. The hip hop conference in Valby, a suburb of Copenh

nounced to begin at 5:00 p.m. The show finally begins at 7:30 p.m
Danish rappers, announcing themselves as Upskiboo. They enter t
energy and a powerful but stereotyped male body language. They
long steps from side to side downstage, holding their bodies a bit f
beat the rhythm aggressively with the whole body. The back doe
they hit forward and back in the rhythm. The arms are thrown up
a parallel gesture like that of a winning sportsman. The sound level
with the bass so strong that you literally feel the body being hit w
Many lights are moving in a rhythmic, percussive way. The two
striding continuously from side to side, rapping their English text
then calling, "Say adoo" and "Wave the hand." Everybody accepts
360 ENGEL
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Figure 3. Sten and Henrik showing "frantic tempo." Photograph fr

lection.
tion. There is also a lot of smoke, giving the scene a myst

shining, floating clouds. The warm-up of the masses continu
invitations: "Say ho." "Ho" echoes the group. "Say ho, ho
ho," the echo responds enthusiastically. "I want to see somebo
on." The light is waving up and down, increasing the feeling
body is now jumping up and down in rhythm with the arm m
two rappers. The movements are square, stereotyped, steps f
with sharp changes of direction now and then and a powerful a
punch up in the air. It is a powerful ritual, the hypnotic moveme
The arm movements are simple, insisting, direct, inviting. Th
enthusiasm and punch the rhythm. It is a hypnotic raising of th
A short break follows and somebody asks the audience to
and stop making graffiti, which have already been found on
halls, and on the floors. About 9:00 p.m. more young women
Many of them are dressed in black hotpants with white Adid
nylon stockings, and black Adidas sports shoes with the char
stripes. They stand with legs wide apart and turn around sha
women wear the traditional hip hop outfit: oversize trousers,
and caps mirroring a unisex ideal.
The expectancy of the Danish audience is great because the

can hip hop group Grandmaster Flash is the star performer of t
Mel & The Furious Five open the show by saying that they str
and that the source of hip hop always starts in the spirit of ce
master Flash is dressed in blue oversize hip hop trousers and a li
jacket, brown military boots, and a light green rucksack. He look
clean. Melle Mel is a black fellow in sports dress, with a black sc
his head and his horsetail decorated with a golden ribbon woven
in an original and feminine way, but looking very strong and
He says, "I started as a break dancer, but now I am only doing
hurt myself. You should think about your life, what you want t
is passing fast. Three days ago I was your age. My best advice
away from people that do bad things. Be a leader, not a followe
style."
The show was announced as a hip hop conference, and the theme of the
conference was nonviolence, with Danish and American artists using rap and
talk as a way of telling the youth to work against accelerating violence. The
conference was not very well organized, and there were quite a few small breaks
with no explanations of what is going to happen. During these breaks people sit
on the floor or stand in small groups. Now and then someone arrives, doing the
ritual hip hop greeting of clapping the palms hard against each other with a smile
or taking small dance steps or jumping up and down while rap music is playing
in the background. Most are smoking cigarettes and drinking beer or cola from
enormous plastic mugs. And during the evening you can observe growing piles
of cigarette butts and crushed plastic mugs on the floor. Ironically, the words
from the music in the background sound are "I've got to be me." The piles of
plastic mugs and cigarette butts keep on growing, and there are a few graffiti
painted on the floor. Rap music is still playing in the background. More young
women are arriving, dressed in very tight dresses, miniskirts, or hotpants, and
high-heeled boots or the very big flat boots. Their hair is either very short or
very long and blond or in artificial Afro braids.
Then Melle Mel & The Furious Five reenter with lots of energy and power.
They walk directly downstage and begin leading the audience with movements
and words. They create a common, rapping rhythm that everybody repeats. The
lights are becoming more intense; spots of red, blue, and white are crossing the
space. The rhythm of lights, movements, sounds, and words intensifies. The rap-
pers make the audience jump up and down with arms lifted up over the heads.
Everybody seems to become more and more ecstatic. The sound is very loud,
having long ago passed the limit of normal sensing and any normal registration
of pain. The audience seems to enter a common group ecstasy of rhythm. And
it continues. I want to take a small break and go outside, but the guards are not
allowing anyone to pass Security and then enter again, but I am allowed to walk
362 ENGEL
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hall with t
and you ca
until it los
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"Ho, ho, ho
mically and
SCENIC DESCRIPTION III
Late summer 1996. I have a meeting with the New Funk hip h
at Scala, a big fitness center in central Copenhagen. The recepti
go to the smallest room on the top, a small dance space just u
enter and find Mark and Soren already active. Mark, a boy of
leader of the group. He introduces me to Soren, a sixteen-year-
rehearsing a kip-up move. It is a typical modem dance space, t
with mirrors and windows and the roof looking directly up int
violet sky, giving a very special, beautiful light to the room. It
can hear the sound of the rain beating on the roof. Rap music i
with a strong, percussive rhythm. Three girls arrive, Pernille,
chala, all in their early twenties. The group begins rehearsing t
for a dance show they are giving at a discotheque the next night.
fill the room with energy and joy. They are all technically and rh
very good indeed. They move fast and dynamically. The style
casual, nonchalant, surprising, stubborn, fresh, and daring. The
the eye and head movements are very sharp. They drive down i
come quickly up again like spiral springs. They do a lot of rhyt
with this eternal, elastic, up-and-down rhythm. Their dance s
hip hop style. The continuous flow of the rhythm is broken
called "locking" movements, very sharp, strong kicks and pun
contrasts. After twenty minutes the dancers, totally soaked with
ing heavily. It is obvious that the dance is demanding. But their
and they are smiling. The continuous jumping up and down se
euphoric effect on them. They are ready again. The rhythm co
QUALITATIVE MOVEMENT CHARACTERISTICS

OF HIP HOP DANCE
Because, according to Sten, hip hop dance is evolving all the time
want to define it in any static way, but he says that you can identi
styles of hip hop dance: break dance, electric boogie, locking,

There are several variations of these principal styles, for exampl
is a specific variation of electric boogie where the quality of i
lighted by small, very precise, isolated muscular explosions lik
ping. This gives the impression of an animated cartoon-strip m
botlike computer movement.
In the scenic descriptions I focused mainly on the styles of
locking, and MTV dance, and only secondarily on break dance.
dance styles have a conscious differentiation of all the classica
ments of form, time, weight, space, and flow. The performance b
was an illustration of an unusually differentiated movement v
group had danced since the beginning of the 1980s and were str
different styles of hip hop dance. New Funk, a talented but rat
group, does not have the same varied articulation in their tec
variation in dynamics is strong and very clear. There are some
ties that both the very experienced and the younger hip hop
pressed as particularly important in the hip hop culture. For ex
must look raw and not be too neat. It has to be very controlled
time look spontaneous. There is also conscious use of the whol
from hard to soft, direct to flexible, separated to fluid, while
range of the use of energy.
The subtlest such range is expressed through Sten's electric
moves from the lightest, most flexible to a totally firm and
quality. In electric boogie, the movements of the feet are expres
and a feeling of keeping the feet floating just a few inches over
totally sharp in rhythmic articulation. The same is true for the
main tempo is medium, ordinary walking time, but this can als
the maximum in both directions, from a very sensual slow-moti
feeling of eternal movement with no beginning and no end, to the
repetition of the pulse, to a very, very fast nearly frantic tempo.
a very sophisticated rhythmic phrasing, with a bodily felt sense
The steps alternate between being on the beat and accentuatin
is common in jazz and funk music. This rhythmic phrasing is ve
helps to make the movement "swing." The precision in lines a
simultaneously contains an unusual control and a total release
inevitability in the expression.
Another important general quality is characterized by a w
movement in the articulation of the spine. Sometimes the spine
robotlike, mechanical separations down the vertebrae, sometim
ganic wave running smoothly through the whole spine and th
with a clear definition of the rhythmic pulse. This range is used
but it achieves its subtlest qualities in Sten's electric boogie.
364 ENGEL
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Figure 4. Sten and Henrik in a locking duo. Photo
There are few differences in the way they

Sten was usually the choreographic leader, wo
choreography and then introducing the steps to
also worked out their own things. They normal
each day, while sometimes individually worki
on their own. New Funk rehearses collectively
fying some questions of choreographic or aest
ideas. They look critically in the mirrors and
nine." "This is too tense." "We must bend more in the elbow." "It is more
tough." They use relaxed hands or quite often softly clenched fists.
The stylistic ideal for both dance groups is clearly to be very relaxed
casual, and at the same time to have a raw, direct, and strong energy, exp
a polarity between control and freedom, between the raw and the sensual, b
the masculine as direct and strong and the feminine as flexible and varied
also important to be very rhythmic, mostly with a marked, sharp rhythm
they stretch their limbs, they are very careful not to stretch each joint in
or stiff way, to keep the joint soft and "alive." Keeping the joints unblo
both functional and part of an aesthetic found in many modem movemen
niques, such as tai chi, Qi gong, children's free play, contact improvisati
leasing techniques, and dance meditation. Modem dance style

ness toward the degree of tension in the joints. A common
joints are breathing." This gives a softer "live" quality, but
a raw, less controlled style. You could say that it is a way of
to the free play of the child and to free-style movement, bu
very articulated and sophisticated movement style. The perfor
of a dynamic polarity between the different qualities, being fa
and flexible, elastic and sharp and articulated.
The use of space is mostly straight lines. The polarity be
straight lines is in many cultures interpreted as feminine o
dancers in both Out of Control and New Funk are neither
with square, strong, muscular bodies, nor ultra-feminines, wit
or affected lines. They are something quite different, wher
both for boys and girls far expands the traditional norms of f
linity. They express a wide range between control-spontan
softness.
However, both groups are focused on creating a good sho

to evaluate the visual quality of the movements. They also a
various uses of body contact. There are moments of physic
and then they reverse the traditional gender roles, sometim
in a strong and natural way, with both groups choreograph
a clear awareness of variety in solos, duets, and group danc
boys wear loose training trousers and big T-shirts over sle
The girls' hair is either very short, even shorter than the bo
ponytail. They wear no makeup and their body language in
much like the boys': all stand with feet wide apart, arms dangl
very concentrated on working with the dance; there is no fl
The key words of the hip hop dance offer an extended
all movement elements: force-time-space-flow, hard-subtle,
direct-flexible, separated-fluid, controlled-free. This gives a
of a movement style that is rhythmic, vigorous, mechanica
The range of force and power of the movement quality is ex
the range of speed is less extreme. The basic tempo is that o
with spots of lightning-fast and slow-motion sequences.
The space used is narrow, with the dancers moving mostl
Dance jams-the dance battles where the hip hop dancers pe
among each other-are always organized in a circle, but
enters the center of the circle his steps will primarily be
sharp angles, broken by turns and spinning on the spot. Thi
the direct and the flexible is even stronger in the movement
body and limbs. It can be observed in the unusual aliveness o
366 ENGEL
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.zx.ii i! ; ........... . ...... T :D ~ii i .
.. .. ..... liiil: 2?x- : ?::r:::
...?... .....;:" ,
.:i;]i :=";17]ii:iii!;I= iiiiiriii;!ii iii ,=i'i'i .,== : i?
iii.ir.iiiii:
Figure 5. "Floating feet" at a rehearsal. Photograph from the author's collection.
ing an interesting polarity between using the body mechanically with a com-
pletely locked spinal column and extreme separation in all joints and the opposite
quality of fluid organic waves through the back and even through the limbs.
Time is usually expressed through the pulse beat, but this is now and then
broken by slow-motion movements in a long breathing rhythm. What is most
important in the expression of the time element is the hypnotic repetition and
syncopation, the surprise of beating the space in between the beats, which is
familiar from the syncopated feeling in much modem rhythmic music. High-
lighting the space in between beats allows for a "swinging" multidimensional
feeling, a feeling of being active and passive at the same time, of giving and
receiving at the same time. This syncopated body feeling gives the hip hop danc-
ers a free and controlled body articulation throughout the spine and the limbs.
These extremes of energy and movement repertoires open the body to give and
receive, to move or stand still, at the same time to express not only strong will
and intention but also spontaneity and openness toward possibilities of change.
Although the hip hop milieu includes rap singers and audience, it is evident
that the movement qualities of the dancers are much more varied than the move-
ment qualities of the singers and the public. Members of the audience do not
necessarily belong to the hip hop culture, but reflect a style that above all empha-
sizes the modem attitude of evaluating the surface of the body and its lines and
forms, mirroring a modem Western body concept that puts all value into the
visual image and the surface, not without evaluating the kinesth
the inner movements of the body. This is accentuated by styles
movement that present the body as an image. The audience at Pak
Description I illustrated this in many ways, for example, the showin
of the body, with bare midriff and navel-in one way a signal a
and sensuality, but in another way contradicted by the stiff, contro
no movement is allowed to be expressed spontaneously. Everyon
ing, not necessarily concerned particularly with what is happenin
but preoccupied with their own group, passersby, and themselve
seems to be wholly preoccupied with how they look.
The bodily attitude of the two Danish rappers in Scenic Descri
sented to me a classical but also stereotypical male ideal of stro
macho leaders. Their bodily attitude and their way of moving are
than that of the hip hop dancers. Instead, they express themselves t
direct, compact hitting movements with very few nuances and n
raling movements, using the body in a strong but also rather ste
The young women at the hip hop conference in Valby are cle
by certain cliches from the hip hop milieu. They dress with great
tary boots and black nylon stockings expressing a sexy and raw im
ity, which mixes male and female symbols, and also a body attitud
that imitate the male aggressive attitude. They stand with their
keeping the same bodily attitude as the young men, a lazy, easy
expressed through the relaxed, nearly drooping shoulders and litt
the hips and the back.
It is possible to derive many different perspectives from thi
some important movement themes and styles in the Scenic Descr
a possible relationship between these dance styles and the attitu
emotions mirrored through them. The Scenic Descriptions thus c
as stories of mimetic gestures that can be understood as symboli
ideas and experiences of how it is possible to be a human being. T
point at conscious and unconscious social realities of the momen
Play, improvisation, and creativity. These make up a theme that
stands out. The essence of hip hop culture is creativity and play
and dynamics. This is expressed in various ways, among them th
values, and attitudes of the dancers. When dancing they play wit
between body parts, between the body and rhythm, between the
and between the body and the audience. The focus is on playing w
lation to create new ways of moving and new ways of relating to
to expand the repertoire of bodily vocabulary with still more n
especially obvious in the style of electric boogie, when the sophist
of the movement vocabulary is varied and often surprising. An
this style is mimicry, playing with gestures and movement qualit
368 ENGEL
mime dan
I think of
cating with
and sensua
Ecstatic r
is characte
and down.
a joyful at
presses a h
filled with
in hip hop
styles as s
The self,
is very im
conferenc
the declare
Everyone r
should be e
do things
before, as
the clear k
which you
visation an
ual creativ
and the da
tion II, bu
like a grou
dancers in
theme. It
situations.
of doing t
sional hip
little in yo
What I wa
out of the
Nobody sa
you will g
The synco
is celebrat
the beat, t
very simp
in a rhyth
between th
syncopation of accentuating the off-beat, moving in and out w

in between.
Balance; strong polarity between control and release. This quality of being
in control and yet very released is expressed in all the dance styles, whether
electric boogie, locking, MTV dance, or break dance. It is particularly important
in the balancing stunts found in break dancing: feelings of thrust and releasing,
of control, spinning, turning, of seeing things upside-down, and balancing on the
head are explored. There is a search for a release into off-balance, feelings of
weightlessness, of a multidirectional freedom of thrusting the body and releasing
control. A floating on the momentum of the body turning, spinning, leaning,
floating, going to the limit of what is possible. Many body movements appeal
to the curiosity of a child, experiencing the world from new viewpoints. I think
of this as the acrobat, but because of the unpretentious style with very relaxed
joints, it could also be a joyful, acrobatic clown, rolling and tumbling to surprise
everybody, himself included.
The symbolic battle and playful competition. Another very important theme
is the playful competition-the symbolic battles-the ritual competition between
groups of dancers or solo dancers surrounded by a circle of spectators. It can
happen anywhere, at parties or youth gatherings, when the young people who all
know something about the different styles of movement gather during the evening
in a circle. Then someone goes into the center of the circle to dance and the
atmosphere intensifies as mutual solo dance improvisations are created. This mu-
tual inspiration and competition among different solo improvisations, surrounded
by individuals who at any moment can go into the center and become the dancer,
heightens the atmosphere, which becomes very intense. Everyone gets into a kind
of collective rapture because of the uniqueness of the moment and the intensity
of being in the magic circle of exchange of energy and technical skill and fantasy.
This battling theme can be interpreted in any of the dance styles, such as the
locking style. The dance movements in this style appear inspired by martial arts,
with strong, powerful arm and leg movements coming from a very centered and
balanced body. David Toop writes in Rap Attack 2 that competition helped to
displace violence and the refuge of destructive drugs, while it also fostered an
attitude of creating from limited materials (20).
Relaxed attunement: power of being present, the Unio Mystica. I use the
term "attunement'" in the meaning of both a physically balanced attitude and a
psychological and spiritual ability to be present and aware, ready to follow the
flow of the moment. Danish hip hop dancers seem in some ways to have a natural
meditative quality in their ways of relating to the moment (21). This is shown
in all the dance styles expressing the aesthetic ideal of being articulated yet raw
and spontaneous, naturally loose and ready for improvising, expressing an alert
energy, being ready for change yet not forcing the moment with the will regard-
less of the energies coming from the outside, but listening and then creatively
responding to the moment by being present, open to movement and to improvis-
370 ENGEL
ing in a pe
of being p
is also exp
changes. T
matter ho
show. They
with no vis
"go with t
on the con
admiration
attuned, an
into mome
teaching si
together a
To be seen
mired beca
way (22). B
few try to
in the diff
appropriat
tween the
doing thei
aware of t
sponding l
be seen" an
group ene
dancers in
that gains
not seem u
cultures an
Masculinit
very stron
look throu
polarity be
society wit
and femini
legs wide
directly th
were much
boots and
two differ
tary boots
line and fe
the styles of MTV dance and electric boogie, locking, and break d
gling strong "masculine" moves and softer "feminine" ones. In th
hop dance culture men and women are regarded as expressive dyn
to be good, you have to have all the qualities, the soft and the hard
and the flexible. But all the hip hop dance styles avoid being pret
valued is a "raw" and wild style, like an energetic child playing ar
and yet with ultimate control and a sophisticated articulation off
range between masculine and feminine. The softer qualities includ
to relax and to move in fluid, undulating, and continuous slow-mot
All these themes are common for the hip hop dance milieu in
both for the established professional dance groups and for the you
that I have been in contact with. They themselves stress that hip h
creative culture and a multicultural phenomenon. Danish hip hop d
as I have discovered, is in many ways nearly idyllic, focusing on
being part of a creative and global youth culture. Both the movem
the clothing styles are influenced by the American multicultural ba
hop culture combines African, Oriental, and Western styles in a
between control and spontaneity, ecstatic repetition and creative im
and collective style and individual creativity. The aesthetic and exis
of the Danish hip hop dance milieu is playful control leaning on th
vocabulary of the spontaneous child, but evolved into a creative and
em dance form that incorporates the experiences and rhythms of th
the realities of a global youth culture. At its best, hip hop culture c
a modem poetry of the body, at the same time a symbolic expressio
the creation of new ways of moving and perhaps even new ways
its heart the dance styles are related to the self, to attitudes, and to
while the individual and collective consciousness are created an
through the body and the way the body relates to its surroundings
NOTES
1. Mauss, Marcel. Body Techniques. Economy and Society 1973,

2. Merleau-Ponty, Maurice. Phenomenologie de la perception; G
Paris, 1945.
3. Kirkeby, Ole Fogh. Event and Body-Mind: An Outline of a Post-P
ern Approach to Phenomenology. Cybernetics & Human Knowin
4 (3), 1-33.
4. Sheets-Johnstone, Maxine. Consciousness: A Natural History. Journal of
Consciousness Studies 1998, 5 (3), 260-294.
5. Sheets-Johnstone, Maxine. The Primacy of Movement: Advances in Con-
sciousness Research; John Benjamins Publishing Co.: Amsterdam, 1999.
6. Lakoff, George; Johnson, Mark. Philosophy in the Flesh: The Embodied
372 ENGEL
Mind and
1999; 551-568.
7. Bateson, Gregory. Steps to an Ecology ofMind: Collected Essays in Anthro-
pology, Psychiatry, Evolution, and Epistemology, new Ed.; University of
Chicago Press: Chicago, 2000; 128-147.
8. Crossley, Nick. Merleau-Ponty, the Elusive Body and Carnal Sociology.
Body and Society 1995, 1 (1) 43-63.
9. Engel, Lis. Krop, Energi og bevidsthed (Body Dynamics, Consciousness
and Experience); DHL/Systime: Copenhagen, 1993.
10. Sheets-Johnstone, Maxine. Emotion and Movement: A Beginning Empiri-
cal-Phenomenological Research on Their Relationship. Journal of Con-
sciousness Studies 1999, 6 (11-12), 259-277.
11. Langer, Susanne K. Feeling and Form; Scribner's: New York, 1953; 27.
12. Filmer, Paul. Embodiment and Civility in Early Modernity: Aspects of Re-
lations Between Dance, the Body and Sociocultural Change. Body and So-
ciety 1999, 5 (1), 1-16.
13. Franklin, Sarah. Postmodern Body Techniques: Some Anthropological
Considerations on Natural and Postnatural Bodies. Journal of Sport and
Exercise Psychology 1996, 18, 96-106.
14. Wilber, Ken. Waves, Streams, States and Self: Further Considerations for
an Integrated Theory of Consciousness. Journal of Consciousness Studies
2000, 7 (11-12), 150.
15. Lorenzer, Alfred. Intimitiit und soziales Leid: Archiiologie der Psychoana-
lyse, new ed.; Fischer Wissenschaft: Frankfurt am Main, 1993; 199-215.
16. Elias, Norbert. Uber den Prozess der Zivilisation: Soziogenetische und psy-
chogenetische Untersuchungen; Suhrkamp: Frankfurt am Main, 1976; Band
1-2.
17. Lorenzer, Alfred. Kultur-analysen; Fischer Taschenbuch: Frankfurt am

Main, 1986; 11-84.
18. Belgrad, Jiirgen, et al. Alfred Lorenzer und die Idee einer psychoana-
lytischen Sozialforschung: Dimensionen szenischen Verstehens; Fischer
Taschenbuch: Frankfurt am Main, 1987.
19. Spradley, James P. The Ethnographic Interview; Harcourt Brace Jovanov-
ich College Publishers: Orlando, FL, 1979.
20. Toop, David. Rap Attack 2: African Rap to Global Hip Hop, 2nd Ed.; Pluto
Press: London, 1994.
21. See Deikman, Arthur J. A Functional Approach to Mysticism. Journal of
Consciousness Studies 2000, 7 (11-12), 75-91.
22. Whitehead, Charles. Social Mirrors and Shared Experiential Worlds. Jour-
nal of Consciousness Studies 2001, 8 (4), 3-36.

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Body Poetics of Hip Hop Dance Styles in Copenhagen

Author(s): Lis Engel

BODY POETICS OF HIP HOP DANCE

? 2001 by Lis Engel

cluded participating in dance training sessions, watching ma

t B-movies mean break dance movies. Of the important early on

Figure 1. Sten (in the air), Henrik (right), Ken

September 1995. 9:00 p.m., before the show, a Youth Event at

ported on wheels, and then stops suddenly, dramatically looking

March 1995. The hip hop conference in Valby, a suburb of Copenh

i:.: :;z iiii~i

Figure 3. Sten and Henrik showing "frantic tempo." Photograph fr

tion. There is also a lot of smoke, giving the scene a myst

The expectancy of the Danish audience is great because the

SCENIC DESCRIPTION III

QUALITATIVE MOVEMENT CHARACTERISTICS

styles of hip hop dance: break dance, electric boogie, locking,

?~e~-- ? -li:ilh-?b;??::.??:.?? :?? ";;"';" ""'

:IBB~BPI;SI~. IBH~~:~*l '? ~~:i~dE

Figure 4. Sten and Henrik in a locking duo. Photo

There are few differences in the way they

leasing techniques, and dance meditation. Modem dance style

However, both groups are focused on creating a good sho

Figure 5. "Floating feet" at a rehearsal. Photograph from the author's collection.

syncopation of accentuating the off-beat, moving in and out w

1. Mauss, Marcel. Body Techniques. Economy and Society 1973,

17. Lorenzer, Alfred. Kultur-analysen; Fischer Taschenbuch: Frankfurt am

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