The Problems of Hip Hop Dance and Popping Competitions: Music
The unaddressed problems of Popping Competitions: Music There are dance/popping competitions all over the world today.
The popularity of funk styles has come full circle and has become a well recognized form of dance every where.
There is still something that goes widely unaddressed in competitions and I'll discuss one of the profound ones here.
I first want to say, during my high point of dancing I did all things, hip hop, some ballet, funk styles in regards to waving, popping and freestyle.
So its important to know my background isn't particularly biased to any one style, culture or flavor, I am fairly neutral, also in what I like to watch as well.
This allows me to notice many flaws and unfairness within almost ALL popping competitions from the very small..
To the larger top events around the globe.
First off is the music, which usually gets overlooked as a fair or unfair aspect.
Many competitions play songs that have long been used time and time again, and some play songs that are maybe more common in general areas of the world but not in others, all in all knowing a song is half the battle.
Out of 2 contestants if 1 of them isn't up to speed on the particular song(s) used, while the other dancer is, if their skill levels are remotely equal it becomes an uphill battle for 1 of the dancers.
Further more in some places of the world slightly different music can be played as opposed to other parts of the world.
In my opinion this waters down the aspect of winner or loser since you see someone's true ability based off of them dancing to things they "don't" know.
When they dance free of any real knowledge of the song you can see their natural ability to use music.
( Judge Showcase - Take over in FL) Of course I don't propose promoters go out their way to have all brand new music but there are ways to bring more valid observation to the skill level of the dancers.
DJs can actually work..
Meaning, instead of playing music or tracks that don't belong to them they can create their own music for the battle areas of a popping competition, this would nearly eliminate the aspects of the dancers knowing all of the songs they are dancing too, with the DJ actually mixing and working during the battle this causes no song to play complete or play in a way that's known, dancers wouldn't be able to rely on knowing the complete song, again this wouldn't in any way remove dancers from knowing songs and having a general advantage but this would be a good step in that direction.
The music is such a vital part of the competition and it pains me to see 1 dancer know a song like the back of his/her hand and the other not really know the song at all regardless of the artist or genre of the song.
Sometimes there is an argument of "dancers should know their music" but at the same time you can't know everything especially when you speak in terms of the larger popping competitions that are held all over the world.
It's not a logical argument as we are culturally different.
I've seen competition finals done by funk bands etc and it was an awakening to see how the natural skill of 1 dancer over another was a lot more apparent when the dancers had to dance to music they don't dance to day in, day out, over and over and over too.
Which many people fail to remember, its easy to go into a competition and dance to songs you spend 70% of your time dancing to.
The popularity of funk styles has come full circle and has become a well recognized form of dance every where.
There is still something that goes widely unaddressed in competitions and I'll discuss one of the profound ones here.
I first want to say, during my high point of dancing I did all things, hip hop, some ballet, funk styles in regards to waving, popping and freestyle.
So its important to know my background isn't particularly biased to any one style, culture or flavor, I am fairly neutral, also in what I like to watch as well.
This allows me to notice many flaws and unfairness within almost ALL popping competitions from the very small..
To the larger top events around the globe.
First off is the music, which usually gets overlooked as a fair or unfair aspect.
Many competitions play songs that have long been used time and time again, and some play songs that are maybe more common in general areas of the world but not in others, all in all knowing a song is half the battle.
Out of 2 contestants if 1 of them isn't up to speed on the particular song(s) used, while the other dancer is, if their skill levels are remotely equal it becomes an uphill battle for 1 of the dancers.
Further more in some places of the world slightly different music can be played as opposed to other parts of the world.
In my opinion this waters down the aspect of winner or loser since you see someone's true ability based off of them dancing to things they "don't" know.
When they dance free of any real knowledge of the song you can see their natural ability to use music.
( Judge Showcase - Take over in FL) Of course I don't propose promoters go out their way to have all brand new music but there are ways to bring more valid observation to the skill level of the dancers.
DJs can actually work..
Meaning, instead of playing music or tracks that don't belong to them they can create their own music for the battle areas of a popping competition, this would nearly eliminate the aspects of the dancers knowing all of the songs they are dancing too, with the DJ actually mixing and working during the battle this causes no song to play complete or play in a way that's known, dancers wouldn't be able to rely on knowing the complete song, again this wouldn't in any way remove dancers from knowing songs and having a general advantage but this would be a good step in that direction.
The music is such a vital part of the competition and it pains me to see 1 dancer know a song like the back of his/her hand and the other not really know the song at all regardless of the artist or genre of the song.
Sometimes there is an argument of "dancers should know their music" but at the same time you can't know everything especially when you speak in terms of the larger popping competitions that are held all over the world.
It's not a logical argument as we are culturally different.
I've seen competition finals done by funk bands etc and it was an awakening to see how the natural skill of 1 dancer over another was a lot more apparent when the dancers had to dance to music they don't dance to day in, day out, over and over and over too.
Which many people fail to remember, its easy to go into a competition and dance to songs you spend 70% of your time dancing to.
Source...