Street Dance - Evolution

Evolution

Street dances are dances that evolve between people in a social environment, although it cannot be always determined as to how they actually do evolve between people. In theory, as one person comes up with a move that apparently looks good to another person, that other person tries to copy that move. Similar to chinese whispers, the effect is that the other person cannot absolutely perform that move the same way as the other person, thus leading to the dancer to create their own style or entirely new moves based on it. There is a small difference between entirely freestyle (improvisational) dance and an absolute street dance. While freestyle dance is random and a personal dance invented by a single person (even if it's based on someone else's dance style), a full street dance is a collection of the various similar dance moves and styles collected into one practice and regarded as the same dance. For example, when b-boying evolved out of early hip-hop culture, people came up with their own moves, and other people improved them. Street dances constantly evolve for as long as they are intermittently practiced and regarded as the same dance. All the moves danced to breaks in hip-hop culture was regarded as b-boying.

Sometimes it is possible to trace back street dance styles that were mostly pioneered by specific persons. One example is Locking, which is often regarded as being started by Don Campbell, who was a 1970s pioneer of American street dance. Most of the time it is impossible to credit specific people for street dances, since the dances evolve outside of professional dance environments, whereby there is no social and/or legal record. Street/vernacular dance pioneers also rarely have professional degrees in dance, thus distinguishing street dance from other modern dance forms.