By Kristin Boyd, Special Writer
Josefina Talma crosses her arms, tilts her head back and tosses a don’t-mess-with-me look at the three girls standing behind her.
”My style can’t be duplicated or recycled,” the 9-year-old says, mouthing the words to a Missy Elliot track. As the music drops, the girls giggle and begin practicing their hip-hop routine at the Dance Connection in Hillsborough.
”I want to be a hip-hop dancer when I grow up,” says Josefina, who, unlike those from the old school, learned about hip-hop from YouTube. “It has a lot of rhythm. It has a fast beat, and I like it.”
Hip-hop dancing has snaked its way between the streets, suburbs and stage ever since B-boys first contorted their bodies and spun like tops on slices of cardboard boxes in the South Bronx. A skillful, beat-driven art form to some and a playful mish-mash of MTV-inspired moves to others, it remains just as innovative and entertaining today as it was back in the day.
”It was so integrated in our lives,” says Mark Roxey, a former New York City street dancer who appeared in several ‘80s hip-hop movies, including “Beat Street,” “Wild Style” and “Krush Groove.”
”We did it every day, during lunchtime, during recess, during gym and after school. We’d roll up on another crew, and instead of fighting, we would dance,” he recalls..
Hip-hop dancing including breaking, popping, locking and now krumping has become part of the cultural landscape, largely because it’s an energetic, uninhibited form of expression with no rules or boundaries. It entered the mainstream in the early ‘80s with dance-based music videos and movies like “Flashdance.”
”Tens of thousands of people went to see that movie because of the 30-second breakdancing in it,” says Mr. Roxey, co-owner of Roxey Ballet in Lambertville, where he teaches breakdancing classes. “Now hip-hop dancing is global, and it’s everywhere. It has so much history. It really has evolved.”
Today, in addition to freestyle and street dancing, there are also “remixed” hip-hop classes, such as Little Hop for preschoolers at Dance Connection, hip-hop ballet at the Jill Justin Dance Alliance in Edison and Hot Mamas Hip Hop, an adult class comprised of housewives at the YWCA Princeton.
”Hip-hop has been a multicultural fusion of things. It weaved its way into the culture and now it’s a part of the American culture,” says Kim Leary, co-owner of the Drum and Dance Center in Bordentown, which offers hip-hop belly dancing. “It’s a very cool vibe. It’s funky, it’s fun.”
Kambi Gathesha, a New York City street dancer who studied at the Juilliard School and teaches hip-hop at Dance Connection, agrees. “It’s my favorite style of dance,” he says. “I love the movement and the freestyle aspect. It’s just visually exciting.”
During his class inside Studio B, Mr. Gathesha puts Josefina and the other girls into a triangle formation and turns on the kid-friendly hip-hop song “Chicken Noodle Soup.” Josefina grins. It’s one of her favorites, she says, and she looks like a mini J-Lo as she performs to it, twisting her body, “brushing” dirt off her shoulder and kicking her legs at turbo speed from side to side.
”(Hip-hop) is music that the kids know,” says David Kieffer, owner of Dance Connection. “They learn how to move in a way they wouldn’t learn how to move in ballet or tap classes, and they love it.”
