90s Hip Hop

Old-School, Dynamic, & Literally the Freshest

Hip hop before it was even called hip hop was born as a party dance deeply connected to its music and its community, and we are here to honor the spirit of party, the beats that drive it, and the community that we create by sharing space together.

90s Hip Hop is a moderate-intensity dance class for dance enthusiasts and beginners alike — no dance experience required.

90s Hip Hop based in 1990s-style hip hop dance forms, primarily focusing on New Jack Swing (popularized by ensembles like the Fly Girls) and late-90s club-style hip hop dance.

Who is 90s Hip Hop Designed for?

90s Hip Hop is an adult-level class designed for ages 17 and up. Whether you are total hip hop-head, new to dance, looking for a fun fitness class, or just want to connect to a community of hip hop-lovers, this is your class!

Ages: 17 and up.

Experience Level: All. 90s Hip Hop supports a variety of dance backgrounds, from no experience to full-on hip-hop heads. The class is designed to familiarize you with the styles and technique of 90s hip hop movement while also giving you a robust cardio workout — and trust that 90s hip hop is definitely designed to keep you moving. Be prepared to work up a sweat!

Intensity Level: This class is "moderate intensity" — meaning that it is intended to challenge you while also building in stretching and recovery phases.

Modifications are provided in support of diverse bodies and fitness backgrounds.

Class Structure

Roughly the first half of each class is devoted to introducing and practicing movement fundamentals to keep our grounding in the the form fresh while also helping those who are new learn the foundational movements from which the style's moves are built. We open with a warm-up and stretches before moving into learning specific moves, like for example the Roger Rabbit, the Running Man, or the Aunt Viv, and the technique needed to execute them with confidence and style.

This work prepares us for the end-of-class choreography, where we build on the main movement themes from the beginning of class by creating and practicing a short series of movement sequence. The remainder of the class is devoted to practicing the choreography. Over the course of each multi-week session, we continue to build on the choreography each class, giving us a chance to continue to practice new moves and concepts until we become familiar with the mechanics and sequencing.

The final week of each session is reserved for refining and performing (for ourselves, that is) the choreography. At this point no new movement is added so that the class gets a chance to end the session enjoying the dance and feeling the progress of their investment in the work over the prior weeks.

Class Length, Location, & Session Calendar

This class meets once weekly for one hour and ten minutes on Sundays from 12:30 p.m. to 1:40 p.m. in the dance studio on the second floor of the Robert Crown Community Center in Evanston.

Attire

Clothing should be comfortable, non-obstructive, and support dynamic movement in all spatial planes.

Shoes

Footwear requirement: clean-soled sneakers.

I highly recommend low-tread, low-friction shoes for hip hop dance to facilitate rotational motion and reduce resistance with the floor.

My Qualifications & Experience

I am a hip hop lover and scholar of hip hop in addition to being a trained dancer with years of professional hip hop dance experience. I started learning hip hop as a kid in the 1990s and performed professionally for a number of San Francisco Bay Area hip hop dance companies in the 2000s and early 2010s before heading to graduate school to earn my Master of Fine Arts in dance, where I wrote my masters thesis on hip hop as a globalized youth-driven social movement based around shared artistic practices. You can read more about my current research on global hip hop on my research page.

As a cultural outsider to the Black, Afro-Latin, and Afro-Caribbean communities that built hip hop from the ground up, I teach respect for the form, its technique, its history, and the communities that created it. For this reason, I believe it is important to ground our approach to the movement in an appreciation for its specificity and context.

Accessibility & Inclusivity

The City of Evanston is committed to promoting a city-wide culture of accessibility and inclusivity. To request an accomodation for a program, service, or activity, please call 847-866-2919 to make an ADA service request or fill out a request form online at evanstonil.qscend.com/311.