Thirty years ago, hip hop was still a counterculture movement. Today it’s mainstream. We’ve all heard hip hop. iTunes top tracks include songs from Flo Rida, Fetty Wap, Nicki Minaj, Kanye West, Empire Cast and Drake. Since we all know this style of music, we have a good idea of the dance moves that go along with it.
But for two of your fellow PSU students, dance is a lot more than just what we might imagine goes along with the style of music.
I sat down with Bradley Cumez and Bao Pham, two members of the hip hop club here at PSU: Hip Hop Alliance. Previously known as the PSU Breaking Club, Hip Hop Alliance is where dancers can come together and express themselves the way that they best know how.
Self-taught and dancing for the past seven years, post baccalaureate senior Bradley Cumez has been a part of Hip Hop Alliance for three years. He was involved in the school’s dance team when he attended Beaverton High. However, this was just a club team. They did not compete, just performed at school events including assemblies and games.
Unlike Cumez, Bao Pham’s high school, Benson, had an official school dance team. But she said, “It was too structured for me.” She’s been dancing for the past six years and says that dance “gives me a different creative outlet.” Similarly, Cumez stated that dance provides him with “a different way to express myself” and also provides a “degree of freedom.”
Although it is not considered a sport under the athletic department umbrella here at PSU, Cumez and Pham treat it as if it is one. It takes discipline, time and effort. It is not easy to balance school, work, a personal life while also being an active member in a dance club. Cumez says that “[dance] helps you put things into order, it makes you more organized.”
Most athletes would agree that a set schedule and set priorities make you more organized overall. Although she agreed with this statement made by Cumez, Pham also added that “you tend to neglect one.”
When the club was still going by the PSU Breaking Club, the form or dance was pretty limited to breakdancing, or at least that was the unintentional implication of its title. Because of the different styles of dance coming into play that was more diverse and complex than just “breakdancing” the club name was changed to Hip Hop Alliance. The club is more than just breakdancing because you can incorporate other dance styles.
Being a dancer, “there’s an interest in learning other [forms of] dance,” says Cumez. Hip Hop Alliance allows this to happen with style inflections of salsa, tango and other Latin forms of dance as well as b-girl (female breakdancing), housing, whacking and popping.
Each dancer has their favorite moves. Being a breakdancer first and foremost, Cumez states that his favorite move is wind mills, an old-school breakdancing move in which a dancer’s torso is on the ground and legs are in the air, simulating the arms of a windmill.
Classifying herself as a “freestyler,” Pham says that because of this she doesn’t really have a favorite move but has been focusing on isolations. This technique is used when a dancer is moving only one part of the body. For example, the entire body is still, but the right arm is wagging back and forth.
Both dancers say that their after college goals for dance are to be a bigger part of the community, because after all, that’s where dance started. Cumez says that he wants to be a “bigger player in the community.”
If you’re interested in becoming a part of the Hip Hop Alliance club, anyone is welcome to attend the practices that are held twice a week at the rec center. Tuesday’s practice (7:30 p.m.-9:30 p.m.) focuses on the b-boy (male breakdancing) style of dance and is held in rec center room 403. On Fridays, in the same room, from 6:30 p.m.-8:30 p.m. the club has a more flexible agenda, focusing on freestyle dance.
You may feel intimidated to attend a practice, but the people there are more than willing to help teach you and make you feel comfortable, so don’t feel intimidated.
If you’re part of the planet’s vast majority of people who appreciate hip hop, check out Acoustic Slam. The fundraising event put on by Bao Pham is taking place on April 4 in Parkway North, proceeds from which will go toward a relief trip that Pham is taking to the Philippines due to the damage caused by typhoons in late August.
