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Hip-hop dance reflected in today’s movies BY MARIAN LIU KRT CAMPUS Hip-hop dance is infusing pop culture as never before, moving from street corners and music videos to fitness centers, dance studios and television shows. And now Hollywood has no ticed. “Right now dance is the key fo cus, the main focus of everything going on,” said Shane Sparks, a choreographer from “You Got Served.” “Honey,” another hip hop dance movie, opened late last year. The hip-hop dance of today is a more choreographed form of street and club dancing, as opposed to the more free-form moves of earlier styles, such as break dancing. “Each move now that Britney Spears or Justin Timberlake does takes a little bit of this and that from break dancing—locking, pop ping moves—and blends it all in,” said Beto Lopez, a hip-hop dancer from Stockton, Calif. The choreography also has be come a mainstay at concerts. “If you eliminate all the dancers and keep the artists there, I don't think the shows would bp as in credible,” said Sparks, choreog rapher for B2K, IMx, Ginuwine and Brandy. “There's a definite surge in the white neighborhood that wouldn't necessarily be exposed to hip-hop in their everyday life,” said Keith Pinto, an MC and hip-hop dance teacher at Dance Attack in Los Gatos, Calif. “They watch MTV, see other kids doing it Etnd want to be a part of it. You can pretty much go to any dance studio in the Bay Area and they'll have a hip-hop class.” To see how hip-hop dance is be ing mainstreamed, look no further than high schools and fitness cen ters. “That's the music ... at school dances, so we want to learn how to dance to that,” said Diana Schnabel, a 17-year-old junior from Willow Glen High School in San Jose. Her high school’s drama shows once showcased mostly singing and skits, but recently they have been taken over by hip-hop dance routines, she said. Fitness centers are also taking advantage of the trend, citing it as the newest fad in exercise after yoga and Pilates. Amanda Arnold started teach ing hip-hop in June at three 24 Hour Fitness Centers in San Jose. She said that even aerobics con ventions have started to include hip-hop in their repertoire. “I grew up when hip-hop was pretty popular, and as I got older, I went to the clubs where we danced to rap and hip-hop,” said Arnold, a San Jose resident. “’But now I'm 26 and it's old school to go clubbing, so this is what I want to do when I work out.” People like Arnold have grown up with hip-hop and now are old enough to promote it. 1_ ~ -_____, - -- “We're in control of it now,” said Lopez, director of a break dancing documentary called "The B-boy Connection” set to be re leased in time for the next year's Sundance Film Festival. “We may not have Hollywood power or mon ey, but we can promote our own events and sell our own clothing.” Even as hip-hop dance and fash ion are becoming more pervasive, some say it comes with a down side. Aiko Shirakawa, a hip-hop dance instructor at San Jose’s Roosevelt Community Center, said that although this trend has paved the way for many dancers, it also has fostered more suggestive dance moves. “The young new generation is getting out there and feeling ener gized and inspired, but girls are left with the dances that are slutty, like striptease dancing,” said Shirakawa, 35. Comments on this story?E-mail gamecockfeatures@gwm. sc. edu PHOTO COURTESY OF KRT CAMPUS Hip-hop dance is showing up everywhere in movies with the continuing interest from today’s youth. Halftime CONTINUED FROM PAGE 7 it's hard to escape the sexing-up of America's kid culture. “I call it the ‘adultification of kids,’” said David Walsh, psychol ogist and president of the National Institute on Media and the Family, a Minneapolis-based research group with no religious affiliation. “We keep exposing them to more and more adult content.” Although the flap may be over Jackson's breast, Lawrence Shapiro,-author of "The Secret Language of Children,” believes kids won't be affected by a momen tary glimpse of Jackson's breast. What should outrage parents were the other halftime performers. “The dancers are half-naked, grinding their bodies, suggestive,” Shapiro said. “That’s the real mes sage children are getting. It's lit erally not seeing the forest for the trees.” No one should be surprised at the Super Bowl backlash, said Elayne Rapping, women's studies professor at the University of Buffalo. The nation's Beavis and Butthead juvenile approach to sex uality is teaching children the wrong message about sex. “Ten year-old boys are learning to think and act that way from television,” she said. But shouldn't 10-year-old boys be allowed to watch the Super Bowl? And, perhaps a greater ques tion for our society is this: Is the Super Bowl designed for family viewing? Maybe not. “We can read the lips of angry players... and it's filled with beer commercials,” said Robert Thompson, director for the Center for the Study of Popular Television at Syracuse University. “If we thought the whole family gathered around the TV set, we should be more upset about the al cohol than a breast at 50 yards.” Others disagree. “Kids by the millions are watching that show,” Walsh said. “It is probably the one television event when most fami lies come together all year. It is the ultimate ‘family hour,’ and they (CBS) treated it like it was Guys’ Night Out.” “The Super Bowl ads and the halftime show demonstrate the na tion's schizophrenic view of sexu ality,” Rapping said. “We're very juvenile about sex uality,” Rapping said. And stunts like Jackson's tearaway costumt A reduce the issue of sexuality "down W to the level of a frat-boy kegger.” “The family television hour has been eroding for years,” said Rob Simon, curator of the Museum of Television & Radio in New York. The reason? Cable television. "To stay in the game, networks obviously have increased sexual innuendoes in dialogue or are overtly borrowing from MTV video sexuality,” Simon said. "It's not just Janet Jackson.” But Jackson, Timberlake and MTV were hotly criticized Monday even by the target demo graphic. “The vast majority of folks—90 percent — think it (the tearaway) was staged,” said Pete Snyder of New Media Strategies, an Internet ;. research firm that polled 1,500 Wei } users Monday. “They don't think it was particularly exciting,” he said, because Janet Jackson “is a total has-been.” 1 l_$60off 1 1 [Move-In Fees! | " A | I 12 Silo Court, Columbia, SC 29201 I ' To CofconUj M<tio Awpwt U»h/#i4ly of SC | j * BtOSSOM ST Main C«mp<w W 803.779.3280 UpiKEiT... ■[OURSELF! BHIbi m i^piwwiro I i\'M a t<Ba mmsn ■85k@M?M©s graSB HESSE Code Ann. Sections: 56-1-515(2), (4), 56-1-746 Check Out USC’s Newest Residence Hall! ■ . ■■ n Creating a Sustainable F u t u r e ... To da y Info/Siqn-Up Fair ►►Enjoy refreshments ►►Pick up an application University Housing Designing Communities for Living and Learning For more information call 777-4283 or check out www.housing.sc.edu I