Street Dance & Hip Hop Dance

Hip hop dance and street dance as the names preclude emerged on the streets and also in social settings and gatherings.

They are sometimes confused these days due to what is labelled street dance and hip hop dance by the media, dance schools and others is often used loosely.

They are more or less the same thing, though street dance usually refers to a much broader term than hip hop dance.

Street dance usually refers to all the street dance styles including ones which may not be associated with hip hop.

                          

Hip hop dance refers mainly to the main styles of locking, popping and breaking though it is often used by dance schools also to describe the newer style of hip hop dance choreography that has emerged in recent years.

Therefore street dance is a slightly broader term that usually includes more dance styles in its description. However even today street dance is used to refer to choreographed street dance routines that draw heavily from newer style of hip hop dancing.

Most of the styles associated with hip hop dance also fall under the street dance category.

If you think of it like computers, most of street dance comprises of hip hop dance styles (the PCs) but there are also other styles (Macs) that are also computers.

                          

Usually if you go to a street dance class you'll be learning a hip hop routine that may also include locking or popping or other street styles in it.

If you're unsure of which category the style of dance you do falls under just call it by its name. So if its popping you can just call it popping you don't have to call it street dance or hip hop dance. Popping would be the most specific and would do nicely.

When you see a street dance or hip hop film you'll usually see lots of different styles of dance from these categories. They also use lots of different dancers and so the dancers will be skilled at different things so you'll see dancing that looks very different from one another.