Hip-hop class combines dance with social and cultural history
In Aysha Upchurch’s new course, “Hip Hop Dance: Exploring the Groove and the Movement Beneath and Beyond the Beat,” students learn the histories behind some of their favorite moves. “Hip-hop dance has been seen in a variety of spaces, from dance studios to commercials to competitions to TV programs. The exposure is beautiful, but there’s so much exposure to just the form that people are missing the context,” said Upchurch, Ed.M. ’15, a visiting lecturer in Theater, Dance & Media and instructor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. In addition to choreography and movement instruction at weekly class meetings, students watch and discuss documentaries about hip-hop culture, including “Paris Is Burning,” about drag ball culture in 1980s New York, and “From Mambo to Hip-Hop: A South Bronx Tale,” on the socioeconomic history of the borough. “I really love dancing, and I thought this would be an interesting class, to combine dance with...