0727ImpOpener_DuanePC1

“Do you know what the term ‘hip-hop’ means?” That’s the first question Duane Lee Holland Jr. asks his students before beginning a hip-hop dance class. All too often, they don’t. That’s just one thing the dancer and choreographer hopes to change as Boston Conservatory at Berklee’s first full-time faculty member in hip-hop dance, the Conservatory’s first faculty appointment since merging with Berklee College of Music this spring.

“None of these babies do,” Holland laments. “In Senegal, they speak Wolof, and in Wolof, the term ‘hipi’ means to be knowledgeable or conscious. ‘Hop’ is synonymous to dance, so therefore you are a knowledgeable or conscious mover of a knowledgeable or conscious movement. People don’t understand that it’s about empowerment; it’s not about self-indulgence.”

The Philadelphia native—who joined Rennie Harris Puremovement, billed as the first hip-hop theater dance company, at the age of 17—previously worked with Conservatory dance division director Cathy Young at Ursinus College. When Young decided she wanted to add dedicated hip-hop curriculum to the newly merged college’s course offerings, she immediately thought of Holland.

“It’s an extremely humbling opportunity because my mentor, Rennie Harris, is really at the forefront of cultivating hip-hop practice in academia,” Holland says. “And as far as theory, it’s definitely been cultivated in academia for the past 15 or 20 years, but in reference to [dance] classes, it’s very new.”

“There is no other genre of music other than jazz, which is the father of hip-hop, that has affected the world in the same way.”

When he begins teaching this fall, his classes will largely focus on studio work, but Holland says it’s equally important that students understand the origins of hip-hop dance. “Nobody talks about the fact that hip-hop was created in a time in the South Bronx when the state of New York didn’t even care about the Bronx. They were like ‘Let that place burn to hell’ pretty much,” he explains. “It was DJ Kool Herc who was like, ‘Let me put these parties together for these young people to have something to do.’ And it was them being able to turn back into their own communities to heal themselves that created this culture that has affected the universe. There is no other genre of music other than jazz, which is the father of hip-hop, that has affected the world in the same way.”

To highlight the history, Holland plans to bring in guest speakers like “Father of Hip-Hop” Buddha Stretch, popping creator “Boogaloo” Sam Solomon, locking trailblazer Don Campbell, Ladies of Hip-Hop Festival founder Michele Byrd-McPhee and Rock Steady Crew founders Jojo and Jimmy Dee. He hopes that such lecturers will help students to let go of any preconceived notions of what hip-hop is and should be.

“It’s so funny to go and teach a class and people are like ‘Let me put my hip-hop clothes on,’ and I’m like ‘You’d better take them off, because you’re about to get sweaty. This is not a video,’ ” he says with a laugh. “What I want to be able to do is illuminate the intelligence, the sophistication and the spirituality of—not just the contemporary form, which is hip-hop—but jazz, blues, Lindy hop. These are all things that you see in this contemporary form, but unless you go through this type of contextualizing, people don’t recognize it. That’s what I feel like the program is going to do for the culture.”

Duane’s Hip-Hop Jams


Related Articles

Comments are closed.