Hip Hop Dance Crews
DANCE TOGETHER!
If you're into hip hop dance at all, you will have come across hip hop dance crews. They have formed since the beginnings of hip-hop usually by dancers from the same area with things or goals in common.
Dance crews can be all freestylers (like bboy crews), all choreography or a mixture of the two.
Dance Crews & Companies
Many dance crews form after dancers that know each other make the decision to rehearse, practise and perform or battle/ compete together.
Some dance crews form when a choreographer decides to put a crew together and starts auditioning for dancers to be a part of the crew.
And some choreographers go through the formal process of setting up a dance company in order to perhaps apply for funding or take part in business ventures.
Usually there is a purpose to a dance crew. Many want to enter competitions to win. Some want the opportunity to perform to an audience. In rarer cases some just want to train together with other like-minded people.
Hip hop dance crews will normally prepare 'sets' to showcase in competions or performances. These will normally comprise of different dance routines put together to create the set.
In order to maintain a high level, hip hop crews normally train together on a regular basis. Rehearsals are normally weekly for crew members.
Some crews practice once or twice a week, with more frequent rehearsals nearer performances. Some rehearse more often. Professional troupes that do paid performances may even train daily with their crew.
When doing hip hop choreography as a crew, the important thing is for everything to be in unison and that the dancers are tight as a group.
In other words when they are doing the same routine, the dancers want to look alike. A stray hand or a foot out of place from one of the dancer's detracts from the uniformity of the piece.
Therefore they will usually practise these routines to get everything from the shapes to the timing perfect over and over again.
It is not uncommon for all the members of a dance crew to wear the same uniform when performing to keep up this appearance of all the dancers being in unison as they dance.