The Oxford Handbook of Hip Hop Dance Studies offers insights on individual and social histories of dance, Afrodiasporic and global lineages of the genre, the contribution of B-Girls from Honey Rockwell to Rokafella, the "studio-fication" of hip hop, and the cultural shift into theatre, TV, and the digital social media space.
Engaging with a broad range of research and performance genres, The Oxford Handbook of Hip Hop Dance Studies offers the most comprehensive research on Hip Hop dance to date. Filling a lacuna in both Hip Hop and dance studies, the Handbook places practitioners' voices at the forefront and in dialogue with theoretical insights, rooted in critical race theory, anticolonialism, intersectional feminism, and more. Volume editors Mary Fogarty and Imani Kai Johnson have included influential dancers and scholars from around the world: from B-Boys Ken Swift, YNOT, and Storm, to practitioners of locking, waacking and House dance styles such as E. Moncell Durden, Terry Bright Kweku Ofosu, Fly Lady Di, and Leah McFly, and innovative academic work on Hip Hop dance by the most prominent researchers in the field. Throughout the Handbook contributors address individual and social histories of dance, Afrodiasporic and global lineages, the contribution of B-Girls from Honey Rockwell to Rokafella, the "studio-fication" of Hip Hop styles, and moves into theatre, TV, and the digital/social media space.
The Oxford Handbook of Hip Hop Dance Studies is an important contribution to hip-hop research, and in the coming years it will likely function as a central reference work in the production of knowledge concerning hip-hop in general and hip-hop dance specifically. Not least, I reckon that it should be relevant as an encyclopedia and reference work for those interested in breaking when it appears in the Paris Olympics this summer.