SnS Final Project

This video is of an all black sorority step team. Although stepping is commonly viewed as a men’s dance style these women step better than most people can even hope to.

This video is a choreography to Once Upon A Time by Jeffrey Caluag. Jeffrey is known for making dances using typically feminine dance moves or to feminine songs but rocks it better than most women can.

This video is of a very famous Korean dance studio where the focus is in hip hop. Although most people do not associate hip hop with Korea, Korea is a big participant in the hip hop dance community.

This is a video of a salsa club found in Japan. Salsa, which is traditionally thought of being extremely sensual and only danced by Latin dancers, is very popular in Japan which is known for being very repressed when expressing sensual emotions and movements.

Famous ballet studio that broke the mold by having an all African American ballet class that also practices what they have dubbed Hiplet which combines aspects of Hip Hop dance and ballet

Korean American Professional Dancer Sorah Yang. Often expected to do ballet she breaks the mold by professionally dancing as an urban style dancer and has taught around the globe

Within our society the gender roles that both women and men are meant to follow are clearly defined and laid out. Men must be masculine, meaning tough, direct, stern, aggressive, emotionless and etc. Women must be feminine, meaning soft, vulnerable, warm, gentle, emotional and etc. But why must these ideas of masculinity and femininity be so rigid? While studies have tried to find biological or chemical reasons to prove that these ideas are natural facts, none have been conclusive in this matter. I propose that we deconstruct these archaic ideas and allow men to feel their more vulnerable emotions and women to assert themselves more as well. A space in which this can be achieved is within dance. While these ideas of masculinity and femininity exist within the world of dance today it does not need to stay this way. Men can be graceful and gentle within ballet, and women can be aggressive and powerful within breakdance. We should not be confined to be the way society says we should be, and we should #MoveHowYouFeel.