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Dustin Luca
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SALEM, MASS. — A three-day Intergenerational Hip-Hop Dance Symposium at Salem State University won’t be just a dance showcase or an academic exploration of hip-hop history.
Expect instead a masterclass in culture, dance workshops, purpose, and entertainment that demonstrates how hip-hop connects people, tells stories, and brings energy into a space that’s hard to deny.
The three-day symposium will run out of several campus locations from Thursday, Jan. 30 to Saturday, Feb. 1. The full weekend boasts dance battles on Thursday, an international film festival on Friday, hip-hop dance workshops on both days, and a full-length show to close the symposium on Saturday.
Presented by Salem State Music and Dance and the Center for Creative and Performing Arts, all events in the symposium are completely free. The full program is paid for through a $5,000 strategic planning grant.
The weekend “is monumental for the hip-hop dance community, because it’s a celebration of the culture at its core — dance, artistry, and unity,” said Jarell Rochelle, event emcee and assistant professor of music and dance at Salem State. “Hip-hop dance has always been the heartbeat of popular culture, and to have an event like this at Salem State — especially with the caliber of talent involved — brings it to the forefront with excitement.”
The weekend will kick off the afternoon of Thursday, Jan. 30 with a workshop hosted by Tayquan “Era” Pomare-Taylor, better known as “LandMine.” Later that evening, LandMine will join a three-judge panel for a Dance Battle event in the Ellison Campus Center’s Veterans Hall from 4:30-8 pm.
The dance battle will take a series of performers, including public participants as time allows, through a series of elimination rounds to end the event with a prize winner.
Friday, Jan. 31 will kick off with a workshop with BBoy El Niño, a member of “The Floor Lords” and the first b-boy, or break dancer, to compete in the Olympics. The workshop will be followed by the Hip-Hop Dance Film Festival, beginning at 7:30 pm in the Sophia Gordon Center. Seven works are slated to be presented.
The three-day affair will close Saturday, Feb. 1 with a closing performance at 7:30 pm in the Sophia Gordon Center. Performers include event judges and workshop hosts, as well as the Salem State Hip Hop Dance Ensemble, the Floor Lords, Phunk Phenomenon’s teen company Phunk Mob, and Lil Phunk, the official junior dance team for the Boston Celtics.
“The symposium is about giving flowers to the OGs and pioneers of street dance culture while shining a spotlight on emerging youthful artists who will carry the legacy forward,” Rochelle said. “This event is breaking down the wall between ‘mainstream’ and ‘street,’ and it’s proving that hip-hop is a universal language that can just about be digested by anyone — and that’s what makes it powerful. It was the original D.E.I. before it had a name: love, acceptance, unity, and truth.”
Salem State University is also well positioned to host the event, as “street dance ties to civic engagement and social justice,” said Karen Gahagan, director of Salem State’s Center for Creative and Performing Arts.
“An underpinning to all of this is bringing hip-hop dance education forward at Salem State and demonstrating the importance of the culture and its academic discourse in a liberal arts institution,” Gahagan said. “We want to make this another part of our DNA, one that creates interdisciplinary opportunities and connections with the community.”
Visit the Symposium’s Eventbrite page for more information and to register in advance.