Ages 5 to teens

Hip Hop

The one style here a child can start at five and still be dancing at seventeen. Clean music, steps made for the age in the room, and choreography they'll be doing in the kitchen by Thursday.

What it actually is

Hip hop is taught here as choreography: grooves, isolations, and combinations set to music, learned as a class and performed on stage. Three things are picked for the age in the room, every time — the movement, the music, and the choreography. And this is not a reggaeton class. Latin rhythms are in the mix, because this is Doral and these dancers grew up on them, but what is being taught is hip hop vocabulary, and with the youngest classes the music sits closer to pop than to anything on the radio at night. The style asks for rhythm and nerve rather than flexibility, which is why it often lands with the child ballet did not.

What they'll be doing

Steps made for their age

Grooves, bounces and big clean shapes at five. Sharper isolations and faster feet at twelve. Nothing a child is too young to be doing, at any age we teach.

Music you can leave on

Every track is a clean edit, and for the little ones it is closer to pop than to the radio. Latin rhythms, yes. A reggaeton class, no.

Picking up choreography fast

The real skill under the style: hear eight counts, watch them once, dance them. New combinations land most weeks, and a dancer who can catch them catches everything else faster too.

Is this your child?

Hip Hop, yes

They learn a whole dance off a screen in an afternoon, and nobody taught them
There is a beat somewhere in the house and their shoulders are already moving
They ask you to film it, watch it back, and do it again better
They do not just do the steps. There is a face, an attitude, a character that comes out.

Try jazz instead

They jump off the furniture and land in a pose. Jazz goes up: turns and leaps. Hip hop stays low.
They show you their splits without being asked. Jazz is built on that. Hip hop does not need it.
They pick the big emotional song over the one with the beat. Jazz is where that goes. It starts here at seven.

See jazz classes

What a class looks like

An hour, and its shape changes with the age. At five and six it is a warm-up, grooves and games, and short combinations they can learn in a class or two. From seven it is a real warm-up, isolations and combinations across the floor, then new choreography most weeks — and, come spring, the piece they take to the recital stage.

Monday: 7:00 PM
Tuesday: 8:00 PM
Wednesday: 8:00 PM
Thursday: 6:00 PM · 7:00 PM
Friday: 6:00 PM