This certification is filled with information on hip hop education, but it isn't just about giving you a list of things I do in my class. The certification course gives you a detailed look at hip hop dance and the importance of its deeper elements. Beyond learning how to teach particular dance steps, you'll learn the importance of each movement. You'll understand the history and development of specific dance steps. This is so that you ( and your students) know how to define the very thing you represent in choreography. When you know the "How & Why" of each aspect of this genre, you'll know how to work within the rules and where rules can be bent or broken in creativity and in lessons you develop beyond the program.
In the end, you'll have ultimately taken this course to have a new set of tools for development just as much as you'll have learned about history & new dance terms.
"I am an employee of
Hip Hop First"
This teaching method has been developed by taking nearly 20 years of hands on experience integrating street styles into studio programs & formatting it based on two fundamental needs I believe every hip hop program should have met.
1. Accurate, honest details regarding hip hop technique & history.
2. Youth education methods in a dance school environment.
The first step I took while crafting my education method was to understand the elements of most hip hop classes as they stand today. The two elements I wanted to steer teachers away from were combo based classes & jazz fusion choreography. By integrating decades of foundational material into my classroom, I've ensured that every hip hop experience I give my students has enough material to provide countless technical lessons as a central focus of class. Those techniques aid in the push for making choreography more accurately defined as hip hop as well.
Developing this method meant prioritizing hip hop knowledge. As teachers, we become representatives of the genre. When that is the case, we are telling the public that "THIS is hip hop" with every class, combo, and performance we give. When you learn The Comix Method, you are learning a method that will offer an authentic hip hop experience no matter what.
Formatting for the Dance Studio
Some elements of hip hop dance may be difficult to integrate into dance programs. Heavily leaning into freestyle, the structure of a training session for a dance crew, music choices, and many more elements may not be an ideal fit for dance studios and schools. The solution inside this method is to hold onto every element of hip hop dance that doesn't come into conflict with the needs of a studio. When the design of dance studios and expectations for hip hop come into conflict with an authentic experience, this method finds new pathways into those essential aspects of the hip hop experience.
Unique lessons, choreography composition tips, and a range of games/exercises come into play so that class becomes an educational experience. More importantly, a hip hop educational experience.
"There's nowhere to go to learn real hip hop around here."
The Comix Method wants to solve that problem. No matter where you are and how scarce training can be, this program is right here for you. An endless guide and set of resources so that you'll never be short of new ways to understand hip hop dance.