Hip Hop Workshop with Jess Pretty

Hip Hop is a multi-faceted culture that has continued to ebb and flow over and through time via the people in the community that continue to give it life and make sure that it grows forward. This hip hop class in particular is an investigation into three movement styles that contribute to the form; house, street jazz and commercial hip hop. We will use these styles to interrogate the ways in which we can locate euphoria and pleasure in the moving body as we digest our place within current societal relations. How can we use dance as a vessel to achieve this? What is the place and importance of music and popular culture in this investigation? Hip hop and house dance in particular were created and codified to be widespread forms of resistance against societies constraints and restraints on black and brown bodies. Forms of resistance that largely resulted in the building of the very communities that push the form forward. This class will focus on the development of community, body, awareness, artistic expression, movement quality and spatial awareness. Other focuses for the class include taking risks, building confidence, and using movement as a vehicle for stepping outside of our comfort zones. Students will build a diverse set of skills through a hip hop lens that will aid them in the future.

Jess Pretty is a New York based dance artist, choreographer and teacher. She received her MFA in Dance from the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign with a Queer Studies minor. Pretty has performed in works by Will Rawls, Jennifer Monson, Niall Jones, Cynthia Oliver, Abby Zbikowski and more. She has presented work at panoply performance lab, the CURRENT SESSIONS, three ACDA conferences, the Emerging Artists Concert Series at Green Street Studios, and Krannert Center for the Performing Arts.

This residency is made possible through a Project Support Grant from the Arts Council of Indianapolis.