It takes all of a few seconds for ‘hiplet’ to become your new favorite style of dancing. It’s not something you can see and inherently mimic. But the effort’s worth it because no other dance is this seamlessly classy and cool. Hailing from Chicago’s notable Multi-Cultural Dance Center, founded by Homer Hans Bryant, hiplet dancer Zipporah Wilson describes the genre best.
“Hiplet is a mixture of hip hop and ballet, but really anything that we can try to put on point, that has a groovy feeling to it.”
If hiplet sounds at all familiar, it’s because an Instagram video of the Multi-Cultural Dance Center performers went viral last year.
Not only does the concept sound exciting, the dance moves themselves have the coolest names—the hiplet strut, the twist-in-and-out, the moonwalk, and, likely everyone’s personal favorite, the Vivian (named for the French Prince of Bel-Air episode when Aunt Vivian takes dancers to task).
Hiplet is as impactful in its execution as it is in its concept.
“I grew up thinking that I couldn’t do ballet because of the color of my skin,” Wilson explains. “I love dancing hiplet. It just gives you a sort of confidence and just a freedom to just be yourself. This is the dance genre that does not discriminate.”
Love dance as much as us? Tune into NBC’s World of Dance May 30th at 10/9 central to see the world’s best dancers battle it out for a whopping $1 million prize. Don’t miss exclusive interviews, performances, and more from the definitive source for all things NBC World of Dance.
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