Versa Style Dance Company. Foto cortesía de / Photo Courtesy of: Wells Fargo

Versa Style Dance Company Teaches Hip Hop Workshops in Anchorage
“Stay together, stay united, and be one” 
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BY gabriela olmos

The 1970s gave rise in the Bronx to hip hop, a musical genre that emerged at the crossroads of African-American, Puerto Rican, and Jamaican cultures. At its beginning a street movement, hip hop became a standard-bearer for minorities. It served to make visible the invisibles. Among the members of their communities, hip hop dance wove bonds of affection and solidarity. 

Jackeline López, who recently performed in Anchorage with her group Versa Style Dance Company, says that “today hip hop is just a new word for all African and Latino dances that existed prior to these times. This goes back to our ancestors.” Miss Funk (as she is known) says that hip hop revitalizes the Latino tradition of social dancing, which for decades was confined to quinceañera parties and weddings. 

A professor of hip hop at UCLA, Miss Funk says that she speaks with her students about the roots of hip hop to help them realize that when they dance “they pay constant homage to their heritage, to where they come from. It is very important that we always remember where we come from. As a Latina woman that’s a big deal.” 

Miss Funk also explains that when hip hop was born New York faced poverty and high rates of violence, and those who met for the first time to dance hip hop saw it as a means for creating an environment of peace. Dancing was a way to bring people together under one roof and deliver a message: “stay together, stay united, and be one.” The dance is still practiced with this spirit of peace and unity. And so Versa Style Dance Company performed at the Discovery Theater. With the support of the Anchorage Concert Association, they also offered workshops for young people at the Artistic Drift Gallery and at the Mountain View Boys and Girls Club. 
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Miss Funk says, “My job right now is to keep showing people that there are healthy and vibrant people of color doing amazing things. This is what America is about.” She invites the young people of the community to get involved, to learn from YouTube videos of hip hop dancers, and to join like-minded people who fight for diversity and peace with their bodies and their souls. 

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​Informar, Educar, & Unir
Inform, Educate, & Unite

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