class highlight: hip hop & Street Jazz choreo with kristi

 Join Kristi ​Saturdays 3-4pm @ 812 Chestnut! Intermediate+ level dancers. 

Class will teach choreographed routines that blend hip hop, jazz, popping, house, and other dance genres. We will focus less on getting the moves "right" and more on making the moves uniquely our own. The goal will be to feel the music, have fun, and express our authentic selves! 

Learn more about Kristi and what to expect from her class below!

Learn more about Kristi & her Hip Hop and Street Jazz Choreo class!

What is your training background?
It's a bit of a hodgepodge! I took my first ballet class when I was about eight and quickly realized that wouldn't be for me, so I pivoted to jazz and hip hop. Growing up in Los Angeles, I had access to a lot of choreography classes taught by people working in the commercial industry. College brought me to the east coast, and though I was not studying dance, I spent all my time dancing with a student-run company. Our shows featured everything from hip hop to contemporary and K-pop to Bollywood. After college, I lived in New York City, where I joined competitive hip hop crews Epic Motion and Neighbors and later danced for choreographers Kenichi Kasamatsu and Bo Park. Since moving to Philly, I've been taking UMA's classes, which have helped me develop my freestyle skills, as well as fill in the street dance knowledge gaps I had having come from a choreography background.

How do you go about creating choreo? What inspires you?
 Dancing has always been my outlet for discovering and expressing aspects of my personality that don't surface during my everyday life. So if a song is speaking to a part of me that needs to be released, I'll choreograph to it! My process involves listening to a song over and over again and picking out the musical elements I want to emphasize with the movement. Then I try to choose moves that match those sounds and also convey the emotions that initially connected me to the song.

What music do you like to use?
For class, we'll be dancing to a lot of hip hop/R&B and dance pop. I'm going for songs that get us moving and grooving!

What do you want folks who take your class to take away from your class? And/ or what kind of vibe do you hope to cultivate in your classes?
First and foremost, I want people to have fun! Though I'll be teaching choreographed routines, I hope we can focus less on what the moves are and more on how we're choosing to do them. I'd love to see people add their own flavor to the moves and make them uniquely their own. My ultimate goal is for class to be a space where people can come express their authentic selves through dance and be seen and celebrated for it.

Thanks Kristi!

You can sign up for 'Hip Hop and Street Jazz Choreo' with Kristi via the 812 schedule page here, using a drop in, membership, intro month, or class card pack!