GLOBALIZATION AND THE HIP HOP DANCE CIPHER

Hip hop dance was the first of the culture’s elements around the globe, becoming a complex bodily text. We investigate the internationalization of Hip Hop dance in Hawai‘i and Ghana, with the cipher as a site for reinforcing and subverting local traditions and social orders. “Performance” is the transference of accepted American Hip Hop dance lexicons, while “performativity” encompasses local indigenous styles. The two mingle and transform during improvisation within the cipher, creating an Intercultural Body. Hawai‘i dance clubs offer a variety of styles from freestyle “house” to traditional breaking, reflecting the multicultural Asian-Polynesian mix of the islands. Ghanaian dance ciphers deconstruct the social complexities of a poor African country, while reinforcing traditional war dance elements of several ethnic groups. The global Hip Hop dance cipher is a microcosm of international forces, as US Hip Hop is exported and local sites grapple with imitation and adaptation to create their own reinscribed frameworks and meanings.