In the Popping, Whacking, Locking Archives

At last summer’s Versa-Style Street Dance Festival, held in a dance studio in Burbank, California two competitors faced off in “the popping final.” Clad in white pants, Dnoi slid across the wooden floor, his blue plaid shirt billowed. A voice counted down, “five … four … three … two … one,” and Dnoi handed off to rival Rampage, who had his own subtle way of moving. One that suggested a syntax, an embodied language; hinted at histories and diasporas.

“Rooted” is an apt word for hip-hop’s story. Little wonder the Versa-Style Street Dance Company called the show it is presenting in Boulder “Rooted Rhythms.”

A cultural juggernaut, hip-hop’s heritage runs deep. In 2023, the 50th anniversary was feted at the Grammys, at the Super Bowl, at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History and Culture and, fittingly, at a block party on Sedgwick Avenue in the birthplace of the life-meets-art form, the Bronx.

Intimately aware of the art form’s cultural contexts, the Los Angeles-based hip-hop dance troupe marked its own milestone, its 20th anniversary, in 2025.

“They’re incredible,” said CU Boulder Assistant Teaching Professor Lawrence Southall. “They’re one of the best street dance companies in California because they do styles.” Styles? He begins a list. “There’s hip-hop proper. There’s Campbelocking [think Michael Jackson]. There’s boogaloo and popping. There’s breaking.” He wasn’t finished. “Then you have house and a litany of other styles … juking, jitting, whacking, voguing.”

Southall is co-director of Hip-Hop Studies at CU Boulder—along with hip-hop dancer-choreographer-educator Rennie Harris. Southall hails from the Bronx and was there for, if not the birth, the coming of age of hip-hop. Harris, he says, begins his course during slavery. For his part, Southall starts with the 1965 Watts Uprising.

Think of Miss Funk, Breeze-Lee and Versa-Style as stewards of the physical archive of hip-hop dance. And the degrees of separation turn out to be few: Versa-Style founders Miss Funk (Jackie Lopez) and Breeze-Lee (Leigh Foaad) studied under Harris.

At times, the dance-offs at Versa-Style’s celebratory festival recalled jazz sessions in which the performance is both practiced and improvised, precise and free, showy at times but also welcoming.

The “Rooted Rhythms” program will embrace Versa-Style’s two-decade history as well as hip-hop dance’s longevity and innovation. In addition to the styles of the street, there will be dips into African and Latin dance. This mix of celebratory and communal is why Versa-Style matters, says Southall. “It’s a community-based thing, trying to bring people together instead of, you know, breaking people down.”

Versa-Style Street Dance Company performs on the Artist Series at Macky Auditorium on Feb. 11, 2026.