Pop Until You Drop

New class teaches street smart dance moves

by Allison Grande

Tuesday February 7, 2006

"Popping is not about impressing, it’s about expressing," said sophomore Jake Esocoff, the instructor of a six week popping class that is being offered this quarter.

So what exactly is popping? "Popping is a combination of muscle contractions of the upper body and snapping your legs back in coordination with the beat," explained popping veteran Esocoff.

"It’s a technique of dance, but I wouldn’t say that it is dance because the actual dance begins when you put your own creativity and your own moves into it in between the popping, so in that way popping is really about the individual."

Popping came out of the funk movement of 1970s California. Inspired by another style of dance called locking, a teenager named "Boogaloo Sam" Solomon from Fresno decided to create his own style of dance.

"He’d be flexing his muscles, and every time he did that he went pop, pop, and that’s where popping comes from," Esocoff explains. "If he went bam, bam, then it would be called bamming."

Esocoff first fell in love with popping in his hometown of Washington, D.C., when he was a freshman in high school.

Trying break-dancing first, Esocoff found that popping was his true calling because it was more about coordination and movement rather than the strength required for break- dancing. Soon he joined the D.C. popping group, Boogie Nights.

Esocoff has taught various popping classes over the years. This year, he decided it was time to introduce popping to the Sarah Lawrence community. Armed with his resumé and a syllabus for a potential popping class, Esocoff met with Physical Education Director Mary LeVine in the fall to discuss the possibility of offering popping as a six week physical education course.

Esocoff was then given permission to put together a special "Pop ‘Til You Drop" workshop in October in order to evaluate his teaching style and to gauge the interest in popping among SLC students.

Because of the success of the workshop, popping was made into a six week physical education class this quarter.
Fourteen people participated in the first class, where they were taught the basics of popping by Esocoff. Most of the participants attributed their interest in the class to the uniqueness of the dance style.

"I don’t really know much about popping and think that it’s a very unique form of movement," sophomore MacKenzie Gibson said, "so some of my friends and I decided to take the class more or less to see if we could actually get ourselves to move like that."

Senior Lucy Callard had similar intentions for taking the class. "I’m interested in different kinds of dance, and I wanted to find out what popping was," Callard said.

So far, all involved seem pleased with the results. "It seems like it’s going to be fun," Gibson said after the class.

"I can already tell that it will be a really good class," Callard added.

No matter how much they learn in the next five weeks, Esocoff just hopes that the participants can leave the class with a new appreciation for popping.

"I want to broaden people’s minds about street dances so that they can realize the different layers to the different dances," he said. "By the end of the class, I’m looking for everyone to be satisfied with their progression and be able to go into a popping circle and represent themselves and their own unique style."

Among all the advantages of an education in popping, first year Chris Faroe has already figured out the most beneficial feature: "It’s a totally marketable skill," Faroe said.

"If all I learn in four years of college is how to pop, then I’ll be set for life."

Interested in learning how to pop? It’s not too late to join Esocoff’s class held every Thursday night from 8 to 9:30 in the Campbell Sports Center. If you cannot wait until Thursday night for your popping fix, visit www.electricboogaloos.com to learn more.