Oxford Handbook of Hip Hop Dance Studies Launch

2pm in the Café, entrance through Stage Door

This pioneering anthology on hip hop dance includes a wide range of practitioners and scholars, with chapters by Ken Swift, MiRi Park, Storm, YNOT, co-editor Imani Kai Johnson, Moncell Durden, Halifu Osumare, and Thomas DeFrantz, among many, many others.

Co-editor and B-Girl Mary Fogarty will be joined in conversation with Jonzi D and b-boy and storyteller Emmanuel “Manny” Adelekun and special guests, The Legendary Twins.

The panel will cover writing about hip hop culture, its place in higher education, and the development of new art school programmes integrating hip hop dance and culture.

About the panel

Professor Mary Fogarty

Mary Fogarty is Associate Professor of Dance at York University, Toronto. A long-time member of the KeepRockinYou arts collective that organizes the Toronto B-Girl Movement, Mary has performed in Canada, the U.S., Germany, Scotland, England, and Portugal. She has served as a judge at various international Breaking competitions, including the first Olympic qualifier (held in South Korea in 2022) that will help determine who competes when Breaking debuts at the Paris Summer Olympics (in 2024). Mary has published two collections of research on dance: The Oxford Handbook of Hip Hop Dance Studies (2022, co-edited with Imani Kai Johnson) and Movies, Moves, and Music: The Sonic World of Dance Films (2016, co-edited with Mark Evans). Her other recent research appears in Contemporary Music Review (2021), We Still Here: Hip Hop North of the 49th Parallel (Marsh and Campbell, eds., 2020), Beyoncé: At Work, On Screen, and Online (Iddon and Marshall, eds., 2020) and The Oxford Handbook of Dance Competition (Dodds, ed., 2019). She is currently the co-editor of Contemporary Music Review, and serves on the editorial board of Global Hip Hop Studies, and DIY, Alternative Cultures and Society. Mary has also been an invited Visiting Scholar at the Hip Hop Education Center, founded by Martha Diaz at NYU, an invited teacher with Alesandra Seutin’s Vocab Dance Company, and has taught many community workshops, including Pathways to Education, Pulse Ontario, Barrie Native Friendship Centre and the Leith Community Education Centre.

Emmanuel Adelekun

Emmanuel Adelekun, also known as Manny, has been a part of the hip hop, breaking scene and culture for over 15 years.

Born and raised in London, UK, with his roots being Nigerian, Emmanuel is a B-boy, a member of Soul Mavericks and La Familia crew, and has competed at major events all around the world. Best known for his footwork, his is a two-time Word Porto Battle footwork champion and R16 UK footwork battle champion.

Emmanuel is also a writer, hip hop dance journalist, and film maker, striving to express the true, authentic side of hip hop, the dance scene, and the value that the culture brings to the world and those who are a part of it. He has spent 10 years interviewing breakers and dancers on the scene, and writes articles, stories and blog pieces about the lifestyle, events, history and culture of breaking and hip hop.

On top of this, Emmanuel is an educator, teacher, and facilitator, passing on the knowledge and history of hip hop culture, teaching the dance of breaking, and working in other capacities to facilitator the growth of the scene, including organising, hosting and staging managing at events

The Legendary Twins

Keith and Kevin Smith, better known as The Legendary Twins, were born and raised in the Bronx, New York, the birthplace of hip hop and home of The Bronx Bombers. The Twins are first generation b-boys and are credited as the first dance crew to go down to the floor with footwork and vertical moves back in the 70s.

In 1999, The Twins were recognised and honoured along with several hip hop pioneers by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and participated in Roots, Rhymes and Rage - The Hip Hop Story exhibit and hip hop movie The Freshest Kids. The Twins’ contribution as the founding fathers of b-boys was recently celebrated by being inducted into the prestigious Hip Hop Hall of Fame in 2014.