Dance crews lock in a livelihood through hip-hop

“But it's true — when mom is happy, the whole house is happy,” said Adler, who has three sons and a husband who supports the family.

“Motherhood is our 'hood; we have angst too,” she said.

Hip-hop dance, a part of hip-hop culture that includes rapping, deejaying and graffiti that originated in East and West Coast neighborhoods, has morphed into its own performance genre and gone global. Freestyling soloists have given way to tightly choreographed teams that synchronize head spins, fancy footwork and gymnastics-heavy stunts.

Global competitions besides the World Hip-Hop Dance Championships include Battle of the Year in Germany, a break-dancing competition that started in 1990.

It is an alternative to ballet or ballroom — with YouTube serving as today's most accessible stage where dancers battle and one-up each other online.

Some think would-be dancers mimic amateurs too much, instead of attending organized events and seeking out experts.

“It's like a telephone game and you don't get the right message in the end,” said Natasha Jean-Bart, a professional dancer for Cirque du Soleil in Las Vegas and the competition's head judge.

But the setbacks for hip-hop's dance culture may be small compared to new job opportunities for top crews.

The Jabbawockeez, a San Diego troupe recognizable by their signature white masks and gloves, are proving hip-hop dance can entertain solo.

The first-season “America's Best Dance Crew” winners have had two successful live performance runs on the Las Vegas Strip. A third stint this month was added after their first 20 shows at the MGM Grand in May sold out.

“We're proving to people that we're not just background dancers. It's an art,” said troupe-member Jeff “Phi” Nguyen, who is not related to either of the Poreotics members with the same name, in a phone interview from Los Angeles. “The floor is the canvas and our body is a paint brush.”

The Jabbawockeez, named for the similar-sounding Lewis Carroll poem in “Through the Looking Glass,” recently launched a private company, JBWKZ, LLC, to market themselves and sell merchandise.

But William Lett, a musical theater instructor at California State University, Fullerton, said he does not consider hip-hop a realistic career option.

“It hasn't reached academic status yet like ballet or jazz or tap,” he said in a phone interview.

Lett said self-trained hip-hop wannabes should learn more dance forms before stomping to the scene.

Matt Nguyen and Cam Nguyen said they might return to hair styling and graphic design in the future. But for now, hip-hop trumps all else.

“We're going to dance 'til our bodies can't do it anymore,” Cam Nguyen said.

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