Tiffany Bong leading class at the University of Southern California's Glorya Kaufman School of Dance | Photo by Matt de la Peña

By Jennifer Heimlich for Dance Teacher

Two years after hip-hop professor Tiffany Bong arrived at the USC Glorya Kaufman School of Dance, she asked to bring a DJ into the studio. “That’s a huge part of hip-hop culture,” she says. Just like most university-level ballet classes have a pianist and contemporary classes might have a percussionist, Bong’s classes rely on a DJ to give dancers a complete experience. “When I teach pedagogically, I want to recreate a club in the classroom. And the DJ is such an essential part of this practice,” she says. 

Some days she’ll have a particular lesson plan in mind and guide the DJ toward what she’s looking for—like, say, something from a specific chapter in the history of punking (also known as waacking). But frequently, the DJ sets the vibe, she says, and she and the dancers respond to the DJ’s choices. “The music gave birth to the movement,” Bong explains. “In hip-hop and street-dance culture, the DJ and dancer are in constant dialogue.”   

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