Choreo for Hip Hop High

Dancing with Hudde Alumni Holly Googe HIP HOP HIGH Standing in the wings of the school auditorium stage, watching the finale of her show with 350 dancers performing together, one of the academic teachers asked Jamee Schleifer, “How do you get them to do that?” She thought a moment and then said, “I never thought they couldn’t.” Hip Hop High is about how Jamee and her former students from Andries Hudde, I.S.240 (Flatbush, Brooklyn, 1986-2001) have come together to show how her public school hip hop program influenced them then, and still does. When Jamee began teaching, the power of hip hop dance in education was long overlooked in the public schools. It is now known that hip hop dance and culture is a powerful educational vehicle for connecting with young people, especially for non-professionally motivated dance students. It is a body discipline and a form of self expression. It was never Jamee’s intention for her public school hip hop program to make professional dancers out of her students. The goal of her program was exposure and cultural enhancement to foster a life long respect and appreciation for hip hop, dance and for the arts. For her dance students, it was always her hope their performing in the school shows gave them a sense of accomplishment and showed they were capable of much more than they believed.