Like the tango (more), Uprock is a dance style born of the streets and rife with violence. But where Tango has emphasized the sexuality (long mythologized as brothel music) and transformed into a ballroom style with romantic passion bowdlerizing the overt sexuality, uprocking has been shunted off as the less popular battle dance cousin of b-boying.
Uprock is mostly upright (toprock), with feigned punches, kicks, gunfire and arrow shots, with the basic repertoire drawn primarily from locking.
While most of KMEL's competition is floorwork b-boy stuff, in the clip above he gets into the grittiest uprock video I've found on youtube, a flurry of punches, kicks, burns and jerks.
And, of course, the Rock Steady Crew with their "hit" Uprock:
You can compare Uprock most directly to Krump and Hyphie, with the wild and aggressive arm sweeps:
E-40's "Tell me When to Go" (embedding disabled).
Which, in turn, came out of clowning and turfing, but that's another goddamned post.
Anybody got some great regional dance styles they've been sitting on?
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