By Jodi Parkinson

Have you ever wanted to learn how to dance?

Wayne Hurley, the hip-hop instructor at Fresno State, said students should take the hip-hop dance class because it is “unique in its own way, and it provides an outlet for every ethnic group.”

Hurley said he got his start in hip-hop because of his mother’s musical influence

“My mom is the one that really got me pumped about music, I mean every day she was playing music and watching videos.

“I was born with hip-hop.”

Hurley said that hip-hop dance is a way for students to “express their troubles and try to find themselves in dance.

“Some of them that can’t dance come to try it out, get coordinated and then dance, whether it’s professionally, or just going out and having fun at parties.”

According to Hurley, hip-hop dance is something the average person can learn and use.­ He said students can learn how to dance if they apply themselves to the lessons.

“Come [to class] with an open mind and relax, and just be ready to learn something that’s different.”

The culture of hip-hop, Hurley said, is not a one-dimensional form of expression.

“It can come in many ways: from dressing, the way people talk, the way people think, the way people dance, the way people write songs, graffiti, art, breakdancing, it goes into a whole lot of different forms.”

Hurley’s assistant and fellow hip-hop instructor at Hurley’s studio, D.A.N.C.E. Empowerment, is Aaron Locke.

Locke said students thinking about taking hip-hop dance should not be nervous.

“Don’t be scared,” Locke said.­ “If you got the will to learn it, you will get it.

“It is an outlet, you know, of how I feel with everything. I can express it through the music, dance, especially through dance.”

Locke said for first-time dancers who come to the beginner classes at the studio, the transformation from timid to confident is evident within a week.

“You see the whole difference,” he said.­ “They dress different. Their confidence is better. That’s what I like about it, the change of it.”

Locke said his favorite part of hip-hop culture is the history, “because [I] watched it grow from the beginning to where it’s at now.”

Elias Garcia, a liberal arts major, said he took Fresno State’s hip-hop class, “to actually learn how to dance. I’m not much of a dancer, so, I decided to get out of my comfort zone.”

Briana Virgo, a hip-hop dance student in Hurley’s Fresno State class, said she would recommend the class to fellow students.

“I would say it’s a very fun class, a way to get active and, if you’re shy, step out of your zone because you have to throw your own personality into it,” Virgo said. “I feel like it’s a way to express yourself. Some people can use it to relieve stress or just another way to work out to get exercise.”

Virgo and Garcia both said that they have learned to count to the music and the importance of staying on tempo.

Hurley said in his classes students learn “misdirection, isolations and poetic movement.”

For extra help, Hurley said he welcomes his Fresno State students to drop by the D.A.N.C.E. Empowerment studio at 8:30 p.m on Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Hurley said the studio is open to all ages.

The Show, Hurley said, is what the adult dance team is called that goes to casinos, nightclubs and sports events to perform.