Hip Hop Architecture Thesis - Tanner Valachovic 2024 Part 1
Special thanks to Virginia Melnyk & those who gave me advice
While simultaneously studying architecture and dancing hip hop for over 5 years, I asked where could the two intersect. Using three different scales, my thesis aims to offer a singular record of how architecture can shout out and host hip hop.
Starting at the page scale, the preliminary research for this thesis was turning the free movement found in open styles dance and transliterating it into a graphic format that can be read by the dancer’s eye.
Hip Hop has created huge waves in pop culture and has moved from the under ground to the public eye. A dance style so impactful deserves to be celebrated and studied the same as any other dance genre. In the same vein as Hip Hop, the new notation strives to be accessible to all and ditches the confusing aspects of past notations and tries to keep it fresh.
With the structure of the language developed, DR’s or dance recordings are able to be produced to create an art-scaled artifact of hip hop. Check out the following ten recorded freestyles and follow the qr codes to animated renditions of the DR.
DANCE #1
Event: Class of 2023 Senior Send-o Visit/ DOP Thursday Workshop
Date: May 4th, 2023/August 31, 2023
Mode of Dance: Freestyle to Choreography
Headspace:
Time Stamp: 2:35 - 3:12
Beat Loop: BPM: 81
Venue: Whittemore Hall Balcony, Virginia Tech
Moon Phase:
Freestyle - Waxing Gibbous (96%)
Choreography Workshop - Full (99%)
Song: Piece of My Love - Gifted Gab, Mario Sweet
Lorem ipsum
Headspace:
Event:
Dancer: Nosebleed (A.K.A. Self)
Mode of Dance: Freestyle
Date: Sept. 24th, 2023
Venue: Spirit Lounge, Lawrenceville Pittsburgh, PA
