The core 10K team fell in love with Hip Hop [music/culture] for different reasons—its wordplay, story-telling capacity, and social justice imperatives to name a few. When we began to learn different forms of Street dance, which are all improvisational by nature, dance quickly became more than just a hobby. It became a personal practice, a creative playground, a vocation, and a viable discipline requiring hours upon hours (10,000 to be exact) to hone. 

Generally defined by its four main elements of MCing, DJing, Breaking (dance), and Graffiti, as well as its five values of Peace, Love, Unity, Having Fun & Knowledge—Hip Hop is the most impactful folk culture on the planet. LoTL provides a firsthand example for how Hip Hop creates an environment of organic exchange, conversation, and connection between people of all backgrounds through the music and culture. 

LoTL exists firstly for the dancers, but all are welcome and encouraged to attend in order to experience Hop culture's five values in action. We want new audiences to walk away from the weekend with a fresh outlook on Hip Hop, tor their personal dance, and a renewed sense of connection with one another. LoTL 3 will continue to create awareness of these American folk genres in our community, open doors for partnerships & collaboration, and paid jobs for dancers & artists in the Greater Cleveland community.  

The broader needs that LoTL address are as follows:

• Preserve⸺Access to knowledge & education⸺Street Dance styles face a threat of cultural erasure. We work to ensure access to the knowledge, to ensure the context, history, and nuances of the dances are maintained and become more prevalent. The threat is familiar, of having the art form’s true origins extracted from the original narrative, as happened with Rock N’ Roll, for example, or vernacular Jazz Dance.
• Present⸺Hip Hop & Street Dance on our own terms⸺After years of Street Dance pioneers being flown and hosted abroad to share their dance innovations, overseas organizers in Asia and Europe have been heavily mobilized since the late 80’s. Meanwhile in the U.S. where all of these styles were created, the infrastructure and support lags behind due to various socioeconomic inequities.
• Cultivate⸺the ecosystem and regard for these American folk forms⸺Highly touted and exploited for their entertainment value, but often not truly valued in practice, Street Dance artists are generally the lowest paid artists. Their rates are often not honored, and commonly offered a promise of “exposure” over true pay for their work.

We likewise want our home city to be considered seriously as a major hub for the Street dance community, and recognized as such in the broader arts world. Having contributed to these cultural inventions all throughout their creation, and evolution, Cleveland & Northeast Ohio hosts an entire community and sub communities who practice, cultivate, and evolve these Black and Latino American art forms.