Labbing in street dance: How you develop your own dance style

If you are looking for your own path in street dance, you will quickly come across a central concept: so-called labbing. The term is derived from the English word laboratory and describes a highly creative training method. Unlike in classical dance lessons, it is not about dancing along to fixed step sequences or rehearsing synchronous routines for a show. When labbing, you are a researcher in your own body.

The goal is to develop new dance movements and systematically expand your own movement language. To do this, you often use specific tasks when preparing for your first Hip-Hop battle. Instead of just improvising to the music without a plan, you set yourself clear, sometimes extremely restrictive rules when labbing. These boundaries force your brain and your muscles to leave the beaten paths of your comfort zone and tread completely new paths.

In almost every dance studio, a huge mirrored wall dominates the room. For labbing, however, this mirror is often the biggest enemy. If you constantly watch yourself while developing new movements, you automatically fall into visual self-censorship. You immediately judge whether a move looks cool or strange. This blocks the creative flow before it can even emerge. When learning to improvise in breakdance, it quickly becomes clear that true originality comes from feeling and not from optics.

When labbing, you consciously turn away from the mirror or close your eyes. It is about feeling the movement from within. How does the weight shift feel? What dynamics arise when you start the impulse from the shoulder instead of the hand? Without the controlling gaze in the glass, you learn not to perceive mistakes as flaws, but as an unexpected detour that can lead to a completely new move.

To be successful in the lab, dancers work with structured concepts. A popular tool in the field of Concepts Dance Labbing is isolation: for example, you allow yourself to move only your left knee and your right wrist for three minutes. It sounds simple, but after a short time, it forces you to find extraordinary levels and rotations to stick to the requirement. Such creative barriers are the key if you want to learn to dance creatively in a systematic way.

Another concept is the translation of everyday movements. How can opening a heavy door, typing on a keyboard, or the flowing of water be translated into urban dance movements? Through this abstraction, dance styles emerge that stand out radically from the crowd. Labbing is not a one-time event, but a permanent freestyle training method that requires patience, but in the end, it shapes your own dance identity.