About Hiplet Ballerinas
What is Hiplet?
The only company in the world to perform this signature, trademark style, Hiplet Ballerinas of Chicago, Illinois fuses classical pointe technique with African, Latin, Hip-Hop and Urban dance styles rooted in communities of color. Promoting inclusivity in both their cast and audience, Hiplet (pronounced “hip-lay”) features true-toned tights, modern music and dancer of all shapes, sizes and colors.
History
Hiplet started as "The Rap Ballet" in the 1990s, developed by Homer Hans Bryant. Soon after its development, the Rap Ballet was featured at several schools in the Chicago area while working with Urban Gateways.
In 2005, at the UniverSoul Circus, the African American circus, Homer Bryant was approached and asked to have one of his dancers do rap ballet type movement for the circus, and they would teach her aerial. They had a black girl playing Eminem’s violent piece, “Lose Yourself”, on the violin. Homer thought, "I can’t call this rap anymore. What are we going to call this"? His answer...."ballet and hip-hop---Hiplet"! In 2009, Homer obtained the trademark on the word “hiplet.”
Today the Hiplet Ballerinas are "WOWING" audiences all over the globe with their fiery performances and amazing skill. In the words of Founder and Artistic Director, Homer Bryant, "Hiplet is important. It is Afro-centric. So we are pulling from your urban communities, and we put in the Jazz, Latin and African, but we stick to the classical Ballet discipline. We have been to Germany, Seoul, South Korea, France, Spain, and the Virgin Islands, New York and California a dozen times. It’s just amazing what has happened. A lot of normal people have been deterred from dancing because they were a little too big, a little too busty. Hiplet ballerinas look like normal people".
For more information, visit www.hipletballerinas.com
Chicago Multi-Cultural Dance Center
The Hiplet Ballerinas Company is a division of the Chicago Multi-Cultural Dance Center (CMDC). CMDC is supported in part by a grant from the Illinois Arts Council Agency, Art Works Fund, City of Chicago Department of Cultural Affairs & Special Events, The Chicago Community Trust, The University of Chicago Community Programs Accelerator, The Joseph and Bessie Feinberg Foundation, Mielle Organics and countless individual donors.
CMDC is a member of the Black Legacy Project, made possible with support from The Joyce Foundation, The Reva and David Logan Center for the Arts, The University of Chicago Community Programs Accelerator, and the Doris Duke Charitable Fund.
CMDC is supported in part by an American Rescue Plan Act grant from the National Endowment for the Arts to support general operating expenses in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.
For more information, visit www.cmdcschool.org