While for younger men the clichû concern about the riskiness of hip-hop is the violence often associated with the art form, it is a different set of circumstances that worries middle-aged women.
"These women are taking a risk," says Bernstein, "since it's quite a change in the way your body moves at this age, and they're having a great time doing it. Between all of us, [we have] about 50 kids, and even most of [our] teenagers think that what we do is pretty cool. In a way, we're teaching them that you're never too old to have a good time shaking your groove thing."
One "groove thing" shaker is Ellen Gitelman, a Boston-area publicist and mother of one who found rhythmic salvation with the Mamas. Especially, that is, since the environment — in which it's not uncommon for students to bring newborn babies into class, where they crib on the side while mom pops and locks — is conducive to her capabilities. "I've loved dancing since I was seven," says Gitelman, "but since my 20s, I'd only really gotten down at weddings and Bar Mitzvahs. But for some reason, hip-hop dance spoke to me, mostly because it's modern without being ballet. I don't have a ballerina's figure, and I'm not going to get en pointe at this point in my life. But I'm willing to try breaking and popping moves, even though they can be pretty hard once you reach a certain age."
While Bernstein doesn't push her girls to physical extremes, she does get them sweating buckets to the sounds of Snoop Dogg, Bow Wow, and, most recently, Soulja Boy's "Booty Got Swag." Adopting the fusion method — which is all the rage in groove schools across the country these days — she incorporates aspects of African and Latin dance, as well as nimble moves by her personal hero, Savion Glover. "We're definitely not afraid to try new and different things," says Bernstein, "but we have to be careful about how many times we go to the ground. Trust me, we're not spinning on our heads."
Grab and go
If the Mama saga seems like the ultimate trend story, that's because it is. You would have a tough time finding a modern-dance school around Boston — or anywhere else — that doesn't offer hip-hop in addition to more traditional forms like jazz, tap, and swing. The Hip-Hop Mamas aren't tokens, but rather are just one of several groups that have taken their interest beyond rehearsal spaces. And much like the way they hope to inspire more dancers to follow suit, Bernstein and her homegirls were themselves motivated by a team of audacious older women.
For the past 10 years, the Long Island–based MOMZ-N-DA HOOD has been, as Dance Captain Barbara Adler says, "bridging gaps between young and old," as well as with their own children. The group's four members — who are considered by many, including Bernstein and Gitelman, to be the first professional troupe of mature b-girls (the Run-DMC of their niche, if you will) — are easily the most daring of their contemporaries, both in their acrobatics and aspirations.
