A single dancer performing a street-style routine built on grooves, isolations and attitude, judged on technique, stage presence, execution, choreography and overall appearance, and placed in a skill-level band by score.
A hip hop solo is one dancer performing one routine in a street-dance idiom: grounded bounces and rocks, sharp hits, isolations of the chest, shoulders and hips, footwork patterns, and the personal attitude that makes the style recognisable. With no partner or group to share the stage, every accent, pause and change of level is the dancer's own, and the panel sees how well rhythm, control and character hold together from the first beat to the last.
On the Time to Shine Dance Competitions template, which this page is written from, Hip Hop Solo is one of about twenty solo styles. Entrants do not simply enter an open section; they enter a division set by years of dance training and by age. There are three experience levels: less than two years, two to five years, and five years or more. Each has its own run of ages, starting at 4 and under for the newest dancers, and the two higher levels extend to 18 plus Adult and Mature Age. A separate Masters division is open to dance teachers. Age is counted as at 1 January of the competition year.
A round is a single performance on stage. The dancer is announced, the music starts and the adjudicator watches the whole routine, writing a critique as it unfolds. The score is out of 100 on five lines: Technique 40, Stage Presence 25, Execution of Performance 20, Choreography 10 and Overall Appearance 5. The total decides a skill-level band rather than a first, second or third place: Platinum Plus from 97, Platinum 93-96, Double Diamond 87-92, Diamond 80-86, Emerald 70-79 and Ruby 60-69. Several dancers in one division can therefore earn the same band.
Routines for dancers with under two years of experience run to two minutes; every other division runs to three. Boys and girls compete together and no language requirement is printed. For a coordinator using eTalenter the item is handled like any other solo: register the dancer in the right experience level and age division, record the adjudicator's mark out of 100, and the band follows from the score. The template does not print rules on music content or props, so none are stated here; coordinators should publish their own.
Where Hip Hop Solo comes from
Hip hop dance grew out of street and club dance cultures in New York in the 1970s, alongside the music and DJ culture it is named for, and entered studio teaching and competition programmes from the 1990s onwards.
Where Hip Hop Solo is run
In eTalenter data Hip Hop Solo appears on 18 dance templates, all of them Australian dance competitions, challenges, festivals or eisteddfods, including Time to Shine Dance Competitions, where it carries 40 age and experience divisions. Hip hop sections are now a standard part of studio-based dance competition programmes in Australia, the United Kingdom and North America.
- Australia
- United Kingdom
- United States
Key facts
- Individual entry; boys and girls compete together; no language requirement.
- Divisions on this template: three experience levels (under 2 years, 2 to 5 years, 5 years or more) crossed with single-year ages, plus Adult, Mature Age and a Masters division for teachers.
- Time limit: 2 minutes for dancers with under 2 years of experience, 3 minutes for everyone else.
- Scored out of 100: Technique 40, Stage Presence 25, Execution of Performance 20, Choreography 10, Overall Appearance 5.
- Result is a skill-level band by score (Ruby 60-69 up to Platinum Plus 97 and above) with a written critique.
- Idea starters, not rules: a routine built around one clear groove and three signature moves, a call-and-response with a freeze, a level-change sequence from floor to standing, a story told through character and attitude.
On eTalenter, Hip Hop Solo is filed under Dance and typically scored with Marks. It appears in 18 ready-made event templates — each one can adjust its time limit, age-group assignment and scoring setup independently.
Across the templates that use it, Hip Hop Solo is most often entered as an Individual competition, typically scored out of 100, commonly time-limited to 2–4 minutes where a limit is set.
What judges look at in Hip Hop Solo
What a Hip Hop Solo panel is actually weighing up, and where the marks are usually won or lost:
- Technique (40): clean isolations, controlled bounces and rocks, sharp hits that stop on the beat, and footwork that is precise rather than approximate.
- Stage Presence (25): attitude, confidence and eye focus that carry to the back of the room, with energy that holds to the final pose.
- Execution of Performance (20): how cleanly the planned routine is delivered, with moves landing on the music, no visible recovery from slips and a clear finish.
- Choreography (10): a routine with a shape, using changes of level, direction and tempo, with difficulty matched to age and experience rather than copied move for move from a video.
- Overall Appearance (5): clothing and presentation that suit the style and are safe to move in, including footwear that grips the floor.
Treat these as the judging focus, not a fixed rubric: publish your own weighted criteria for Hip Hop Solo under Scoring Setup, or start from the full group dance judging criteria guide.
How to prepare for Hip Hop Solo
How entrants and their teachers usually get Hip Hop Solo right on the day:
- Choose the experience level by total years of dance training, not by age, because it decides who the dancer is marked alongside.
- Pick music with a steady, clear beat and plenty of room for accents, so hits and freezes are heard by the panel as well as seen.
- Build the routine from a few strong moves performed cleanly rather than many half-controlled ones; sharp and still beats busy and loose.
- Rehearse the pauses as carefully as the moves, since hip hop is judged as much on what stops on the beat as on what moves.
- Cut the music to the division limit, remembering the two-minute cap for the under-2-years level, and finish a few seconds inside it.
- Practise the whole routine on a surface like the competition stage in the shoes to be worn, and at full effort at least three times in a row to build stamina.
- Film a run-through and check that the attitude reads from a distance, not only that the steps are correct.
- After a lower band, read the written critique with the teacher and fix one technique point and one performance point before the next event.
Frequently asked questions
Is Hip Hop Solo judged individually or as a team?
Across eTalenter's templates it's most often run as an Individual entry, though an organiser can set either participation type when assigning the item to an age group.
What is a hip hop solo?
One dancer performs a single street-style routine to one piece of music, judged as one performance on technique, stage presence, execution, choreography and appearance.
How long can a hip hop solo be?
On the Time to Shine template, two minutes for dancers with under two years of experience and three minutes for everyone else. Other organisers set their own limit.
Is it judged against other dancers or against a standard?
The template reports a skill-level band from the total score and a written critique, so the result is the band the marks fall into rather than a printed first, second or third place.
Is hip hop the same as street dance?
Street dance is the wider family of styles; hip hop is one of them. This template lists Hip Hop Solo as its own section, so entries are judged as hip hop.
Want the full judging picture? Read the full group dance judging criteria guide, or browse every dance competition item.
Try Hip Hop Solo in eTalenter
See every ready-made template that runs Hip Hop Solo, and install one as a live event — age groups, rules and scoring included.
