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Street dance, also called vernacular dance is an umbrella term, used to describe dance styles that evolved outside of dance studios in everyday spaces such as streets, school yards, raves and nightclubs. They are often improvisational and social in nature, encouraging interaction and contact with spectators and the other dancers. Some examples include B-boying that originated in New York City and Tecktonik which originated in France.

Street dance is also commonly used to identify the many hip-hop and funk dance styles, exclusively, that began appearing in the United States in the 1970s and are still alive and evolving within hip-hop culture today. These styles include breaking, popping, locking. Although Hip Hop dance is well known as simply 'street dance', street dance actually refers to any kind of dance that evolved on the streets (in the sense that it evolved outside of dance studios and did not feature any other kind of commercial intervention). A common example of a street dance that evolved without integrating Hip Hop dance or Funk dance, is House dance, which evolved out of Chicago clubs (but grew and evolved in the clubs of New York) and prominently danced to Disco, and today, House music. Due to the modern mainstream popularity of clubs, street and fad dances tend to evolve more modernly out of clubs instead of outdoor spaces (such as streets), etc. Many club and rave dances are also street dances.

All of these dances are popular as a form of physical exercise, an art form, and for competition. Adaptions to or inclusions of them are today practiced both at dance studios and other spaces, i.e. New Style Hip Hop, etc. Some schools use street dance as a form of physical education.