Angie Bunch is the executive director and founder of Culture Shock Dance Troupes, Inc. Widely considered a hip-hop pioneer, Bunch formed Culture Shock in 1993, gathering a group of hip-hop street dancers to develop and perform an intricate choreography combining the best of the raw, urban forms of dance then burgeoning onto the scene. Adding break dancing to this mix in the late 1990s, Culture Shock has become a hip-hop powerhouse under Bunch’s direction. The world-renowned company, whose headquarters remain in San Diego, has outposts in Los Angeles; Las Vegas; Chicago; Washington, D.C.; and in Ottawa and Toronto, Canada.
The Culture Shock concept—to bring the urban dance form into the professional dance arena and then let that influence go back the other way—has now inspired several generations of hip-hop dancers. Bunch touts the addition of break dancing as a key moment in the history of Culture Shock. “That was the big blossoming for Culture Shock,” she says. “To pull the two genres together: the original and the ‘commercial.’”
Culture Shock is a network of nonprofit dance companies that brings the power and beauty of hip-hop to diverse audiences via professional entertainment, dance education, and community enrichment programs.
Angie Bunch is the executive director and founder of Culture Shock Dance Troupes, Inc. Widely considered a hip-hop pioneer, Bunch formed Culture Shock in 1993, gathering a group of hip-hop street dancers to develop and perform an intricate choreography combining the best of the raw, urban forms of dance then burgeoning onto the scene. Adding break dancing to this mix in the late 1990s, Culture Shock has become a hip-hop powerhouse under Bunch’s direction. The world-renowned company, whose headquarters remain in San Diego, has outposts in Los Angeles; Las Vegas; Chicago; Washington, D.C.; and in Ottawa and Toronto, Canada.