In Finland there are almost a hundred commercial dance schools, studios and institutes that offer hip hop classes under the name streetdance or hip hop. Purpose of my thesis is to figure out what kind of classes there are in Finland at the moment and what the people who practice hip hop and live the culture think about the situation of hip hop in Finland at the moment. Do we need dance schools to offer hip hop and is it right to teach an urban style in a mirrored studio as it was born in the street and belongs there.

The data was collected with my own knowledge and experience with the help of on-line surveys for hip hop dancers and dance teachers and also for companies offering hip hop lessons. Media publications related to hip hop and books about hip hop culture have also been used as research material in this thesis.

Streetdance came from the United States to Finland in 1980s and today hip hop is danced all over Finland. Hip hop culture brought music, graffiti, mcs, djs and dance to Finland.

In this study the results show how street dance came to Finland and how it has developed through the years among the dancers and what kind of variety dance schools offer today and how the teachers could improve it.