History of Hip-Hop – New BIPOC Owned Dance Studio Focused on Celebrating Hip-Hop History and Culture Opens in the Heart of the City

Award-Winning Toronto choreographers Aaron Aquino-Annobil and Nicole Rosove, together with Lisa Heath open Run The Flex, a dance hub highlighting the history and origin of Hip-Hop in every class

Toronto, ON – March 30, 2023 – Two of Canada’s leading choreographers Aaron Aquino-Annobil and Nicole Rosove together with tech-industry expert Lisa Heath have recently launched Run The Flex, a BIPOC owned, community-focused dance studio in the heart of Toronto with mandate that teaches all iterations of Hip-Hop and their history.

Launched in 2018, Run The Flex began as a six week Hip-Hop program designed to be comprehensible for participants with no formal dance training. Alongside the choreography itself, each session offered background information on the styles and moves being taught in real time, followed by an email resource offering additional depth about origins of the moves participants learned that week. From its new home at Yonge and Bloor, Run The Flex has evolved into a physical dance studio offering a variety of Hip-Hop and Hip-Hop offshoot dance classes with a faculty of leading instructors that deliver high-level training to all levels of dancers. Centred on the philosophy that dance should be available to all and that the knowledge of the historical aspects to Hip-Hop helps maintain its spirit, Run The Flex is the first studio of its kind to offer two types of dance education with every program.

Designed to be an inclusive, approachable space for all, the Run The Flex team is made up of a majority of BIPOC choreographers and support staff, and offers classes for all ages and skill levels. Employing top talent across all styles of Hip-Hop, the studio offers classes and programs in Waacking, Krump, Popping, Funk, Jazz, and Tutting, along with traditional Hip-Hop classes. Instructors offer information about the origins of their choreography – from “The Charleston”, born out of slavery in the U.S. being the only style of dance to have been illegal, to the stylistic differences between the 3-count beat sequences coming from the different boroughs of New York.

Co-founder Aaron Aquino-Annobil is widely-regarded as one of Canada’s leading experts in Hip-Hop, who along with being a co-owner of Run The Flex currently works as a professor of Choreography and Hip-Hop Foundation at Sheridan College. His skilled choreography and dancing has been featured alongside top Canadian and international musical talent including Jully Black, Kardinal Offishall, and Lupe Fiasco, in national telecom and fashion ad campaigns, and at Hip-Hop masterclasses worldwide, including leading the Hip-Hop program at Toronto’s Meridian Hall. Along with wife and co-owner Nicole Rosove, a sought after Canadian choreographer whose credits include Billie Eilish, multiple Netflix films, and ad campaigns for global brands Hershey, Redken, and Snapchat, Aaron and Nicole are the creative driving force behind the cultural and historical focused space. Partnering with tech-industry CEO Lisa Heath to bring their vision to life, Run the Flex offers a high quality, authentic Hip-Hop experience by key leaders in the Canadian dance world.

“There’s an actual story to Hip-Hop, a lineage” says Aquino-Annobil, “Knowing where it came from makes people appreciate it that much more”. From the music selection to the hand-picked instructors, Run The Flex provides a truly authentic educational experience. Dancers can participate in drop-in classes or weeks-long programs intended for all skill levels. With the overall goal of creating an inclusive, high-level dance and educational space, Run The Flex bridges the gap between training dancers in the globally recognized dance styles of Hip-Hop, and teaching the foundations of where the moves came from.

Run the Flex is located at 893 Yonge Street, 2nd Floor.

Connect with Run The Flex

Website: https://runtheflex.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/runtheflex/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RunTheFlex/

YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCwA7TBXf2TT4KGovsnY1BDg

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/run-the-flex/?originalSubdomain=ca