Hiplet (pronounced HIP-LAY) started as "The Rap Ballet"  in the 1990s, developed by Homer Hans Bryant.  Soon after its development, the Rap Ballet was featured at several schools in the Chicago area while working with Urban Gateways.  

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In 2005, at the UniverSoul Circus, the African American circus, Homer Bryant was approached and asked  to have one of his dancers do rap ballet type movement for the circus, and they would teach her aerial. They had a black girl playing Eminem’s violent piece, “Lose Yourself”, on the violin. Homer thought, "I can’t call this rap anymore. What are we going to call this"?  His answer...."ballet and hip-hop---Hiplet"!  In 2009,Homer obtained the trademark on the word “hiplet.”

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Today the Hiplet Ballerinas are "WOWING" audiences all over the globe with their fiery performances and amazing skill.  In the words of Founder and Artistic Director, Homer Bryant, "Hiplet is important. It is Afro-centric. So we are pulling from your urban communities, and we put in the Jazz, Latin and African, but we stick to the classical Ballet discipline. We have been to Germany, Seoul, South Korea, France, Spain, and the Virgin Islands, New York and California a dozen times. It’s just amazing what has happened. A lot of normal people have been deterred from dancing because they were a little too big, a little too busty. Hiplet ballerinas look like normal people".