It is Wednesday night in Vineyard Haven and Evan Hall’s weekly hip-hop dance class is ready to begin.

But before it does, the 16-year-old teacher takes the floor by himself and rigorously tests a new beat, probing its rhythms with the limitless repertoire of bodily expressions that he has developed through years of study and exploration. A slow, rolling undulation terminates in a choppy, mechanical gesture on a downbeat. His neck rolls in a way that seems impossible given human anatomy, and his head rotates in a tight fluid circle. It is at once fantastic and exhilarating to watch. Exasperated, he calls off the music. “I can’t get into this one,” he says.

A junior at the Martha’s Vineyard Public Charter School, Evan is already an established dance teacher, having taught Islanders how to move as he does for the past three years. On Wednesday nights at Camp Jabberwocky in Vineyard Haven he teaches a beginner hip-hop dance class (ages 9 and up), an intermediate class (ages 12 and up) and an advanced class (16 and up) from 5 to 8 p.m. The cost of a class is $10.

“My style is rooted in musicality,” the improbably young teacher explains in an interview between classes. “My object in choreography is just to make what I hear come to life in a sense, so you see what you hear. For instance, if it’s ‘boom-tiff-cack! boom-tiff-cack!’ I’m trying to make you see that,” he says as he approximates the sound with a rhythmic convulsion. “I’m taking the music and making it visual.”

Trained in nearly every hip-hop discipline by onetime Vineyard choreographer Kelly Peters, Evan Hall knows his history. Among his influences he lists such late 1970s and early 1980s institutions as the Electric Boogaloos and Soul Train alongside modern day hip-hop choreographers like Shane Sparks.

“I’ve got to have the foundation of those old school guys especially for popping, because I’m a popper,” he says, referring to the dance style identifiable by its sudden, otherworldly jerks and misdirecting maneuvers.

“There’s all different styles of popping, there’s boogaloo, there’s tutting,” which he illustrates by waving his arms in a manner reminiscent of Egyptian hieroglyphics, “there’s isolations where you just move one part of your body and not the other, there’s gliding, waving, moonwalking — all that kind of Michael Jackson smooth stuff. It’s important that you know all the foundations of hip-hop and that’s what I try to teach.”

— Mark Alan Lovewell

On this particular Wednesday he wears a pair of scuffed Adidas and a T-shirt plastered with the image of a cassette tape — an apparent homage to his old-school icons. The choreography is undeniably cutting edge. Leading the older, advanced class with his latest routine, set to an especially funky Timbaland and Missy Elliot beat, Evan demonstrates the musicality of his dancing style, complementing every idea in the song with its appropriate physical counterpoint. His choreography is at turns aggressive, mocking, playful and always confident. He dubs it freestyle hip-hop choreography.

“There’s different styles of hip-hop,” he explains. “There’s break dancing, popping, Campbell locking, crumping, house dancing and a lot of others. So a mixture of all those is just freestyle hip-hop and that’s what my choreography is.”

For five years Evan honed his skills as a part of the Island’s own Kelly Peters Dance crew, touring colleges and competing in contests across the country. Earlier this year he had the opportunity to compete in a national dance competition sponsored by Clearasil at the Hard Rock Café in Times Square with a group of fellow Vineyard dancers.

“There were five dance crews; it was kind of like a mini America’s Best Dance Crew. Everyone from the Island voted and people across the country voted and we actually ended up winning. It was awesome,” he says.

His interests don’t end at the dance floor. He also has a music studio that he has set up in his basement with the aid of his uncle where he constantly experiments coming up with new beats. He says his dream some day is to be a music producer — although he will always be dancing.

Meanwhile Evan will continue to teach his class, which he declares serves a greater purpose.

“The main object of my dance class is just to keep the real message of real hip-hop alive,” he says. “The real message of hip-hop is getting lost in materialism and the whole consumerist culture. The real message of hip-hop is about peace, unity and having fun. It kind of sounds corny but hip-hop is really just about bringing people together.”