Oct. 11, 2013
When a dance move is born, the air is heavy with promise. Think of Chubby Checker, doing the twist with casual grace on “American Bandstand.” Think of that first surreal nightclub scene in “Sweet Charity,” in which Shirley MacLaine’s young dancehall hostess is mesmerized by a troop of dancers serving Bob Fosse’s unique style of über-mod gesticulation. Think of Jennifer Beals’s solo audition in “Flashdance,” the movie that led to a million ripped sweatshirts. Think of Michael Jackson’s first moonwalk.
Within seconds of observing a dance move’s birth, the amateur masses begin to work to replicate it. In the old days, this meant packs of junior-high-school kids trying to moonwalk in the hallways after seeing “Billie Jean” play on MTV, or imitating Kevin Bacon’s jerky hop-kick whenever the song “Footloose” came on at the eighth-grade dance. Today, the dance-move testing site is YouTube, where brave souls can be observed by the world trying to Dougie or do the stanky leg in their native habitats. Instead of trickling downward — starting in Hollywood and spreading to the masses — most of today’s dance moves, like bone breaking or the Soulja Boy, trickle upward. They come from the streets and are disseminated via YouTube, one Harlem Shake at a time.
Professional spies discover What the Young Kids Are Into These Days and incorporate that raw genetic material into the routines for Lady Gaga’s or Drake’s multicity tour. Choreographers are hired, and they train professional dancers to execute the move until it’s far more finely calibrated and expertly performed than originally intended — maybe too much, like watching a fuzzy old film that has been digitally remastered for an HDTV. At which point the sterile, fast-moving troops that flank stars like Beyoncé get into the act, transforming each organic, soulful move into something that looks like C.G.I. Soon you can spot, say, a pair of guys in yellow jumpsuits busting hip-hop moves to honor “Breaking Bad” at the Emmys, or the manic teenagers of “Glee” popping and locking at show-choir regionals.
That’s when the dance move starts to show clear signs of mutation. Soon, this new strain of the dance seeps back into the cultural groundwater, poisoning the wider environment. Competitive high-school cheerleading squads integrate the move into their routines, to inject a little flair right after the giant pyramid with the celebratory human bodies shooting off the top.
The dance move is further battered by those massive dance brigades at the Super Bowl, who insert the move into a prominent spot in the halftime show. Next the choreographers from “So You Think You Can Dance” resolve to tastefully conquer the new move, and local dance instructors incorporate it into their weekly fitness classes. (“Like Zumba, but with a better core workout!”) Wedding D.J.’s get into the mix, rallying rooms full of intoxicated humans to try maneuvers that will be emblazoned on the brains of their extended families forevermore.
Later, the dance move arrives on cruise ships like a virulent infection, flourishing in a microcosm packed with the sorts of people who relish doing the Macarena en masse. Finally the dance move settles in awkwardly at the local senior center’s exercise class, where a room full of baffled seniors find themselves reluctantly Twerkin’ to the Oldies.
“When you dance, you can enjoy the luxury of being you,” the Brazilian author Paulo Coelho once wrote.
“When you dance, you can enjoy the luxury of being you,” the Brazilian author Paulo Coelho once wrote.
A kind of luxurious self-satisfaction is clearly present when my 6-year-old daughter and her friends dance to Pink’s “Try” and Kelly Clarkson’s “Stronger” in our family room. It’s mesmerizing to witness raw, puppy-dog enthusiasm combined with loosely organized, flailing limbs. Sharp elbows fly, hips waggle, styles and eras and dance crazes gleefully collide as the “Gangnam Style” horse dance segues into “Saturday Night Fever” disco pointing. Odd-looking twirls result in multi-kid pileups, and everyone shouts about whether the lights should be on or off (or should flicker on and off, as they do at real dance clubs).
When I sit and talk with the other parents and I hear Katy Perry’s “E.T.” starting up in the next room, I feel like an animal that was sorted into the wrong cage at the zoo. Thereare shockingly few chances to dance for those of us past the age of club-hopping. Dancing may have constituted a central aspect of socializing for almost every class and demographic just a few decades ago, but times have changed, and the music has stopped.
When I sit and talk with the other parents and I hear Katy Perry’s “E.T.” starting up in the next room, I feel like an animal that was sorted into the wrong cage at the zoo. Thereare shockingly few chances to dance for those of us past the age of club-hopping. Dancing may have constituted a central aspect of socializing for almost every class and demographic just a few decades ago, but times have changed, and the music has stopped.
These days, weddings provide the rare occasion in which multiple generations can still gather together on the dance floor. Otherwise, unless you’re determined to master the mincing, up-tempo steps of salsa or the herky-jerky lightning-fast spasms of swing dance (and you’re prepared to dress the part, pay the entrance fee and strut your stuff at a club that sometimes feels more like a costume party), you’re mostly out of luck.
In the good, old days, almost everyone would gather in the village square and waltz, or polka, or square-dance, or clog. Or they could shag-dance or do the jitterbug. Men could lead confidently and didn’t whine or steadfastly refuse to try.
In the good, old days, almost everyone would gather in the village square and waltz, or polka, or square-dance, or clog. Or they could shag-dance or do the jitterbug. Men could lead confidently and didn’t whine or steadfastly refuse to try.
There were supper clubs and nightclubs where big bands would play, and lots of men owned one good suit, and lots of women owned a nice flared skirt and a bright shade of red lipstick. Or am I confusing the past with some particularly vivid scenes from “Hairspray” and “The Cotton Club”?
Either way, communal dancing today is mostly designed for the young.
Either way, communal dancing today is mostly designed for the young.
Could the rapid appropriation and eventual destruction of every novel dance move be to blame for this? Maybe we’ve become discouraged from dancing, as a culture, from watching each dance from the hop to the hustle to the Smurf to the electric slide to the snake become co-opted by marching-band flag twirlers and attempted by every sitcom family’s screwball son.
Maybe we became jaded from watching mediocre Broadway musicals and Richard Simmons clones and “S.N.L.” skits quickly turn our favorite dance moves into punch lines. Maybe those amateur dance videos on YouTube are the trouble, the manic movement on display so often upstaged by the hauntingly banal suburban décor.
(Is every home in America cursed with beige wall-to-wall carpeting?)
Surely flash mobs deserve at least some of the blame, as does the wedding party that first did a goofy viral dance down the aisle, as does the girl who recently resigned from her job by dancing to Kanye West’s “Gone” in her office and posting it on YouTube. And let’s not forget “Twerk Epic Fail” prankster Jimmy Kimmel. Or Justin Timberlake and Andy Samberg, shaking it to “Single Ladies” in leotards and heels.
Under these conditions, dancing starts to feel vaguely ridiculous. Moreover, instead of dancing, we are repeatedly encouraged to watch other people dance while we sit still. Instead of jumping right into the electric slide with a bunch of kids and grandparents, or hitting the floor at a family gathering when the music starts, most of us are stationary. We don’t experience the latest dance craze firsthand so much as witness it passively as it body-rolls through the culture, our eyes glued to our screens.
Surely flash mobs deserve at least some of the blame, as does the wedding party that first did a goofy viral dance down the aisle, as does the girl who recently resigned from her job by dancing to Kanye West’s “Gone” in her office and posting it on YouTube. And let’s not forget “Twerk Epic Fail” prankster Jimmy Kimmel. Or Justin Timberlake and Andy Samberg, shaking it to “Single Ladies” in leotards and heels.
Under these conditions, dancing starts to feel vaguely ridiculous. Moreover, instead of dancing, we are repeatedly encouraged to watch other people dance while we sit still. Instead of jumping right into the electric slide with a bunch of kids and grandparents, or hitting the floor at a family gathering when the music starts, most of us are stationary. We don’t experience the latest dance craze firsthand so much as witness it passively as it body-rolls through the culture, our eyes glued to our screens.
We tune in to see if Keyshawn Johnson can pull off a quickstep on “Dancing With the Stars.” We ogle at Kate Upton’s bikini-clad cat daddy on YouTube. But when’s the last time you stood up and did a quickstep or did the cat daddy yourself?
Isn’t this madness? Shouldn’t we engage in celebratory movement at least some small part of the time? We should be swaying or bobbing and jumping around to music as a group, the way they used to do in Lionel Richie videos.
Isn’t this madness? Shouldn’t we engage in celebratory movement at least some small part of the time? We should be swaying or bobbing and jumping around to music as a group, the way they used to do in Lionel Richie videos.
Retro footage from Daft Punk videos aside, who doesn’t long for the un-self-conscious groove of “Soul Train” or the haphazard joy of Go-Gos videos or the giddy weirdness of Pee-Wee Herman? What happened to writhing around on the floor like those dancers did on “Solid Gold”? What happened to developing your own signature move?
We used to be so much less self-conscious about dancing, back when watching people dance meant basking in the amateur glory of “American Bandstand” and not going awe-struck over stunts by competitive semiprofessionals on a glorified game show. There was always something faintly soothing about Dick Clark’s unstyled herds of dancers, all enjoying the luxury of their own imperfect gyrating and inviting you at home to dance along.
At the start of the 2005 documentary “Rize,” a dancer named Dragon tells the camera, “If you’re drowning and there’s nothing around for help but a board floating, you’re gonna reach out for that board.” He’s talking about krumping, a kind of street dance that rose up in South-Central L.A. “This was our board,” he says. “And from this board, we float abroad and we built a big ship. We’re going sail into the dance world, the art world, because this is our belief.
At the start of the 2005 documentary “Rize,” a dancer named Dragon tells the camera, “If you’re drowning and there’s nothing around for help but a board floating, you’re gonna reach out for that board.” He’s talking about krumping, a kind of street dance that rose up in South-Central L.A. “This was our board,” he says. “And from this board, we float abroad and we built a big ship. We’re going sail into the dance world, the art world, because this is our belief.
This is not a trend. Let me repeat, this is not a trend.”
Meanwhile, in the workout DVD “Hip Hop Abs,” which came out the following year, the instructor Shaun T engages in what might be described as a Muzak version of krumping: hunched shoulders, flailing arms and sucked-in gut, performed with a kind of neutered, male-cheerleader gusto. Behind Shaun T, a gaggle of spandexed, generic-looking fitness types bust a professional move with faintly condescending smiles pasted on their faces, as if they’re not dancing so much as spooning Geritol-laced pudding into your mouth.
The DVD promises “flat, sexy abs” but stops short of promising “abs that look like Usher’s,” the unarticulated secret desire of everyone who has ever laid eyes on Usher. Shaun T, who we’re meant to believe got that six-pack from Muzak-krumping, patiently demonstrates how to tighten your abs to the strains of “Dontcha Wish Your Girlfriend Was Hot Like Me,” a song that doesn’t seem all that apt under the circumstances. Apparently the key is to never, ever stop clenching your midsection, which suggests that videos for “Dishwashing Abs” and “Couch-Potato Abs” can’t be that far off.
The DVD promises “flat, sexy abs” but stops short of promising “abs that look like Usher’s,” the unarticulated secret desire of everyone who has ever laid eyes on Usher. Shaun T, who we’re meant to believe got that six-pack from Muzak-krumping, patiently demonstrates how to tighten your abs to the strains of “Dontcha Wish Your Girlfriend Was Hot Like Me,” a song that doesn’t seem all that apt under the circumstances. Apparently the key is to never, ever stop clenching your midsection, which suggests that videos for “Dishwashing Abs” and “Couch-Potato Abs” can’t be that far off.
This is why most of us dance these days: not to celebrate, or to pray, or to mourn, or just to survive. Instead, we dance to get abs like Usher’s.
“What are you doing?” my daughter asks, after watching me struggle with “Hip Hop Abs” for several minutes.
“This is hip-hop,” I tell her, lying through my teeth. “I am doing hip-hop.” She just nods and stares, her strained smile an exact match of the patient grimaces on my TV screen.
“This is hip-hop,” I tell her, lying through my teeth. “I am doing hip-hop.” She just nods and stares, her strained smile an exact match of the patient grimaces on my TV screen.
