Local styles such as pantsula and bhenga burst from the screen in a glossy new series featuring real dance crews. T he townships of South Africa are a fertile ground for dynamic new moves, from the pantsula dance popularised in the 80s to recent forms such as bhenga, danced to the raw, repetitive beats of gqom music or the house style amapiano. Once hyper-local trends, now you can see dancers demo-ing their skills on YouTube, dancing in streets or school yards. But another introduction to South African street dance comes by way of Netflix drama Jiva! Meet Ntombi Noxolo Dlamini , an ace dancer who gave up her dream career after a family tragedy and works at an aquarium, dressed as an octopus.
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You must have seen it by now. As a self-proclaimed fan of booty dancing in its various forms, I was instantly worried about the appropriation of yet another African-American dance following the disaster of the fake Harlem Shake. Thus while Miley Cyrus gets a free pass, the set of double-standards that lie at the heart of white privilege means that African-American women who twerk are denied the same. For a quick example, take a look at the comments below this short post featuring a video of a woman dancing in a convenience store. Find a group of Black people including men , and among them will be someone who can perform one type of booty dance or another I am yet to be disproven on this. In the United States, apart from twerking, there is the New Orleans bounce, among other forms of booty dancing.
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The dance has existed for centuries and consists of a series of movements emphasizing the buttocks. Although not viewed in the same respects as dances such and ballet or tap, when done right, it requires tremendous skill and attention. Good discussion piece.
Individually performed chiefly but not exclusively by women, [1] [2] performers dance to popular music in a sexually provocative manner involving throwing or thrusting their hips back or shaking their buttocks , often in a low squatting stance. As a tradition shaped by local aid and pleasure clubs, block parties and second lines , [7] the dance was central to "a historical situating of sissy bounce—bounce music as performed by artists from the New Orleans African-American community that [led to] a meteoric rise in popularity post-[ Hurricane Katrina after ]. The Oxford English Dictionary defines an 18th-century use of the word as a blend of " twist " and " jerk " or " twitch " , which was reported by the BBC in conjunction with the black cultural context, but this seems to be an erroneous connection or a false cognate. The Oxford Dictionaries blog states, "the most likely theory is that it is an alteration of work, because that word has a history of being used in similar ways, with dancers being encouraged to "work it". The word "twerking" first appeared on record in "Do the Jubilee All" by DJ Jubilee in , in which he chanted, "Twerk baby, twerk baby, twerk, twerk, twerk. The Oxford English Dictionary defines twerking as dancing "in a sexually provocative manner, using thrusting movements of the bottom and hips while in a low, squatting stance ". In the introduction of bounce music into New Orleans music scene brought with the dance Popular video-sharing channels such as YouTube amplified interest since the advent of digital social media platforms. Girl group Destiny's Child was the first mainstream artist to use the word in a song in their song " Jumpin' Jumpin' ". In , the dance became a viral sensation beyond black culture.
