Jesus Christ, ogged. This coming from a man who point-blank refuses to dance!? And you know who really dances lamely? Iranians.
Also, I venture to suggest that Springsteen's pants were too tight back in the 1980s to move any more loosely. He was not along in having that problem.
I know each of my African-American and Latino brethren and sistren have exquisite natural rhythm, but what of the Lur?
Hmm. On preview, JM has beaten me to the punch. Defend yourself!
And you know who really dances lamely? Iranians.
Aryans, y'know.
From the man who does not understand how people can dance to hip-hop.
And you know who really dances lamely? Iranians.
You're telling me, sister. But our womenfolk do have nice hair.
Damn, Bruce* looks young.
*I'm allowed to call him by his first name because I'm a Jersey girl.
1 really does kind of take care of any necessary comments to this post. It's NOT FUNNY to make sweeping statements about white people, Ogged. Especially sweeping statements about really embarrassing stuff.
Those YouTube videos are truly amazing.
I'm given to understand that our own and white Jackmormon can boogie
If I may brag on Fleur for a moment (do I do that?), she is a really good dancer.
And you know who really dances lamely? Iranians.
And Palestinians, IME. They're preoccupied with looking for white girls to mack on.
I'm allowed to call him by his first name because I'm a Jersey girl.
Then shouldn't you have spelled it "Brooooce"?
Did you learn nothing from the SWPL brouhaha? In the spirit of comity, let us agree that all people, everywhere, with whatever social, income-related, gender-related, or race-related characteristics they might have, dance equally well in their own special way.
I recently got some videos of me dancing to prove something to somebody. Can you all see them? No indeed.
I sure am a swell dancer, though.
Elsewhere can dance ok, and he's white as it gets. Also reputed to have danced well: Gene Kelly, Fred Astaire.
But our womenfolk do have nice hair.
That is true.
May I correct my 2nd comment? Thank you.
"along" s/b "alone"
Apparently Dancing In The Dark is for American eyes only ... Youtube tells me that "This video is not available in your country."
Bloody yanks.
God, youtube really is amazing. Here's some traditional luri dancing (although the guys are old and the camera doesn't show their feet). My family will break this out pretty much every time they get together; it has more flourish than these old dudes manage, but you get the idea.
Also reputed to have danced well: Gene Kelly, Fred Astaire.
I'm talking about boogie, gaylord.
15: Shouldn't there be some differentiation between spontaneous dancing versus rehearsed dancing?
That blooper video sucks. I think only one of those was actually funny (the one where the guy was trying to flip the woman upside down and fell on top of her). The others were just awful.
Dig that crazy reed instrument, daddy-o.
gaylord
While obvious so, so wrong, it's such a great word (curiously, because it's so awkward).
I have never seen anyone or anything - white, black, brown, or animatronic Chuck E. Cheese puppet - that dances like Bruce Springsteen in that video.
Okay, the following anecdote sounds so whitey-plays-anthropologist that I should just go ahead and write it into my future fake memoir. But whatever.
When I did Big Brothers/Big Sisters in college, the mom of my little sister's family would routinely yell "Dance Contest!" when the kids had too much energy and needed some structure. I never ever ever danced with my family in our house.
(I'm tactfully leaving unsaid the race of the family, although it's a bizarre fucking story that deserves it's own comment.)
Anyway, perhaps there are cultural differences between how much you dance at home and what kind of dancing you learn, when you are dancing at home, with your family.
18.---This is basically a hora mashed up with the electric slide, as far as I can figure. What mystifies me is why the people in the background are just standing there and watching. Surely you'd want either to dance as well or to wander off and do something more entertaining?
When I was very small, my brothers, who are much older, would put on the Ramones and jump up and down with me. My pop would put on Fred Astaire or Frank Sinatra and twirl me around.
Anyway, perhaps there are cultural differences between how much you dance at home and what kind of dancing you learn, when you are dancing at home, with your family.
I'm not sure anyone's arguing for a Genetic Theory of Dancing. (Well, maybe ogged.)
What mystifies me is why the people in the background are just standing there and watching. Surely you'd want either to dance as well or to wander off and do something more entertaining?
Next post: white people don't learn respect.
Seriously every post ogged puts up with the words "white people" in it could be summarized "I am whiter than you people."
White people also can't write html commands properly. Here's the dancing Filipino video.
24.---I know some gawky, very white, French people who learned to dance to New Wave stuff in the early 1980s who sort of manage to dance like Bruce does there. But more floaty. Bruce has that cranked-up working-class thing going on.
25.---I'm a dancing queen, but I'm pretty much the only one in my family who likes to move it move it.
(It's bizarre. So, the mom was white, and there were four children. Oldest Girl, Next Boy, Younger Girl, and Baby Boy.
Oldest Girl had a black father, who was totally out of the picture. Next Boy and Baby Boy had the same father, also black. All four kids called this man "Dad", and he was very much in the picture.
Younger Girl was the product of a one-night-stand with a white guy. So she was the only kid who looked white. BUT!! She didn't know that "Dad" was not her biological father. Any stranger walking by knows this instantly, and she had not yet been told.
I found that troubling and bizarre - she's going to feel so, so betrayed when she figures out that everyone in the whole wide world knew, except her.)
My theory is that slam dancing (and maybe punk music as whole, who knows) developed as a release from the pent up energy and frustration of white utes of the day realizing that they really, really could not dance. (And the growing disco scene just reinforced that for the slow among them.)
I never ever ever danced with my family in our house.
I used to dance with the cat to the swing years show every Saturday night. Now I dance with PK.
But I certainly never danced with my parents. Or my husband.
Oh, yes, JM. White French people are some serious white dancers.
I was in a French bistro-y place one New Year's Eve and they had pushed all the tables back after midnight and everyone was dancing. The French people were doing there dorky French people dances, but the Japanese folks who were there were locking and popping.
3: "Each . . . have" s/b "Each . . .has"
(I know my subject/verb agreement, I swear. It's just that I started with "all" and then changed it to "each." And I'm not at all defensive about it!)
25: I was kinda kidding in 13, but I was totally amazed the first time I went to a family party with my Filipino boyfriend. They had a DJ (his cousin) and a band (his dad and uncles). His parents and aunts and uncles are mostly in their fifties and sixties, and they were all flat out, get down, booty shaking dancing. It was weird, but totally awesome.
Seriously every post ogged puts up with the words "white people" in it could be summarized "I am whiter than you people."
Maybe that's the point. It's not hard to imagine that he needs to reassert that, however obliquely, in the Age of Gitmo.
38: Fanatacism about subject/verb agreement is yet another White People Sublimation Technique for defusing "inability to shake it" anxiety.
*Sigh*. I'm so out of shape these days. I swear to God I used to be able to lock and pop with the breakdancers in the gay clubs. Never with the floorwork, though.
18: Huh! I was in this bar in Istanbul and people were very very into roping everyone into doing a dance very much like that. I think they were Kurds.
dancing at home, with your family
See, this concept is foreign to us.
I'll bet there's a correlation among populations between sinning dancing and sinning high birth rates.
The Egyptian side of my family likes to shake their collective booties (belly-dancing-style), of course at pretty much any family gathering. Birthday parties, new year's, etc.
Fanatacism about subject/verb agreement is yet another White People Sublimation Technique for defusing "inability to shake it" anxiety.
w-lfs-n?
I went to a white/Filipino wedding one time, and the pinnacle of awesomeness was the moment that everyone came out onto the floor and did the Electric Slide.
Now that I look back on it, I don't think there were many other---any other?---white people out on the dancefloor for it. It was such a great moment of cross-cultural communication, though.
I'll bet there's a correlation among populations between sinning dancing and sinning high birth rates.
People who know how to dance know how to do other things. It's all in the hips.
a dance very much like that. I think they were Kurds
Traditional Kurdish dances are very similar to luri dance. Slightly different footwork, etc.
Yeah, there was a lot of hand-holding and foot stuff I didn't understand.
46.---I went to a Sikh wedding once, where all the men and some married women were doing this totally cool knee-bendy dance, and the young women told me that they weren't allowed to dance because only whores danced before marriage, but I could go ahead if I wanted.
Not a fun time.
Traditional Kurdish dances are very similar to luri dance.
Do you actually know that or are you just goofing off? (I like the idea that Little [Locations] arrange themselves within a city as on a world map, so that the Lur might be relatively close to the Kurdish immigrants and see their dances.)
Traditional Kurdish dances are very similar to luri dance.
Kurdistan and Luristan are pretty close to each other.
Do you actually know that or are you just goofing off?
No kidding.
53 is hilarious. So, please tell us: did you throw caution to the wind and get out on the floor, or no?
34: May not be as totally obvious as all that. It's been known for kids with two "black" parents to come out "white" and vice versa, if there's some "black" or "white" a little ways back on the family tree. (This was a sure source of scandal in South African families, there are stories in Ye Olde Family History of kids being disowned on account of this.)
OT, you know what's awesome? Making plans to visit with a friend you haven't seen in a while and then running across a missing persons notice with their face on it. Christ.
Wait, my knees lock and pop constantly -- especially if it's going to rain. Does this mean I am a good dancer?
53 is hilarious.
53 is depressing.
Sir Kraab: banned.
59.2: Meaning that you were making plans and now they've disappeared? Or that you've been making plans and have meantime found out that someone else thinks they've disappeared?
No kidding.
Is that "Not kidding" or "No kidding, it would be funny if immigrant populations arranged themselves in that way"? And if the former, is that just random, or are there traditionally ties between immigrant Iranians and immigrant Kurds? (I want to learn about your mysterious foreign ways.)
My family does the Virginia Reel and Oh Johnny Oh when we get together. Because no one does dorky like a room full of Jewish academics re-claiming their Appalachian roots.
People who know how to dance know how to do other things. It's all in the hips.
So, Filipino boyfriend, eh?
Even as a young man Max Weinberg looks like an old man.
And yeah, except for all the pelvic thrusting, that's pretty much how I dance. What can I say, I was a ska kid. My skanking can't be beat, but I never learned how to do anything else.
For being even more humorless than B? You ain't seen nothin' yet.
And if the former, is that just random, or are there traditionally ties between immigrant Iranians and immigrant Kurds?
I don't know why you keep phrasing this in terms of immigrant groups. See 55.
What can I say, I was a ska kid
My gawd, how can this be true? Aren't you like eight (or twenty two)? Time is out of joint.
My one aunt and uncle were dancing to the bluegrass band at the wedding of one of my cousins. Aside from that I don't think I've ever seen anyone in my family dance, anyone who was older than me that is.
May not be as totally obvious as all that. It's been known for kids with two "black" parents to come out "white" and vice versa, if there's some "black" or "white" a little ways back on the family tree.
I believe that in some cases, weird things happen. But srsly - she was blond with blue eyes, and the other three kids were all normal-mocha-mixed color.
My gawd, how can this be true? Aren't you like eight (or twenty two)? Time is out of joint.
Ska comes back every 15 years or so, then it leaves again.
62: Making plans as in "was planning to drop in on them and say hello," but since discovered they're officially Missing Persons. Police involved and everything.
are there traditionally ties between immigrant Iranians and immigrant Kurds?
Follow the map down to the lower right. There's Khorramabad.
I know some gawky, very white, French people who learned to dance to New Wave stuff in the early 1980s who sort of manage to dance like Bruce does there. But more floaty. Bruce has that cranked-up working-class thing going on.
When I was in college in the early to mid eighties a lot of people used to dance like that.
This video has a pretty good example:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ePJb9kmJk1A
That's nuts, DS. Thinking positive thoughts for your friend.
57, 58.---I was only 13 at the time. I figured it was strange enough that I was the only white girl there, no need to impose further.
[It was the wierdest day of my life up to then. My mother had been the groom's uncle's ESL teacher. She had given him a "most improved student" award, and he had very earnestly told her that she must come to his nephew's wedding. She'd been planning on wriggling out of it when I botched a telephone message about it, replying that "oh yeah, I think she's going to go to that wedding."
So she---and I---became honored guests to this super-traditional, arranged marriage out in Fremont. We were there for the pre-wedding breakfast, the presentation of the bride, the gift-giving, the temple ceremony, and then, at the end, the feast and dancing. We wanted so badly to sneak off, but we'd left our car at their house and had gone over in a carpool. Trapped. Eventually, we'd had really enough, and we gave back our headscarves and demanded to be taken back to our car.]
Seriously every post ogged puts up with the words "white people" in it could be summarized "I am whiter than you people."
But if he really wants to pull it off he has to get beyond the pale imitation of whiteness he sees with the coastal elites. (This post is closer than some.) Come all the way in, ogged, leverage your dislike of cities as motivation to come to the land of jello, lawn balls, chex mix and astroturf front porches. There is a deep ancestral part of you (predating that unfortunate sojourn among the Medes) that is pining for the steppes.
My gawd, how can this be true? Aren't you like eight (or twenty two)?
23 (and a half!).
Third-wave ska, so I'm not all authentic-like, but it had a renaissance in that '97-'00 period.
A la 79, that would be an awesome thread: what was the weirdest day of your life?
What is this "ska" dance? The few I've looked at on youtube all look different.
Follow the map down to the lower right. There's Khorramabad.
Interesting. But do people set up communities regionally, or by nationality (if that makes sense). Or is it that Kurds are a large part of the Iranian immigrant population? (You should totally tell me to shut up, btw.)
Now I also don't understand why you're on about immigrants. The two groups are neighbors; they share some bits of language, music, dance, dress, etc.
83.---"Skanking": it's like high-step jogging in place with a bad stomach cramp.
83: Skanking. Look at . . . who's record label is that? With the skanking guy on it? Well, I would be terrified to look up "skanking" on YouTube.
Some younger Lurs here. Not quite as frozen-from-the-knees-up as my people, but close.
77,78: thnx.
83: The "Aunt Jackie" dance is ideal for ska.
What is this "ska" dance?
This is pretty much it (though that's from an earlier iteration of ska). Adjust for tempo and general raucousness of the performance, and there you have it.
67: W00t!
74: Ayiyi. That's horrible. Condolences.
My mother had been the groom's uncle's ESL teacher.
Ah, well, in that case, right. Good thing you didn't. I was imagining that this was for a friend or something.
Pick it up pick it up pick it up pick it up pick it up pick it up pick it up pick it up pick it up pick it up pick it up pick it up pick it up pick it up pick it up pick it up pick it up pick it up pick it up pick it up pick it up pick it up pick it up pick it up pick it up pick it up pick it up pick it up pick it up pick it up pick it up pick it up pick it up pick it up pick it up pick it up pick it up pick it up pick it up pick it up pick it up pick it up pick it up pick it up pick it up pick it up pick it up pick it up pick it up pick it up pick it up pick it up pick it up pick it up pick it up pick it up pick it up pick it up pick it up pick it up pick it up pick it up pick it up pick it up pick it up
91: That's a charming video, for some reason. Seeing the album cover is just weird and a bit time-bending.
This is what I was thinking of, but of course it's a still.
This is pretty much it
Ah, thanks. Note that she breaks out the white hip sway halfway into her performance.
My friend and his wife, both white lutherans from Iowa, have an adopted daughter of Afro-Latin descent. At three, she dances like a total spaz. I sense a memoir in the making.
If you must link to Springsteen not dancing, you might as well link to him not dancing to something danceable with his dancing hat on.
I have a few old injuries that make dancing unfun, but I'm so white the occasion never comes up.
What is this "ska" dance?
It's called "the Running Man," ogged. So easy, even a Turk can do it.
(And DS, so sorry to hear that.)
98.---That does look like the Jamiroquai dude's hat.
101----"That girl is POI-SON!!" Oh man. That brings it all back...awkward dances in the gym, girls standing in a circle, not daring to draw any attention to ourselves, a surreptitious bum-waggle occasionally.
18: the comments to that video are absolutely hilarious.
Love the traditional garb, too.
That brings it all back...awkward dances in the gym, girls standing in a circle, not daring to draw any attention to ourselves, a surreptitious bum-waggle occasionally.
I spent all week praying one of the male vocalists on American Idol would cover "Iesha."
There is no God.
Ska was big with my group in college.
On a family video my sister at age 18 months dances (all booty) to In-a-Gadda-Da-Vida.
"That girl is POI-SON!!"
You never trust a big butt and a smile.
97: I truly think that all three year olds dance like that.
I remember last year at the strawberry festival, they had a James Brown-type cover band, and PK and I danced, and these little black girls who were probably no more than a year or two older than he is (and were *much* better dancers) totally looked at him with that "omg, you're totally kidding, right?" look. Their mom thought it was cute, though.
White, traditional, and in football jerseys. Naturally. Dancing starts around 1:00 in.
Dionne Warwick and Springsteen should record something together. Evidence.
OK, while I think it's true that their voices sound good together, I really just wanted to link to it to remind us all of the horror. (And for the youngsters, perhaps to introduce them to it.)
I can't believe that song is over 7 minutes long.
Compare and contrast to 110. (Try to ignore the non-syncing of audio and video.)
111: Everyone had to get their share of the limelight. For the world.
Matt F, I have your back on the third wave skanking. Of course, in Kansas, we were so forward thinking we started doing it in 1994 and quit in 1996, but Kansas is sorta the future. We had some really "good" ska-punk bands out in the countryside west of where I lived, and we'd all drive out there and smoke cigarettes and do the kind of skanking where you use a lot of elbows and then end up moshing violently for the rest of the show. Good times, lotsa bruises.
Oops. I meant Dionne Warwick & Willie Nelson. I've got Bruce on the brain.
(Hey, Sir K, can you drop me an e-mail?)
And DS, yikes. Talk about disorienting, to say the least. I hope everything turns out OK.
In the spirit of today's "gayest songs ever" list, this post should've been titled "Yes Sir, I Can Boogie."
Also #1 gets it exactly right.
91 is way more graceful than any skanking I've seen in the past. Impressive 'hawk, too.
Ogged, will you ever give up on trolling white people?
Just think of my career on the blog as one long Sista Soulja moment.
Kansas is sorta the future.
Indeed, they've gone about as fur as they can go.
91: Huh. I dance a sort of combination ska/reggae and something hip swaying which has no name -- and that video is dancing to The English Beat? That's about right, when I started to incorporate that; or rather a bit later, when people were listening to the Special AKA. I did not know that hip swaying is white.
I can't believe this skanking thing has a name. I think of this as a pretty canonical variation of the white hippie dance.
125: I think of this as a pretty canonical variation of the white hippie dance.
Only if the white hippies in question were smoking sherm or something. White hippies do a lot of swaying, and if they're female, raising their arms and looking up at the ceiling with a blissed out expression. That's the canonical white hippie dance.
I've gone to a few ska shows in my time, and always been disappointed that there weren't more people up for actual skanking. If I'm drunk enough to forget how much I want to change my clothes, my hair and my face, I do kind of a modified skank with some wobblieness to get real loose.
and if they're female, raising their arms and looking up at the ceiling with a blissed out expression. That's the canonical white hippie dance.
Now, now, nix on the blissed out expression, though I know what you mean. The real bliss-outs (sometimes called bliss chicks) are freeform.
But I want to say hmph. What the hell is sherm?
Anyway, this skanking, which I think of as just ska dancing, is not canonical white hippie.
I'm thinking of the white hippie dance that has a bouncy kind of spin to it; there's swooshy sway-y stuff with the head and and shoulders, but the feet and hips can be sort of herky jerky. This skank variation does get the head down, that's true. But it has that same characteristic loosey-goosey sort of way about it.
Skanking is sort of stompy and decisive in a very non-hippie way. Not a hippie dance.
I just totally disagree with this characterization of the hippie dance. But I will concede that my personal data sample for the hippie dance might be heavily tainted by the raver dance.
As I have mentioned, we have regular dance parties at my house. (In front of our big, shade-less windows in the front of the house.)
Of course, I am certain that we look like idiots.
My background is dancing at dead shows. Very silly dancing.
People know different types of "hippies," that's for sure. Where does prancing around and smiling broadly, possibly while waving your arms or weaving your hands, fit in?
I haven't been to a rave-type thing in forever.
sherm=PCP, or perhaps cannabis laced with PCP
If the bliss chicks are not canonical hippies, who is?
I think some people may have watched canonical male hippie dancing at some point, but since they wound up putting out their eyes, cutting out their tongues and covering themselves in sackcloth and ashes, forever to wander the earth as outcasts from society, it's hard to be sure.
It's the prancing that I see as the basis for skanking being derivative. That jog-in-place business is basically just hippie prancing with more condensed arm movements.
My daughter has her own awesome dance move. She puts one foot forward and one foot back, and bounces. She thinks she is very cool when she does it.
My daughter is into this full body crunk sort of dance right now. My favorite is when she asks for us to all dance together, which means my husband and I pick her up and smush her between our chests while bobbing up and down. She loves it.
We should plan a dance party, will. Hippies, ravers and skanks welcome.
133.1: Oh. PCP? WTF? Hippies don't do that shit.
133.2: They are. We might not be talking about the same people. I'm talking about lovely early-20s girls at rainbow gatherings or Dead shows. They're on another planet, but it's pot at most.
133.3: Friend, I have seen male hippie dancing, and it charmed me and caused me to hug and kiss. Whether it was canonical male hippie dancing, I cannot know.
134: No. The prancing I mean is just like little kids parading around. I think you're not really getting ska dancing, which is totally different.
That would be fabulous, Sybil. My kids would love to play with your daughter.
139: maybe the youtube kids just are not doing it well. But I was at a wedding in Jamaica last year and all the white hippie kids were doing some approximation of what is here being called ska dancing and it struck me, at the time, as a modification of the hippie dance.
Poor Sybil. It's like she's already 30.
And yet every time I buy smokes I get carded. The injustice of it all.
Is there a canonical Youtube of crunk and its associated dance style towards which someone could direct me? I've been under a rock for awhile.
It's OK, Ogged -- we can't dance, but we rule the earth. So it balances out.
145: start and finish with the movie Rize, if you ask me. The trailer.
Sifu is riight. You can see how this is ideally suited for a 2 yr old delighted with her gross motor skillz.
92, 101, 116: Thanks.
On the upside, it's a teaching moment. He apparently vanished while bar-hopping on his lonesome, which tempts me to re-evaluate certain elements of my own lifestyle.
150: sweet geez, though. If anything should be safe, it should be getting drunk with random strangers.
sherm=PCP, or perhaps cannabis laced with PCP
I can only imagine what Charlie Brown thinks about this.
Ever see Ben Stiller's old Bruce Springsteen impression from The Ben Stiller Show? He had Springsteen's weird body movements exactly duplicated. It was basically the whole act.
This is bugging me. The bliss chicks are not canonical hippies; they only appear so to the generation of 20- and 30-somethings.
Rize is a great movie, and the dancing is amazing.
Hippie dancing is not ska dancing. Sybil is young, too old, and wrong.
Hm. That doesn't look so very different from stuff I've seen before. I should check out the movie itself---I am of course a sucker for a good dance-off.
Nobody knows where hippie dancing originated, or why, but skanking originated in Carribbean dance halls in the 50s and 60s, and is not derivative of hippie dancing at all. The white version of skanking is considerably more jerky and ballistic, but still doesn't resemble hippie dancing at all.
Here's a quality example of hippie dancing.
And I can't find it but the Chappelle show had a great episode about white/latin/black dancing styles.
Hippie dancing is dancing with the dancing removed. Very zen, hippies.
157: by all accounts it's a wonderful movie.
158: Yeah! That's hippie dancing! Only reason he's not movin' his feet a little more is 'cause he's balancing on a rock later.
Nobody knows where hippie dancing originated, or why
Heh.
That's how I dance most times, but most of the music you encounter these days calls for some lifting of the knees, I think. And reggae dancing -- how do people dance to "Buffalo Soldier"? This is all starting to make me a little dreamy.
I didn't read the thread, but I think we can appreciate (at least ironically) these white people dancing:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36e9kZcRWGI
or
http://fr.youtube.com/watch?v=VquW5MLCe_8&feature=related
or
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h60qYmtN6V0&feature=related
The first time eekbeat and I tried to dance at a rock show, we quickly grew frustrated. Some brief dancing analysis revealed that her moves were basically along a vertical axis (a sort of modified up-and-down hoppy skanking thing, she a child of ska, much like MattF it seems), while I was moving along a horizontal axis (hips-based dancing, as my first dancing lessons were Latino dances: merengue, salsa, bachata, cumbia, etc.).
That night we established a strict and longstanding agreement that we are to dance near each other but not with each other (except slow songs, but that's not really dancing).
For the record I also note: I have been known, at any given moment, to break into an 'N Sync-style hop-around dance, embarrassing myself and all those who accompany me. I even have video evidence, but alas, I shall not link, for it was filmed for work (really!).
Just for the record:
101 - skanking =/ the running man at all.
At every family gathering my uncles will usually dance in the sean nós style - like this
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=svZvAfGQ3J4
It's basically improvised. They take turns or do a sort of "dance-off". My dad used to too, before he got sick.
What happend to my details? Damn you, "Remember personal info?", you forgot me!
The video linked in 18 is awesome. I wish my ethnic group still made music and danced together, rather than watching other people do it on TV. If you go far enough down the socioeconomic scale you can still find white people who make their own music recreationally. When Molly and I were bicycling across the country we saw some of that in RV parks. But that's about it.
Also, many of the comments in the youtube video are dumb.
Now I'm going to finish reading the thread work.
oh also, I dance with my kids at home every day, and this insures that they will grow up to be like me, a white person who cannot dance. Seriously, Molly sees the kids copying my moves and cringes.
At every family gathering my uncles will usually dance in the sean nós style - like this
Emir:
That is exactly how we dance at my house. Except we flay our arms much more, bob our heads, and our feet and legs are not nearly as coordinated.
Oh, how I wish I could dance.
At my brother's wedding, my son (then 6) did the Mr. Roboto dance. So sad.
Heh. I love the several-hundred comment thread on various embarrassingly lame styles of dancing, and yet the next time someone like me mentions not dancing because they're not good at it, there's guaranteed to be a chorus of 'No, everyone can dance! It's all about expressing your joy!'
LB:
Everyone is still dancing. We are just admitting that it is lame dancing.
Yup. Be free, and open, and express your joy, by doing something you're unskilled at in a context where lack of skill is humiliating!
Pass.
172: We'll be laughing with you not at you. Trust us.
LB:
To quote Everclear:
"They cannot hurt you unless you let them."
Sure. People might laugh at you. Who cares?
172: Dude, safe bet you're dancing around other uncoordinated white people. It's not humiliating to be average.
Oh, I just find the Catch-22 funny. Dancing is one of those things that people will try to guilt-trip everyone into doing, and then turn right around and make fun of people who do it badly.
I'll dance when I feel like it -- I take the kids out on the dance floor at weddings, without worrying about what an idiot I look like. But it's not likely to ever be a major pastime for me.
Cala is correct. In every crowd of people dancing, there are only one or two couples who are really good. Everyone else is relatively silly looking.
You probably aren't special enough (ie dancing noticably bad or good) for people to spend much time looking at you.
175: I think the perfidious Italians are reputed to have a sense of rhythm. Your sense of "average" may be different from others.
You probably aren't special enough
Again with the guilt-tripping.
Looking through the linked videos I see that I actually can dance in a variety of styles available to white people. I can do the ska and running man dances in 163 and 91. Mostly, though, I do the hippy dance in 158 and the dork in 76.
People always think that everyone is talking about them or looking at them. Unsubstantiated paranoia. They think that they have some special horrible problems. Nope. Lots of people have problems.
That was my only point.
It takes effort to be noticed enough to be mocked.
Looking through the linked videos I see that I actually can dance in a variety of styles available to white people.
Shortly after my divorce, I dated a younger woman. (I was 31; she was 22.)
When she brought me to a club, I saw a dancing style that I hadn't seen when I was younger:
The girl bends over and the guy or guys get behind her and making humping and butt slapping motions.
All I could think about was that I was way too old to be at this club.
My theory is that white people are bad at dancing because they never, ever dance.
183:
Plus, no role models at home when they are growing up. Like emir's situation, when you see good dancing at family events, you learn how to do it.
Unsubstantiated paranoia.
And the guilt-tripping continues.
It's just a funny area, where people will natter on endlessly about what depressingly awful dancers big segments of the population are (see most of this thread), but mentioning that you don't dance much because you're a member of that large segment of the population that does it badly brings on commentary about how irrational you are to think anyone notices.
183: This is true: it's a skill like anything else. I'm sure I'd dance fine if I'd spent my childhood, teens and twenties dancing four nights a week.
185: Some people dance, even though they don't want to, for America. Because they're patriots.
Ok. Fine. LB is the worst dancer in every crowd. Therefore, we would all notice her.
You aren't satisfied until you win a prize, are you LB? Everyone has to get a superlative.
Fine. You can be the worst dancer.
187: Or when someone's shooting at their feet saying "Dance, varmint!"
baa got it right the last time we talked about this.
190: That's an acceptable position for a Republican to have: they're anti-fun. But absent agreement on the universality of the enjoyment of dancing, the whole case for liberalism falls apart.
That is a different topic, Ogged.
There is a difference between "I dont do it bc people will make fun of me" and "I dont like to dance."
192: but both are factors involved in the decision of whether to dance or not.
If you like to dance, then the threshold of people-making-fun-of-you will have to be way higher to prevent you from dancing.
There is a difference between "I dont do it bc people will make fun of me" and "I dont like to dance."
Who the fuck cares? People are shy about various things; as general rule, bullying them into it doesn't make them more comfortable with it.
I was raised by a mother who loves to dance and is terrible at it. When I was little, she'd teach my brother and I how to disco-dance and stuff, all completely useless skills now. So I've grown up to be just like my mom on the dance floor---totally enthusiastic and awful. Sometimes my enthusiasm carries the day, but it's certainly not skill. Most of you have seen this in action.
Not bullying, Tim. Creating a safe, nurturing environment where people feel comfortable to express their inner Jackmormon.
Please. Come into the womb of safe dancing.
Young men, hark and heed! Take a ballroom dance class. Or a couple of swing lessons. Why?
White people can't dance. White men are in even worse shape. The class will give you the knowledge of how to move, and the confidence that comes with it. (Lo, the many times the young men, they complain that they'd like to dance but they don't know what to do!) White women can't dance, but the ones you're talking to probably have enough childhood dance lessons to be able to fake it. Plus, you're leading.
And then the women flock to you! Exploit this evolutionary niche!
Will, I used to think I'd like you if we met. Dance-encouragers are bad people.
Excellent point by Cala. I am really glad that I took ballroom dancing and latin dancing as an adult. I just wish that I had done it when I was younger.
(I still cant do it well. )
Ogged, don't be scared. Come tango with me. Press your cheek against mine and feel the music.
You're going to have to white it up without me.
I took a ballroom dancing class as a teenager. It did not bear any resemblance to any of the dancing that anyone would ever expect me to do later in life. Also, it consisted of me dancing with my sister, thus providing mental associations that would ensure that organized dancing was one of the last things I would ever want to do with someone I was romantically interested in.
You want to know what is white?
Our favorite meals are very white:
1. Making Indian food from a packet
2. sushi
3. Ethiopian food
Those are the new white urban people meals.
Somewhere in existence is a video of me and my sisters at my cousin's wedding, dancing to Cotton-Eyed Joe and doing whatever line dance it was that calasister#2 had taught me 30 seconds before. It was a blast, and thanks to the magic of low standards, everyone kept coming up to my mom praising her daughters' dancing.
My class was too slow. It was all about remembering the steps and making sure that you didn't do something other than what your partner was doing.
Guess what, people don't care about that in real life. And they don't dance to extremely slow music in real life. They dance to upbeat music, and during the slow music they stand around talking or possibly sway back and forth while hugging.
Basically my point is, do not under any circumstances take a "ballroom dance" class. Take a "swing dance" class.
Depends on the class. I'd recommend learning the International Latin set over Standard. Swing is probably more fool-proof.
It was a blast, and thanks to the magic of low standards, everyone kept coming up to my mom praising her daughters' dancing.
never underestimate the power of alcohol to lower standards in all domains. Truly it is the gods' gift.
Heavens! You never nag people to dance! You just ask them if they'd like to, and if they shake their heads unsmilingly and look away, you shrug lightly, wink, and spin on out to the dance floor yourself. And make a fool of yourself, no doubt.
I'm going to remember this thread the next time someone suggests that my lack of enthusiasm for team sports is problematic, you know. "What baa said," I'll reply.
Heavens! You never nag people to dance smoke pot! You just ask them if they'd like to, and if they shake their heads unsmilingly and look away, you shrug lightly, wink, and spin on out to the dance floor yourself think, "All the more for me then." And make a fool of yourself, no doubt.
