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Twerking

Found at: gopherpedia.com:70/Twerking


		

		
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=                              Twerking                              =
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                             Introduction                             
======================================================================
Twerking (; possibly from 'to work') is a type of dance that emerged
from the bounce music scene of New Orleans in the 2010s which has a
broader origin among other types of dancing found among the African
diaspora that derives from Bantu-speaking Africans of Central Africa.
Individually performed chiefly but not exclusively by women,
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. Twerking is part of a
larger set of characteristic moves unique to the New Orleans style of
hip-hop known as "bounce". Moves include "mixing", "exercising", the
"bend over", the "shoulder hustle", "clapping", "booty clapping",
"booty poppin", "the sleeper" and "the wild wood"—all recognized as
booty shaking or bounce. Twerking is one among other types of
choreographic gestures within bounce.

		
As a tradition shaped by local aid and pleasure clubs, block parties
and second lines, 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-."  In the 1990s, twerking had widespread appeal in black party
culture throughout the hip-hop/rap region known as The Dirty South,
including New Orleans, Memphis, Virginia Beach, Miami, Atlanta, and
Houston. In 2013, it became the top "what is" search on the Google
search engine following pop artist Miley Cyrus performing the dance at
the MTV Video Music Awards.

		

		
                              Etymology                               
======================================================================
A 2013 Oxford Dictionaries blog post 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". Local bounce practitioners attribute the term to a contraction of
"to work" ("t'work"; or, spelled as it's pronounced, "twerk").

		
The Oxford English Dictionary defines an early 19th-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.
The word is said to have originated from the inner-city of New Orleans
and was used frequently in New Orleans bounce music by rappers and DJ
hosting block parties in the housing projects. On record, the 1993
song "Do the Jubilee All" by DJ Jubilee - which contains the lyrics
"Twerk baby, twerk baby, twerk, twerk, twerk" - has been cited as its
earliest use. However, a possible earlier use is in Funkadelic's 1979
song (Not Just) Knee Deep, which contains the lyrics "It didn't twerk,
no" (often misquoted as "It didn't work, no") at 1 minutes 20 seconds.

		
The word became popular in the 2000s, when it was used by Atlanta
rapper Lil Jon and The East Side Boyz. A Google Trends search reveals
that interest in the word "twerk" arose in November 2011.

		
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". Merriam-Webster gives the
definition as a "sexually suggestive dancing characterized by rapid,
repeated hip thrusts and shaking of the buttocks especially while
squatting".

		
The Oxford English Dictionary's definition of the term may fuel the
stigma around twerking as a sexual and provocative dance.

		

		
                                Origin                                
======================================================================
Pérez (2015) states:

		
Booty dances have threatened the status quo by emphasizing group
membership, the free movement of forceful Black bodies, and
Afro-Diasporic counter-narratives. The Colombian mapalé, or baile
negro, is a case in point. Mapalé recalls the fish tail dances of the
North American plantation; Davila writes that ‘the fish’s movements
after they are captured resemble [the dance’s] pelvic and midriff
contractions to the beat of the drum’ (Davila 2009, 120). ‘The only
dance that was permitted during times of Spanish rule’, mapalé became
associated with rebellion through its liberatory insistence on the
body’s value as a vector for the transmission of ancestral knowledge
(Davila 2009, 120). ‘Where dance on a social level was criminalized,
in Mapalé, it continues to be an indestructible force of
Afro-Colombian identity within the fabric of the Atlantic Coast’
(Davila 2009, 134). The batuque, with its ‘artificial rotations and
contortions of the hip’ was officially suppressed, as were candombe
and the bongo (quoted in Röhrig Assunção 2003, 167). The consensus is
that such dances cognate to twerk - as indicated by their names and
presence among Bantu-language-speaking slaves - are Central African in
origin. A number of scholars well versed in the matter have arrived at
Kubik’s conclusion: ‘motional emphasis on the pelvis, buttocks, etc.,
especially pelvis thrusts or circular pelvis movements described in
United States jazz dance history as “Congo grind” are always suspect
of a Congo/Angola background’ (Kubik 1979, 20).

		

		
                              Precursors                              
======================================================================
Pérez (2015) states:

		
The historically proximate precursors to twerk are as seldom cited as
its analogues. Twerk emerged from earlier movement styles, like ‘the
up-and-back hip-swinging bowed-legged movements of a dance called the
Tootsie Roll’ and p[ussy]-popping (Gaunt 2006, 285). As Miller notes,
‘it is likely that P-Popping constitutes an expression of what
Chadwick Hansen identified in the late 1960s as “a long tradition of
erotic shaking dances in America”, which “have clearly been continuous
within the Negro community”’ (Miller 2012, 98). Some of the earliest
footage of such moves may be seen in clips of the legendary Joséphine
Baker. Picart writes, ‘[Baker biographer Phyllis] Rose conjectures
that Baker’s frenzied improvisational “stomach dance” was probably
derived from moves related to the belly dance: the Shake, the Shimmy,
the Mess Around - all of which were popular with New York Black jazz
dancers in 1920s’ (Picart 2013, 58). Other ‘serpentine’ dances that
presaged twerk are the Georgia crawl and ‘the sensuous grind’ called
ballin’ the jack, both with their heyday in the nineteen-teens (Gaunt
2012, 108; George-Graves 2009, 59; Oliver 1999, 107-108). In the same
period, ‘From Florida came the Swamp Shimmy, in which vigorous
undulations of body, hips, and limbs made up for lack of forward
movement’ (Oliver 1960, 149). The historical record indicates that
dances like twerk date to the antebellum period in the American South.
Enslaved people performed sinuous snake hip and fish tail dances on
plantations during festivals and special gatherings, such as
celebratory dinners. Perhaps tellingly, like the snake hip movement,
twerk can serve as an ‘embellishment’ or ‘an independent dance in its
own right’ (Hazzard-Gordon 1990, 123).

		

		
                             Twerk dance                              
======================================================================
In 1990, the introduction of bounce music into the New Orleans music
scene brought along the dance of twerking. In 1992, Panama singer
Renato recorded the videoclip "El más sensual" (the most sexy), a
reggae song with the twerking dance.

		
The diffusion of the dance phenomenon began earlier via local parties
and eventually strip clubs often associated with mainstream rap music
and video production aired by video cable television shows that
featured rap music and R&B music. Popular video-sharing platforms
such as YouTube amplified interest since the advent of digital social
media.

		
Twerking can also be seen in Destiny's Child’s 2001 Bootylicious music
video, in Beyoncé’s 2003 Crazy in Love  music video, in Eminem's 2005
Ass Like That music video, and in Rihanna’s 2013 Pour It Up music
video.

		

		
 Rise to national attention 
============================
Twerking first received national recognition in the United States in
the early 2000s, when the song "Whistle While You Twurk" (2000), by
Southern hip hop duo Ying Yang Twins, peaked at number 17 on the
'Billboard' Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs component chart. It was later
referenced in their later track "Say I Yi Yi" (2002), in which the
lyrics "she got her hands up on her knees and her elbows on her thighs
/ she like to twerk and that's for certain I can tell that she fly"
are heard. The chorus of Silkk the Shocker's 2001 song "That's Cool"
features the line "Somebody that's off the chain / who could twerk
that thang.”

		
R&B and pop girl group Destiny's Child was the first mainstream
American girl group to use the word in a song in their song "Jumpin'
Jumpin'". Beyoncé made use of the word and dance in her 2005 song and
corresponding music video "Check on It".

		
In 2013, the dance became a viral sensation beyond African-American
popular culture, when pop singer Miley Cyrus used the dance in a video
that was uploaded first on Facebook and then on YouTube in March which
then later became a viral meme throughout social media outlets. Though
twerking began trending as a web search in November 2011, and despite
its origins in the bounce culture of New Orleans in the late 1980s,
the word twerk would be added to the 'Oxford Dictionary Online' and
attributed to Cyrus following her appearance at the MTV VMA Awards in
August 2013. It became the number one "what is" Google search that
year as those outside the culture questioned the popularity of the
dance. The word was a runner-up to "selfie" in the Oxford Dictionaries
Word of the Year 2013.

		

		
 ''Billboard'' charts 
======================
In 2006, the hit single "SexyBack", by American pop singer Justin
Timberlake, featuring Timbaland, from the former's second studio album
'Futuresex/Lovesounds', featured Timbaland rapping the lyrics "Let me
see what you're twerking with / Go ahead, be gone with it, Look at
those hips".
In 2007, the song "Pop, Lock & Drop It", by American rapper Huey,
reached number six on the US 'Billboard' Hot 100.

		
The 2012 single "Bandz a Make Her Dance" by Juicy J contains the lyric
"Start twerking when she hear her song", while French Montana
questions the ability of a girl to twerk by asking "What you twerkin'
with?" in his 2012 single "Pop That" featuring fellow rappers Drake,
Lil Wayne and Rick Ross. The aforementioned songs, along with "Express
Yourself" by Nicky Da B and Diplo, "made twerking the most popular
dance move since the Dougie". In 2014, the song "Anaconda" by Nicki
Minaj peaked at number 2 on the 'Billboard' Hot 100, makes numerous
allusions to twerking.

		
In November 2018, the City Girls released a song called "Twerk"
featuring rapper Cardi B which peaked on the US 'Billboard' Hot 100 at
number 29. The lyrics to the song
("Twerk-twerk-twerk-twerk-twerk-twerk with her") is self-explanatory
as to how the City Girls wanted to grab the attention of their female
audience. The music video has over 200 million views on YouTube as of
June 2022.

		

		
 In the media 
==============
In 2011, the Twerk Team, a group of female dancers from Atlanta who
have posted several videos of themselves twerking on YouTube, were
mentioned during the song "Round of Applause" by Waka Flocka Flame
featuring Drake, in the line "Bounce that ass, shake that ass like the
Twerk Team". Australian rapper Iggy Azalea has incorporated twerking
into her live shows since 2011. In July 2012, during the 'Workaholics'
episode "The Lord's Force", Anders Holm says "Let's just, uh, put on
some twerk videos or something, right?".

		
In March 2013, American pop singer Miley Cyrus posted a video on
Facebook which featured her performing a twerking routine while
wearing a unicorn suit, to the 2011 single "Wop" by J. Dash. The
popularity of the video, along with parodies and responses made by
fans, influenced the song's re-emergence on the 'Billboard' Hot 100.
Miley Cyrus's "Wop" video would go to become viral. By April 9, 2013,
copies of the video had amassed over 4 million views on YouTube. Also
in March 2013, Mollie King, an English singer-songwriter and lead
vocalist of British-Irish girl group The Saturdays, was seen twerking
when her bandmate Rochelle Humes uploaded the footage on YouTube.
American actress and singer Vanessa Hudgens was also seen twerking in
March on American late-night talk show 'The Tonight Show with Jay
Leno'. In September 2013, Hudgens was later seen twerking, this time
to the song "Bubble Butt", during her performance at Bootsy Bellows in
West Hollywood, with her girl group YLA. Hudgens was again seen
twerking in a video for Shade 45's radio show 'Sway in the Morning'.
American actress and singer Ashley Tisdale can also be seen twerking
in a video for Shade 45's radio show 'Sway in the Morning'.

		
On July 9, 2013, a video was posted on the Twitter-owned video sharing
service Vine entitled "Twerk Team", which featured a group of five
women provocatively twerking to "Don't Drop That Thun Thun". The clip
was shared by users over 100,000 times, becoming a trend for the
community and users created their own responses and parodies featuring
the song, collected under the hashtags "#dontdropthat" and
"#thunthun". The viral popularity of the Vine clips led to an
unexpected increase in sales for the song; prior to the posting of the
"Twerk Team" clip, only 4,000 copies of the song had been sold; in the
following weeks, sales went up to 34,000, then to over 72,000. By late
July, "Don't Drop That Thun Thun" had reached #5 on 'Billboard''s
R&B/Hip-Hop Digital Songs chart, and it eventually peaked at #35
on the 'Billboard' Hot 100 chart.

		
Both "Wop" and "Don't Drop That Thun Thun" have been cited as examples
of how viral and user-created videos can bring renewed interest to
songs; 'Spin' writer Jordan Sargent considered "Wop" to be rap music's
"Harlem Shake moment", but not a meme to the same extent as it. In
April 2013, American rapper Danny Brown released the song "Express
Yourself", inspired by music producer Diplo's song of the same name.
The song, produced by Trampy, features a fast-paced electronic beat
and is a composition about the popular dance craze twerking. Brown
dedicated the song "to all the ladies that like to turn up and have
fun," in which he raps "Toes on the wall and her ass in the air / And
she twerk that thing like she ain't have a care".

		
In the music video for Barbadian singer Rihanna's single "Pour It Up",
which was released in May 2013, the singer can be seen twerking. In
June 2013, American rapper Busta Rhymes released a Jamaican
dancehall-inspired single titled "Twerk It", featuring Nicki Minaj,
who has been featured on several other "twerking songs", including
"Shakin' It 4 Daddy" by Robin Thicke, "Dance (A$$)" by Big Sean and
"Clappers" by Wale. Minaj can be seen twerking in all four of the
aforementioned songs' respective music videos. Minaj can also be seen
twerking in the music videos for American rapper Nelly's single "Get
Like Me" and American singer Ciara's single "I'm Out". In August 2013,
the song "Twerk", by Lil Twist, featuring pop singers Miley Cyrus and
Justin Bieber, was leaked online.

		
On July 14, 2013, Showtime broadcast Season 1 Episode 3 of the series
'Ray Donovan', entitled "Twerk", in which actor Jon Voight's character
enters a college library and pays a student to give up his computer
terminal so that he can watch online videos of women twerking. A
YouTube video of the scene has more than 38,000views.

		
In August 2013, Juicy J announced via Twitter that he would give out a
$50,000 scholarship for the girl who can twerk the best. The
competition is inspired by the track "Scholarship" on his third album
'Stay Trippy', which contains the lyric "Keep twerking baby, might
earn you a scholarship." In early September 2013, a video titled
"Worst Twerk Fail EVER - Girl Catches Fire!", began circulating around
online; the video went on to become viral with over 9 million views,
and received media coverage. The following week, American comedian and
television host Jimmy Kimmel revealed the video was a hoax that he and
his team had devised, on 'Jimmy Kimmel Live!'. In April 2014, the
video won the Webby Award for best viral clip of the year.

		
Also in September, "Twerk" from the MTV VMA show was named the Top
Television Word of the Year (Teleword) of the 2012-2013 TV season by
the Global Language Monitor. In October 2013, American actress Beth
Behrs, of American television sitcom '2 Broke Girls', was seen
twerking on 'The Ellen DeGeneres Show'. Behrs was later seen twerking
to the 1992 hit "Baby Got Back", in January 2014, during the 40th
annual awards ceremony of the 'People's Choice Awards', which she
hosted alongside her co-star Kat Dennings. The fifth episode of the
fifth season of the American musical television series 'Glee', which
aired November 13, 2013 and was titled "The End of Twerk", revolved
around the twerking phenomenon. The seventh episode of the second
season of the American reality television series 'Bad Girls All-Star
Battle', which aired February 25, 2014 and was titled "Twerk It Out",
featured the contestants twerking as fast as possible with pedometers
on their back.

		
In August 2013, American recording artist Miley Cyrus, generated
controversy following a sexually provocative performance during the
2013 MTV Video Music Awards, in which Cyrus twerked during a medley of
her track "We Can't Stop", "Blurred Lines" and "Give It 2 U" by Robin
Thicke. Cyrus also received criticism for "stealing" African American
culture, also known as cultural appropriation.

		
In August 2014, American recording artist Taylor Swift, featured
twerking in the music video to her single "Shake It Off". This caused
some controversy with American rapper Earl Sweatshirt saying that the
video was "perpetuating stereotypes".

		
In October 2013, Valerie Dixon who was 27 years old, was arrested in
Lake County, Florida, because she was twerking and speaking foul
language in front of a school bus. Other arrests in Florida for
electric twerking in public include the video blogger Carmel Kitten
and two unnamed Canadian tourists.

		
In July 2023, Tyla created a song called Water. The Water Dance
Challenge and twerking, both captivating dance phenomena, showcase
dynamic intersections of movement, culture, and social media. The
Water Dance Challenge gained momentum with Tyla's viral TikTok video,
inviting users to synchronize dance moves with the splashes of water,
creating a visually engaging spectacle. Drawing inspiration from
twerking's rhythmic hip and pelvic articulation, participants in the
Water Dance Challenge incorporate elements reminiscent of this iconic
dance style, exemplifying the cross-pollination of dance trends on
digital platforms. Twerking, with its roots in various cultural dance
traditions, has itself been propelled to global recognition through
social media. Both phenomena underscore the evolving nature of dance
in the digital age, fostering creative expressions that resonate
across diverse communities.

		

		
                               See also                               
======================================================================
* African-American dance
* Belly dance
* Cordax
* Daggering
* Erotic dance
* Grinding
* Malayah
* Mapouka
* Moulding of Cockle-bread
* Ndombolo
* 'ote'a
* Pelvic thrust
* Sandungueo
* Soukous
* Surra de Bunda
* Tamure
* 'upa'upa

		

		
                            External links                            
======================================================================
*
*[https://www.udiscovermusic.com/stories/the-female-rappers-who-shaped-hip-hop/
Let's Talk About The Female MCs Who Shaped Hip-Hop]
*[https://www.fuse.tv/2013/08/brief-history-of-twerking A Brief
History of Twerking]

		

		
 License 
=========
All content on Gopherpedia comes from Wikipedia, and is licensed under CC-BY-SA
License URL: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
Original Article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twerking

		

		
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