[Neil Drumming]
So, last week, my wife and I were watching "So You Think You Can Dance" (shut up) and the first couple of the evening performed a dance routine to the current Jadakiss hit, "By Your Side" (not to be confused with "By My Side," a way more enjoyable Jadakiss song off of a previous album.) The couple, Karla and Jonathan, were dressed in costumes reminiscent of those in Michael Jackson's "Smooth Criminal" video. And, not surprisingly, their routine was categorized by the choreographer as "smooth hip-hop." The number was admittedly pretty forgettable, but I found myself simultaneously amused and dismayed by the judging panel's critiques.
This, from the program's patriarch, Nigel Lythgoe, a soft, cuddly version of Simon Cowell if ever there was one:
"It feels like it's been sort of ironed-out, that there's no excitement in the routine. And the one great thing for me with hip-hop is fear. There's this great thing that I'm on the edge of my seat whenever you talk about gangsta, or hip-hop, or b-boying, there's a fear there. 'What are they going to do?' It's gonna be really exciting. 'What's going to happen?'... If you drop her you drop her, but that's the danger. There was no danger in it."
I'm not looking to rant here, but I always feel a little queasy when I hear these odd parameters that arise around anything hip-hop. It would seem to me that any of the styles danced on this show -- whether it be salsa, jive, disco, contemporary, or my fave, the Viennese Waltz -- that include lifts, flips, somersaults, and other gravity-defying acts would include the same element of fear and danger. I mean, what the hell does Nigel want to be afraid of whenever somebody dances to hip-hop? That a fight will spontaneously erupt on stage like this is the Source Awards? That his overly-loud co-host Maggie Murphy might succumb to a hail of bullets like Biggie and crumple in the seat next to him, thereby ending her eardrum shattering shrieks of praise forever? Who knows.
But if you think Nigel's kooky... well, he is. But so was the following expert evaluation from the guest judge, Toni Basil. Now, Basil is apparently some sort of renown choreographer. Like me, you probably know her better as the grown woman dressed as a cheerleader who made that "Oh Mickey" song a long time ago. At the top of the evening, she mentioned that she would soon be receiving something called the "Living Legend of Hip-Hop Award." I didn't know such a thing was being given out, but I sincerely hope, seeing as how Basil is up next, that KRS-One, Rakim, De La Soul, Snoop, Ralph McDaniels, Big Lez, Scoob and Scrap Lova, Bobbito the Barber, DJ Yella, and Chi Ali, have already gotten theirs.
Here's what Toni Basil had to say about Karla and Jonathan's "smooth hip-hop" routine:
"Hip-hop is a series of steps that the choreographer draws from many millenniums of dance styles - but mostly street. And street has to have a groove and a funk. And if you're gangsters, and you don't have a ghetto groove, it's just gonna feel store-bought."
I don't actually know what that means. Am I not hip-hop?
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It's either the Soft Bigotry of Low Expectations or the Boring Bigotry of Lame Expectations.
You know, I hated "Mickey" as much as the next guy, but before you bust on Toni Basil, you should check her wikipedia page, or her website. She's been choreographing for 45 years, going back to the old Shindig! show in 1964.
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"Toni has worked on an incredible range of television programming, from the NAACP Image Awards and Saturday Night Live, to Sesame Street and the MTV Video Music Awards. She has choreography credits on over 50 videos, and on eleven as director /choreographer....
As one of the original founding members of the legendary street dance group of the 1970s and Soul Train favorite The Lockers, Toni is recognized as a seminal influence in bringing street dance to the attention of the American public. Toni's production of Shockin' The House: Two Decades Of L.A. Street Dance, presented at the LA Festival, flattened the audience with style, savvy, and historical substance. She is currently writing a book Shockin' the House on the history of American Street Dance. Coming full circle, Toni was able to give back to Soul Train by choreographing The TV Land Awards Salute to Soul Train."
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Just because she's white doesn't mean she's not the real deal in hip-hop or street dancing.
Actually, I kind of liked "Mickey."
I like Toni Basil a lot. That doesn't mean her 'ghetto groove' words don't sound a little...weird.
Point taken, but like Neil said, she's waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay in the back of the line for "Living Legends of Hip-Hop" even if you reduce her to the B-Boy / B-Girl category, there's a whole bunch of Dynamic Rockers, Rock Steady dancers, I mean even Boogaloo Shrimp and Shabba Doo and Re-Run and the Campbellton pop-lockers out in LA need to be seeing an award before Ms. Toni Basil does.
No one at my dance studio watches that....its like the velveeta cheese of street.
We watches ABDC.
Street dance is teh l33tness.
I love America's Best Dance Crew so much. They don't expect the women to be trashy, they treat everyone with respect, and the dancing is amazing.
I also heart ABDC. My friend got attached to it and I've watched the last two seasons religiously. Though the judging and results seems a little nuanced at times (hello Season 2), the dancing is top notch, there's no unnecessary attitude from judges and much better than anything else you see on TV that involves dancing. (I'm looking at you "dance" group that won Britain's Got Talent).
I don't think Nigel is a bigot as is traditionally defined, but every time he opens his mouth in regards to anything along racial, class, gender, or sexuality lines, he comes very close to seeming like one.
And Toni Basil, according to her resume -- and every time she's given the opportunity to talk about herself -- has quite the history in hip-hop and street dance. That still doesn't mean she's not crazy.
Isn't Nigel also the one who claimed to be weirded out by two men dancing together? How far does somebody have to go before we can actually call them a bigot?
Yes. He's displayed consistent homophobia over the years. Which is why I refuse to watch the show. I don't want to contribute to that man's paycheck in any way.
Shane does some of that on ABDC, with his "I want to see guys dance like guys" thing. But to his credit, he very quickly understood with Fanny Pak that he was seeing something really innovative and special, and backed off on Matt early in the season.
SYTYCD is a broadcast show -- how does your not watching it deprive Nigel or the show of money?
If there's one thing I find is lacking in the dance competitions I watch, it's the widespread dearth in the number of milleniums of dance styles out there.
Sounds like Basil could benefit from reading a little Halifu Osumare: http://www.jstor.org/pss/1478458
Wow... Just wow...
I've never seen Shall we Think We Can Dance, or whatever it's called, but sounds like you've just witnessed the modern phenomenon of people who have no idea what hip-hop is, but yet get big paychecks so they must know what they're talking about, describe it. I wonder if these people have any clue about Queensbridge or the 5 Boroughs of Death. Actually, no I don't. I'm sure they have no idea about that or anything else.
The music industry bought and paid for Rap Music(tm) in the mid-90's, and have treated it like their possession ever since. Kind of like the yuppie couple that bought some exotic bauble without knowing that it opened up into a whole other thing (if that makes any sense). Thankfully REAL hip-hop is not, and never has been, for sale.
And you've just reinforced my decision to never ever watch TV again...
Considering they weren't talking about hip hop as a music, I'm not really sure what you're getting at. They're talking about choreographed dance moves to hip hop music. I'm pretty sure Toni Basil doesn't need to know anything about Queensbridge to have an opinion on the dance.
"So, last week, my wife and I were watching "So You Think You Can Dance"....Am I not hip-hop?"
One thing's for sure: Anybody who starts a conversation that way surely isn't hip-hop by Toni Basil's definition.
You know, you're right. Maybe your condensed version should have been my entire post.
She is talking about the difference between "groove" and "rhythm".
Alot of mediocre dancers think that if they hit the beat hard and accurately, consistently, they must be hot on the floor. The problem is this: you know those dancers you stare at when you go to the club, the ones that make everyone in the room smile and bob their heads and scream and lose their minds? They're not hitting the beat right on. They're all over the place, because they have groove.
"Groove" or "Ghetto Groove" is a connection to the heart of the music, the harmony of the song, the soul of the melody, the energy of the lyric. It is an irrational and synergistic expression of the ineffable qualities that exist in truly great dance music. It is idiosyncratic, rarely expresses the same way twice, and is very difficult to ape. And if you don't feel it, you may be a GOOD dancer, but you're not a GREAT dancer; there are no exceptions.
She was saying: You're okay. But get out of the circle and let the people with soul show you how it's done.
BTW - hip hop dancing is NOT gymnastics. It's 98% groove and 2% moves. Many people believe the opposite and are really rather unimpressive because of it.
Being myself 100% groove / 0% rhythm on the Dancefloor, I would add that the 2% are quite important though.
Yeah, in the same way that if I removed 2% of your pre-frontal cortex you'd have the personality and intelligence of a terrier puppy. Course, it doesn't mean that removing the other 98% does anything but result in your almost certain death.
Please note that I was talking in context of GREAT dancers. I love people out on the floor just having good times with themselves and friends.
No....hiphop dance is the ultimate danceform, the pinnacle of dance evolution.
It incorporates tribal, ballet, jazz, lyrical, martial-arts, gymnastics, breaking, krumping, popping and locking...everything that has gone before.
And street hiphop is the pinnacle of hiphop.
An old favorite of mine.
I guess. I feel like alot of those dancers are hiding behind their flippity flip flops and jumpity fling flangers. it's like: I've lost the groove, so now I have to throw my ass down on the ground in a twisted, unholy position and writhe and spin so people don't notice.
I've seen better.
tricks is tricks.
it is part of the package.
what do you think about krumping?
Thuggish is the word you are searchin for.
It has to be thuggish.
Street dance came from the ghetto.
It has to have that tension, the dancebattle form.
Okay, Maybe I'm naive, but that phrasing right there is what I take issue with: The idea that hip-hop dance, or anything hip-hop is defined -- and therefore confined -- to some notion of "thuggishness" or, I don't know, confrontation or belligerence or anger. Having grown up immersed in hip-hop, that's just not the way I see it.
I mean sure, there are confrontational elements to up-rocking. And if you do a windmill and freeze into a pose where you're grabbing your crotch, yeah, that's confrontational. But that's not every b-boys finishing move. And there's nothing inherently thuggish about popping and locking, or the Humpty Dance, or the Biz Dance, or the Roger Rabbit, or Big Daddy Kane's intentionally lethargic drunken-style choreography, or Redhead Kingpin catching his leg behind his head, or whatever.
According to its own mythology, breakdancing arose as some sort of substitute for gang violence. (That's what some folks say, anyway.) So I guess you could argue that it was founded on aggression. But breakdancing doesn't represent the totality of hip-hop dancing. And, more importantly, hip-hop is an art form, right? It evolves, it grows. People are always commenting on and lamenting the stagnant state of hip-hop in general. And I think that's kind of the result of those same people, often the practitioners themselves, always trying to limit it.
It comes down to this for me: You could easily say that many great rock n'roll songs have been written about love. But you wouldn't say that every rock song MUST be about love.
Toni Basil is a choreographer. So maybe she and her ilk have, over the years, gotten together and outlined the rules that define "Hip-Hop Dance," i.e. the steps, the moves, whatever. I respect that. I watch So You Think You Can Dance, so I understand that "carriage" and "lines" are important elements of, say ballroom, but I don't really understand how the important elements of hip-hop dance can be boiled down to "fear," and "ghetto," and, god forbid, "thuggishness."
(Jeez, Strangelet, after all that I've just written, I hope you weren't just being sarcastic.)
Well said. Hip Hop dance--wow I hate that phrase--is often about fun and expression. A huge part of the problem of discussing arts related to the culture of hip hop is that people outside of the culture have been the ones defining it and explaining it to others. They just don't get it. Also understanding that hip hop culture came as a way to oppose gang culture is an important idea that many people forget. That doesn't mean that every dance move is going to be in the form of a battle straight out of Beat Street; kids put their energy and passion into something other than fighting and killing each other. I wish so many of the younger generation who now love and claim hip hop understood this and would embrace this.
You attach a different meaning to thuggish than I do. You could....call it aggro, or intense, or extreme. If you watch that skinny puppy viddie you can see what im talkin about...six-step, coffee grinder, krump, scorpion, shoulder-roll....those are all components....it is the intensity, and the battleform. The "steps" all evolved from street battles, from competition.
Caporeia, a brazilian martial art is a part of hiphop evolution.
I dance.
Hiphop isn't "pretty"....hiphop makes you sweat.
Hiphop is high energy, high tension, and the battleform is a huge part of it.
That is why if you want to see hiphop, you watch abdc, not so-you-think-you-can-dance.
Street is for crewes, not partners.
alegna is wrong, sowwy.
;)
It simply isn't hiphop without tributing the street roots of hiphop as dance battles.
That is what Toni is talking about, danger, edge, menace, threat.
What I call battleform.
Thuggish has evolved in the danceworld to have a different meaning...maybe powerful is the closest thing I can come up with....in laymans terms.
;)
I'll stipulate I know nothing about hip-hop, music or dance. But if it does come from the streets, then it is inherently "thuggish" in much the same way Jimmy Cagney's dancing and the Nicholas Bros. routines were. Both of their styles came from the mean streets and both were also developed by their practioners into something both elegant and sublime. If I were a fan of hip-hop, I would probably say the same thing about the best of that genre. Historically, most styles of dance (including ballet) have come from the "streets" or outsiders.
Not to thread jack, but I was watching SYTYCD one night recently and my Black 70 year old husband watched with me for a bit. He was really, really surprised by both the number of men of color who were constestants and the overtly sexual dances with the White female contestants on national broadcast tv. LOL! I am more than a decade younger, but it was something I thought about when I first started watching a couple of years ago. Now that's progress.
Call me defensive, because I totally heart So You Think You Can Dance, but I'm not totally sure what you're getting at here.
Everybody knows that Nigel is patronizing and borderline offensive, Mary is loud, and many of the other guest judges often don't make a lot of sense. (Toni Basil being one of the least coherent of the bunch.) That's all par for the course on this show, and it's not specific to hip hop in any way, so I'm not sure it's productive to try to parse some greater meaning from all this. Lil C's commentary is pretty nonsensical a lot of the time, too - does that take away from his hip hop credentials?
In fairness to Toni and Nigel, despite their verbal floundering, they were right, weren't they? The routine lacked the edge or attitude or groove/funk (whatever you want to call it) that is generally associated with hip hop. I don't think it's weird or sinister to call that out - I think most hip hop dancers would be among the first to lay claim to that quality in their style.
Ack! Neil's on point. But just a reminder that So You Think You Can Dance is a TV show, designed to get ratings and advertisers. Nothing they say about dance should be taken seriously. There's nothing magic about having a long choreographic resume - such a person can still be lame, unimaginative, and uninformed. Dance of whatever genre doesn't work on the TV screen, which destroys soul, groove, heart, artistry, whatever, and squishes the dance into commercial break-friendly pieces.