House dance

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House dance is a freestyle street dance and social dance that has roots in the underground house music scene of Chicago and New York. [1] [2] It is typically danced to loud and bass-heavy electronic dance music provided by DJs in nightclubs or at raves.

Contents

Elements and characteristics

The main elements of House dance include "jacking", "footwork", and "lofting". [3] The element of "jacking", or the "jack", – an ecstatic, sex-driven rippling movement of the torso – is the most famous dance move associated with early house music. [4] [5] It has found its way onto numerous record titles like the Jack Trax EP by Chip E. (1985), "Jack'n the House" (1985) by Farley "Jackmaster" Funk (1985), "Jack Your Body" by Steve "Silk" Hurley (1986), or "Jack to the Sound of the Underground" by Fast Eddie (1988).

Jacking style involves the whole body in energetic, often ecstatic movements, going beyond traditional dance movements. Reynolds [6] links 'jacking' to both the 'jerk' movement and a collective, intense dance style, resembling a robot in a charged dance. In house music's more sexually charged tracks, 'jacking' often happens during climactic energy peaks, where the beat becomes a continuous, sexually charged motif, driving the audience to heightened excitement. [7] This results in a collective, almost impersonal experience, where dancers become part of a unified group, often showcasing extravagant identity transformations. House dance movements carry spiritual and political meanings, creating a sense of unity and connection through the genre's energy. [8] House dance is often improvised and emphasizes fast and complex foot-oriented steps combined with fluid movements in the torso, as well as floor work. There is an emphasis on the subtle rhythms and riffs of the music, and the footwork follows them closely.[ citation needed ]

Notable dancers

In the early progressions of the dance, there were hundreds of phenomenal dancers that were key in its progression in this social dance scene. However, out of the many there were few instrumental in the introduction of house dance culture across the globe. Some of these dancers are Ejoe Wilson, Brian "Footwork" Green, Tony McGregor, Marjory Smarth, Caleaf Sellers, "Brooklyn" Terry Wright, Kim D. Holmes, Shannon Mabra, Tony "Sekou" Williams, Shannon Selby (aka Shan S), Voodoo Ray, and others.

In Los Angeles, as seen in the local television series, "Pump It Up" hosted by Dee Barnes, the "underground" house dance episode, co-hosted by Stefan of L.A. Posse, recognizes some of the following to be instrumental to the house dance culture in LA: The Scheme Team, Club House, L.A. Posse, Just As Hard, The Groovers, and the Soul Brothers. [9]

Competitions and festivals

Related Research Articles

House is a genre of electronic dance music characterized by a repetitive four-on-the-floor beat and a typical tempo of 115–130 beats per minute. It was created by DJs and music producers from Chicago's Black gay underground club culture and evolved slowly in the early/mid 1980s as DJs began altering disco songs to give them a more mechanical beat. By early 1988, House became mainstream and supplanted the typical 80s music beat.

Breakbeat hardcore is a music genre that spawned from the UK rave scene during the early 1990s. It combines four-on-the-floor rhythms with breakbeats usually sampled from hip hop. In addition to the inclusion of breakbeats, the genre also features shuffled drum machine patterns, hoover, and other noises originating from new beat and Belgian techno, sounds from acid house and bleep techno, and often upbeat house piano riffs and vocals.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Rave</span> Dance party

A rave is a dance party at a warehouse, club, or other public or private venue, typically featuring performances by DJs playing electronic dance music. The style is most associated with the early 1990s dance music scene when DJs played at illegal events in musical styles dominated by electronic dance music from a wide range of sub-genres, including drum and bass, dubstep, trap, break, happy hardcore, trance, techno, hardcore, house, and alternative dance. Occasionally live musicians have been known to perform at raves, in addition to other types of performance artists such as go-go dancers and fire dancers. The music is amplified with a large, powerful sound reinforcement system, typically with large subwoofers to produce a deep bass sound. The music is often accompanied by laser light shows, projected coloured images, visual effects and fog machines.

Detroit techno is a type of techno music that generally includes the first techno productions by Detroit-based artists during the 1980s and early 1990s. Prominent Detroit techno artists include Juan Atkins, Eddie Fowlkes, Derrick May, Jeff Mills, Kevin Saunderson, Blake Baxter, Drexciya, Mike Banks, James Pennington and Robert Hood. Artists like Terrence Parker and his lead vocalist, Nicole Gregory, set the tone for Detroit's piano techno house sound.

Jungle is a genre of electronic music that developed out of the UK rave scene and Jamaican sound system culture in the 1990s. Emerging from breakbeat hardcore, the style is characterised by rapid breakbeats, heavily syncopated percussive loops, samples, and synthesised effects, combined with the deep basslines, melodies, and vocal samples found in dub, reggae and dancehall, as well as hip hop and funk. Many producers frequently sampled the "Amen break" or other breakbeats from funk and jazz recordings. Jungle was a direct precursor to the drum and bass genre which emerged in the mid-1990s.

Chicago house refers to house music produced during the mid to late 1980s within Chicago. The term is generally used to refer to the original house music DJs and producers from the area, such as Ron Hardy and Phuture.

Ghetto house or booty house is a subgenre of house music which started being recognized as a distinct style from around 1992 onwards. It features minimal 808 and 909 drum machine-driven tracks and sometimes sexually explicit lyrics.

Hi-NRG is a genre of uptempo disco or electronic dance music (EDM) that originated during the late 1970s and early 1980s.

Progressive house is a subgenre of house music. The progressive house style emerged in the early 1990s. It initially developed in the United Kingdom as a natural progression of North American and European house music of the late 1980s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Second Summer of Love</span> 1980s British social phenomenon

The Second Summer of Love was a late-1980s social phenomenon in the United Kingdom which saw the rise of acid house music and unlicensed rave parties. Although primarily referring to the summer of 1988, it lasted into the summer of 1989, when electronic dance music and the prevalence of the drug MDMA fuelled an explosion in youth culture culminating in mass free parties and the era of the rave. The music of this era fused dance beats with a psychedelic, 1960s flavour, and the dance culture drew parallels with the hedonism and freedom of the 1967 Summer of Love in San Francisco. The smiley logo is synonymous with this period in the UK.

Diva house or handbag house is an anthemic subgenre of house music that became most popular in gay clubs during the second half of the 1990s. The Encyclopedia of Contemporary British Culture defines handbag house as having "prominent female vocals, breakdowns, and a proliferation of piano 'stabs'." Modern diva house compositions use synth stabs and four on the floor rhythms.

Byron Stingily is an American R&B and house-music singer born in Chicago, Illinois, known for his falsetto voice. He is now a part-time principal at a school in Chicago while still performing.

Jacking, Jackin’, or the jack is a freestyle dance move in which the dancer ripples their torso back and forth in an undulating motion. It emerged within the context of Chicago house music in the 1980s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Simon Reynolds</span> English music critic (born 1963)

Simon Reynolds is an English music journalist and author who began his career at Melody Maker in the mid-1980s. He subsequently worked as a freelancer and published a number of books on music and popular culture.

House Dance International (“HDI”) is an annual street dance festival based in New York City that highlights the art forms of house dance, vogue, hustle, waacking and experimental, all of which are performed to house music or derivatives of electronic dance music. The three-day festival consists of a group choreography contest, freestyle competitions, film screenings, seminars, workshops and parties. Established in 2007, HDI was the only event of its kind that exclusively focuses on the dance forms associated with house music culture.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Acid house</span> Music subgenre

Acid house is a subgenre of house music developed around the mid-1980s by DJs from Chicago. The style is defined primarily by the squelching sounds and basslines of the Roland TB-303 electronic bass synthesizer-sequencer, an innovation attributed to Chicago artists Phuture and Sleezy D circa 1986.

Techno is a genre of electronic dance music which is generally produced for use in a continuous DJ set, with tempos being in the range from 120 to 150 beats per minute (BPM). The central rhythm is typically in common time (4/4) and often characterized by a repetitive four on the floor beat. Artists may use electronic instruments such as drum machines, sequencers, and synthesizers, as well as digital audio workstations. Drum machines from the 1980s such as Roland's TR-808 and TR-909 are highly prized, and software emulations of such retro instruments are popular.

Electro house is a genre of electronic dance music and a subgenre of house music characterized by heavy bass and a tempo around 125–135 beats per minute. The term has been used to describe the music of many DJ Mag Top 100 DJs, including Benny Benassi, Skrillex, Steve Aoki, and Deadmau5.

Deconstructed club, also known as post-club or deconstructed music, is an experimental style of electronic dance music characterized by a post-modernist approach and an abrasive or dystopian tone. It stands opposed to the tropes of mainstream club styles, often dispensing with four-on-the-floor beats and stable tempo while mixing eclectic or abrasive sources.

Belgian hardcore techno is an early style of hardcore techno that emerged from new beat as EBM and techno influences became more prevalent in this genre. This particular style has been described as an "apocalyptic, almost Wagnerian, bombastic techno", due to its use of dramatic orchestral stabs and menacing synth tones that set it apart from earlier forms of electronic dance music. It flourished in Belgium and influenced the sound of early hardcore from Netherlands, Germany, Italy, UK and North America during the early-1990s, as a part of the rave movement during that period.

References

  1. ↑ Phil Cheeseman: "The History Of House", DJ Magazine, 2003.
  2. ↑ "What is house?" Archived 2012-03-19 at the Wayback Machine , discussion board on www.dance.net, 2008.
  3. ↑ Czarina Mirani: Spin Slide and Jack: A History of House Dancing on 5 Magazine, 2005.
  4. ↑ Barry Walters: Burning Down the House, in SPIN magazine, November 1986.
  5. ↑ Simon Reynolds: Generation Ecstasy: Into the World of Techno and Rave Culture. Routledge, 1999. pp. 28-29.
  6. ↑ Reynolds, Simon (2012). Energy Flash. Berkeley, Calif. : Soft Skull Press. p. 21.
  7. ↑ Hawkins, Stan (2003). Feel the beat come down: house music as rhetoric. In Analyzing Popular Music. United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press. p. 98.
  8. ↑ Sommer, Sally R (22 July 2014) [Print Winter 2001]. "C'mon to my house: Underground-House Dancing" (PDF). Dance Research Journal. 33 (2). Cambridge University Press: 72–86. doi: 10.2307/1477805 . ISSN   0149-7677. JSTOR   1477805. LCCN   76012179. OCLC   66613879. S2CID   191461352 . Retrieved 5 October 2024.
  9. ↑ mysterious murasame (2010-01-09). The Soul Brothers . Retrieved 2024-10-06– via YouTube.
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