Thursday, June 26, 2008

Rock With You - Janet Jackson



All Artists need to bow down LOW to the choreography in this video

The Art of Voguing

Voguing is a stylized kind of modern dance that originated in Harlem in the 1930's as part of the underground gay culture. The dance involves photo-model like poses obviously, integrated with angular and rigid arm, leg, and body movements.

The form of dance was brought back into the mainstream by Madonna's 1990 hit song Vogue. Remember the line "strike a pose"?
Check out her MTV performance:



Voguing has since developed and evolved into a kind of dance sport that integrates many other dance forms such as ballet, jazz, dance and even hip-hop. There are teams called "Houses" (mostly named after designers) that a feature a group of dancers and performers that compete against one another and are judged according to dance, skill, costume and attitude. One common dance characteristic is the "Dip" - free falling on one's back with one leg rigidly held up.

One of the most notable dancers is Danielle Ninja who has appeared in
Beyonce's Get me Bodied (she'll be the one who does that craaazy dip at 'snap for the kids (5:50)')
Omarion's Touch

Ok, most of the vids are amateur and most of the dances are improv. here's one that's included pretty much every form of voguing mentioned in this post...the good parts are scattered through the vid - its not all good.

check out: 1:30, 3:10, 6:03 (jazz), 6:50 (hip-hop), 7:30 (main event), 8:30 (solos)

From the House of Blahnik: