Here's one specific house dance I want to bring to light: voguing. Drawing influence from New York's drag ballroom scene, this style of dance developed as house was imported to New York from Chicago. It's a dance that integrates model-like poses with seamless footwork and sharp, dramatic arm movements. Much like the freeze is a highly-esteemed move in b-boying, striking a pose is the central focus of voguing. Also like b-boying, voguing is usually done in competition, with each voguer trying to out-pose their opponent.
Check out this video, where two dancers are attempting to do just that. Not only are their moves extremely smooth, but I'm loving that jackin' slice of old school house music!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y1eSFxSQaDg
Wow! That was an interesting way to combine modeling and dance. It reminds me of Tyra on "America's Next Top Model" when she constantly tells the girls to always be moving while being aware of their entire bodies, so the photos look better as opposed to a contestant who just stood there and made the posing so obvious.
ReplyDeleteEither way, it's like b-boying with extra flare. Both obviously require an ample amount of strength and creativity.
I like that: "b-boying with extra flare"! What I find interesting is that hip hop and house music developed around the same time period in the same cities with similar instruments: samplers, turntables, and drum machines. Likewise, b-boying and voguing came out of New York amongst communities that were widely marginalized and ignored by the mainstream. I'm not saying they're DIRECTLY related, but I wonder if there's more of a correlation between the two than people generally perceive...
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