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Social Media Hip Hop Influencing Various Aspects of Life

When I open my phone to scroll on tiktok or instagram, I always see some people doing different types of dances which are trending. Whats bizarre is EVERYONE is doing these dances. I scroll, I see elderly people doing them, little toddlers, celebrities, etc. In my head, i’m like “Wow so many people are doing this dance” and I feel like some of these trends bring people together, regardless of race, age, gender, etc. When some trends are performed outside of social media, I am able to pick up on it and when we see strangers do it, we hype them up and soon there is a friendly interaction happening between everyone. I think that with people doing some of these dances outside helps others approach them easily, as it is something that is familiar to them and whatnot. Dances like the whip and the nae-nae were VERY popular and everyone would always do them. One dance that I feel like is very prevalent is the griddy, which was originated by someone at LSU. Since then, so many people have done it.

One place I noticed it being done was my former High School’s lip dub. There, at 5:30-5:32, the students are seen doing the griddy, and then they continue to do it after a little while after.

In one tiktok I saw, when the wide receiver caught the ball for a touchdown, their celebration dance was the griddy. It was not only here that I saw it, but other players have also performed this celebration dance. I think when we see famous people do it, it kind of also influences others to do the dance. I believe that certain short dances like this help bring people together. 

Here, we can see little kids doing the griddy as well. Of course, everyone has their own variation of how they are doing the dance. Hand movements are all improvised, but when someone does the griddy, it is very distinct. 

A lot of dances we see on social media have their own spin which come from the dancer. I feel like each variation has something personal tied into it. Overall, as more and more trends arise, we will see many new dances performed by everyone, hopefully bringing different communities together.

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Hip Hop + You Name The Type of Dance; it probably exists!

When I think of dance, I think of different styles of dance; Salsa, Hip-Hop, Classical, Ballet, etc. Each dance form is unique to itself and many different types of choreography come out of it. But never did I think that some people will fuse some of these forms of dance together to make their own choreography which strays away from the dance’s true form. And this straying away leads to a new art; a fusion. 

When I first heard of fusion dancing, it was between hip hop and bharatanatyam, a classical dance which my sister learned. Before the fusion dance, my sister strictly was learning bharatanatyam, and then one of her dance teachers insisted that she and her friends learn this fusion dance that they were going to perform at an event. This was the dance they did. They were still little kids and it wasn’t what fusion dance is now, but this was the first instance I ever heard of fusion dance. I was surprised because I felt like the costumes they were in along with the song added a special element. It was like the dance was classical, but at the same time it strayed away from the classical feel with the incorporation of hip hop elements in the choreography as well as glittery costumes.

As I explored fusion dance, I noticed that there was a lot of hip hop fusion dances. One thing I found very interesting was there was a choreography of ballet and hip hop fusion. Two very different styles of dance, coming together in one.  The video below was something I stumbled upon and when I was watching it, I was mesmerized. The gracefulness of ballet mixed with the upbeat steps of hip hop dance worked really well together.

Another fusion I looked at was a Bharatanatyam Fusion dance. This time I looked at people who were a little more professional than my sister and her friends.

In the Video above. I noticed how the dancers had some graceful hand movements which resembled the classical aspect of their choreography, and then they incorporated upbeat hip hop steps into their dance, making it really fun to watch.

I think one takeaway I had from exploring this topic was that no dance stays the same as it is. There are always new iterations of something that is being done, especially fusion dance. I feel like for the future of fusion, there will be MORE styles of dance infused into one choreography; ballet, hip hop, salsa, etc. Watching one huge fusion would be a really cool thing for the dance world and I feel like it would also encourage a lot of people to pick up a new style of dance.

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Emotional Influence on Hip Hop Choreography

In my dance class, there was a day when we had a special guest known as Bennyroyce Royon come teach us how to feel the vibe of the dance we were doing. At first, I felt like it was something that required too much effort, but when I decided to not really care about ANYTHING but the dance, I felt very free. Benny told us that “dance was not about PERFECTION, it was about CONNECTION.” At first I really didn’t understand what he meant by that, but as we kept dancing, I felt as if my body was moving on my own to the music and soon I was able to dance with my peers around me. I think emotion also played a big role because as my friends and I were dancing, we were laughing with each other and were having fun, and as we were having fun, our dances melded together and there was no awkardness in not knowing any step. When we tie our emotions into the dance, I feel like our steps have more meaning because they reflect what we truly feel and its freeing.  

In a dance show I recently attended, many of the dancers had different pieces, and one thing I noticed is the varied emotions between the dancers. When some had more emotion while dancing, and tied in with the dance very well and it was very beautiful to watch. It was like they were connecting to the dance and the music very well. I also performed in this show and I feel like emotion helped a lot. When performing, there was a surge of excitement that went through me.

Below is the dance I did with my friends

One thing I noticed with other dance pieces as well was that the emotions, tied in with the music and the choreography really brought everything together. This one video I watched (posted below), the dancers have a lot of expression on their face, and I felt like part of that expression also helped with the choreography. With the song being sad and the expression being sad, some of the steps in the whole piece seemed very disheartened, adding some emotional influence to the choreography. I feel like this goes back to what Benny mentioned at the beginning, where it isn’t about the perfection of the dance, it is about the connection. I feel like when we are all connected to what we are doing with our body, that is the definition of true perfection.

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Dance In My Life

To be honest, this Tumblr Blog is for anyone who comes across it. As of now, there is no target audience I am trying to reach, but if there is, it would probably have to be dancers who are familiar with Indian Classical Dance or just anything related to Indian Media. 

Picture of my sister above.

In my life, my sister participated in Bharatanatyam, a form of Indian classical dance. I would always listen to the steps in our living room as my sister would practice for an hour or two a day. My mother would be there helping her with the steps and showing the recordings from the previous class to help with any missteps. It has been like that for last 12 years. She finally finished all of her dance, and her graduating performance, known as an Arangetram, was performed in April of 2021. Since then, she has been practicing her dance with her friends from time to time, but that form of dance has been present in my life a lot. 

Another time when I danced or was experiencing dance was when the neighborhood kids attended a dance class hosted by a family friend, and she would teach us her style of hip hop. A lot of her movement came from emotion and some moves she had seen in some movies. A lot of the times we would play Indian songs and dance along. When there were certain events coming up, she would choreograph a dance and we performed it on the day of the event. A lot of it were group dances, as seen here by me and my friends. And we performed a few here and there, and then when I moved, I didn’t go back to dancing, but I was taught that a lot of dance steps come from our emotions and improvisation from things we see.

With Waacking and Punking, it kind of follows the same principle my old dance teacher used to tell me. With Waacking and Punking, alot of the steps come from things that influence us, as well as our emotions. Although Bharatanatyam is not like that, the hiphop dance that I was exposed to had to do a lot with our emotions. The more energy we gave, the more the choreography flowed smoothly. I think a lot of hip hop dance today might be follow what Waacking and Punking came to be, but some may not even realize it. In general, it all has to do with our emotions and I believe that is where the dancer from within us arises.

Overall, I think my audience is people who kind of relate to the culture I am from, but it is open to anyone who is interested in reading.

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Appropriation of the OG

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A post shared by Jalaiah S. Harmon❤️‍🔥 (@jalaiah)

Here, I want to talk about the popularity of these 2 types of dances. One of them is a tiktok dance while the other is twerking. In the instagram video above, we can see that OG creator of the renegade is dancing with the creators who are thought to be the original “creators” of the renegade. In the youtube video below, Lexy Panterra has a new style of dancing which incorporates twerking, but she refers to twerking as “a lot of butt in your face” (1:21), and she says shes doing a new approach of it. With this new approach, she was able to garner a huge clientele and is successful because of her new way of twerking, but the original creators are never credited in any way. With the tiktok above, Charli Damelio and Addison Rae blew up on tiktok because of doing this dance, while Jaliah was left behind, even though she created the dance. Now Jaliah is slowly getting the recognition she deserves, but Charli and Addison were able to propel their careers to the next level due to them “claiming” the dance. Jaliah has a huge following of almost 700k fans on instagram, but this is nothing compared to the  50 million followers Charli Damelio has and the 40 million fans Addison Rae has on Instagram. This goes to show that there will always be people who will leech off of cultural appropriation as long as it benefits them in some way, and they will never credit the original creators for their success.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/13/style/the-original-renegade.html

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Seattle Gigs

I found this content posted on tiktok, and when it showed up I remembered how some of my friends on my old football team used to do these dances. They were known as “gigs” and it was unique to each person, atleast from what I noticed. Different areas have different gigs and with the dance moves you have, it represents where you are from.

Camille Brown explains in her video that social dances “bubble up, change, and spread like wildfire” What I found interested about these gigs is that there are certain dance moves which are the same, but each person has a take on it. With the communities, they are changing and steps are always improvised.