twerking

Twerking (; possibly from 'to work') is a type of dance where participants throw or thrust the hips back or shake the buttocks, often in a low squatting stance. It is performed chiefly, but not exclusively, by women. Twerking's origins lay in West and Central Africa, where traditional dances such as Mapouka from the Ivory Coast and other related pelvic dances emphasized expressive hip and buttock isolations in ceremonial, celebratory, and social settings. These traditions were later tethered and appropriated by New World populations like Haitians in Kole mabouya or Americans in the New Orleans bounce scene in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Twerking is part of a larger set of characteristic moves "unique" to the New Orleans style of hip-hop known as "bounce". Moves include "mixing", "exercising", the "bend over", the "shoulder hustle", "clapping", "booty clapping", "booty poppin", "the sleeper" and "the wild wood"—all recognized as booty shaking or bounce.¶

Etymology

A 2013 Oxford Dictionaries blog post states, "the most likely theory is that it is an alteration of work, because that word has a history of being used in similar ways, with dancers being encouraged to "work it". Local bounce practitioners attribute the term to a contraction of "to work" ("t'work"; or, spelled as it is pronounced, "twerk"). The Oxford English Dictionary defines an early 19th-century use of the word as a blend of "twist" (or "twitch") and "jerk", which was reported by the BBC in conjunction with the black cultural context. The word is said to have originated from the inner-city of New Orleans and was used frequently in New Orleans bounce music by rappers and DJs hosting block parties in the housing projects. On record, the 1993 song "Do the Jubilee All" by DJ Jubilee - which contains the lyrics "Twerk baby, twerk baby, twerk, twerk, twerk" - has been cited as its earliest use. The word became popular in the 2000s, when it was used by Atlanta rapper Lil Jon and The East Side Boyz. A Google Trends search reveals that interest in the word "twerk" arose in November 2011. The Oxford English Dictionary defines twerking as dancing "in a sexually provocative manner, using thrusting movements of the bottom and hips while in a low, squatting stance". Merriam-Webster gives the definition as a "sexually suggestive dancing characterized by rapid, repeated hip thrusts and shaking of the buttocks especially while squatting". The Oxford English Dictionary's definition of the term may fuel the stigma around twerking as a sexual and provocative dance.¶

Origin and precursors

Elizabeth Pérez (2015) states in the African and Black Diaspora: An International Journal:¶

Booty dances have threatened the status quo by emphasizing group membership, the free movement of forceful Black bodies, and "Afro"-Diasporic counter-narratives. The Colombian mapalé, or baile negro, is a case in point. Mapalé recalls the fish tail dances of the North American plantation; Davila writes that 'the fish's movements after they are captured resemble [the dance's] pelvic and midriff contractions to the beat of the drum' (Davila 2009, 120). 'The only dance that was permitted during times of Spanish rule', mapalé became associated with rebellion through its liberatory insistence on the body's value as a vector for the transmission of ancestral knowledge (Davila 2009, 120). 'Where dance on a social level was criminalized, in Mapalé, it continues to be an indestructible force of Afro-Colombian identity within the fabric of the Atlantic Coast' (Davila 2009, 134). The batuque, with its 'artificial rotations and contortions of the hip' was officially suppressed, as were candombe and the bongo (quoted in Röhrig Assunção 2003, 167). The consensus is that such dances cognate to twerk – as indicated by their names and presence among Bantu-language-speaking slaves – are Central African in origin. A number of scholars well versed in the matter have arrived at Kubik's conclusion: 'motional emphasis on the pelvis, buttocks, etc., especially pelvis thrusts or circular pelvis movements described in United States jazz dance history as "Congo grind" are always suspect of a Congo/Angola background' (Kubik 1979, 20). Pérez (2015) states:¶

The historically proximate precursors to twerk are as seldom cited as its analogues.¶

Twerk dance

In 1990, the introduction of bounce music into the New Orleans music scene brought along the dance of twerking. In 1992, Panamanian singer Renato recorded the videoclip "El más sensual" (the most sexy), a reggae song with the twerking dance. The diffusion of the dance phenomenon began earlier via local parties and eventually strip clubs often associated with mainstream rap music and video production aired by video cable television shows that featured rap music and R&B music. Popular video-sharing platforms such as YouTube amplified interest since the advent of digital social media.¶

Rise to national attention

Twerking first received national recognition in the United States in the early 2000s, when the song "Whistle While You Twurk" (2000), by Southern hip hop duo Ying Yang Twins, peaked at number 17 on the Billboard Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs component chart. It was later referenced in their later track "Say I Yi Yi" (2002), in which the lyrics "she got her hands up on her knees and her elbows on her thighs / she like to twerk and that's for certain I can tell that she fly" are heard. The chorus of Silkk the Shocker's 2001 song "That's Cool" features the line "Somebody that's off the chain / who could twerk that thang." R&B and pop girl group Destiny's Child was the first mainstream American girl group to use the word in a song in their song "Jumpin' Jumpin'". Beyoncé made use of the word and dance in her 2005 song and corresponding music video "Check on It". In 2013, the dance became a viral sensation beyond African-American popular culture, when pop singer Miley Cyrus used the dance in a video that was uploaded first on Facebook and then on YouTube in March which then later became a viral meme throughout social media outlets. Though twerking began trending as a web search in November 2011, and despite its origins in the bounce culture of New Orleans in the late 1980s, the word twerk would be added to the Oxford Dictionary Online and attributed to Cyrus following her appearance at the MTV VMA Awards in August 2013. It became the number one "what is" Google search that year as those outside the culture questioned the popularity of the dance. The word was a runner-up to "selfie" in the Oxford Dictionaries Word of the Year 2013.¶

Billboard charts

In 2006, the hit single "SexyBack", by American pop singer Justin Timberlake, featuring Timbaland, from the former's second studio album Futuresex/Lovesounds, featured Timbaland rapping the lyrics "Let me see what you're twerking with / Go ahead, be gone with it, Look at those hips". In 2007, the song "Pop, Lock & Drop It", by American rapper Huey, reached number six on the US Billboard Hot 100. The 2012 single "Bandz a Make Her Dance" by Juicy J contains the lyric "Start twerking when she…¶

The text above is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Twerking”, available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 licence.¶

twerking is type of dance primarily involving the buttocks, according to the structured record cited below. This entry was generated automatically from that record and has not yet been reviewed by a person familiar with the tradition.¹¶

The source record links this tradition to 5 external registers, which can be verified through the citation.¹¶