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Street dance classes in Crawley, Horley, Tonbridge Farnham and
Croydon - UK |
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| What is popping and
locking |
| Electric boogie is a style of popping (ticking). Both
locking and popping or ticking originally came from Los Angeles. Popping was
created by street dance crew ñElectric Boogaloo. Locking was created by
ñThe Lockersî Both locking and popping existed a long time before
breaking was born. During breaking era, b-boys started to put popping and
locking into their dance. Mr. Wiggles says, since people in NY twisted popping
and made it more funky and something different from original popping, they call
it electric boogie instead of popping (This comment about Electric Boogie is
different from the following artilce, though. I am not sure which is ture.)
Nowadays, so-called "Breakdance" consists of breaking, locking, and electric
boogie or popping. The following article is about history of locking and
Electric boogie from a book "BREAKING AND THE NEW YORK CITY BREAKERS" written
by Michael Holman |
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The history of popping and
locking
It was the robots on TV shows in the early '60s like "Lost in Space"
that inspired the black kids in Los Angels to invent the dance the Robot. I
don't think mime was as great an influence, after all, how many live shows has
Marcel Marceau done in Watts? Obviously mime was inspirational in the
development and perfecting of the Robot. The sense of animation and futurism is
strong in most poor inner-city kids because it's an escape to a world where
everything is perfect, sharp, and in control. The hydraulic movements of the
robot danced to music which was becoming more and more mechanically rhythmic,
like James Brown's "Goodfoot" (1969), was a natural development in Los Angeles,
a city of major street dance creations. In 1969, a young black man by the name
of Don Campbell was becoming known among street dancers in Los Angeles for
inventing a dance called the Campbellock (he put out a record called "Do the
Campbellock"). Don Campbell took the hydraulic robotic movements, which were
all about total control and mixed it with wild, out of control body movement
dances of the tap-flash dance days plus exact stop and start movements and
spiced it all with comic facial expressions and clown-like costumes to develop
a whole new dance movement which is still going strong called "Locking"
(Campbellocking to us old guys. I lived in L.A. when it first came out and was
a pretty good Campbellocker myself.) The best way to describe the movement of
locking would be thus: You know those little-figured toys that are like
inside-out puppets on small plastic circular platforms or pedestals, and if you
press the bottom of the platform the figure collapses real fast, then when you
let your finger up it goes back into shape? Well that's what locking looks
like. The body moves out of control then back into control snapping into
position, collapsing then snapping back. By the Early '70s Don Campbell had put
together a whole crew of lockers called "The Lockers." One of the lockers was
Shabadoo, the star of "Breaking," and Penguin, who was the chubby locker named
"Rerun" on the TV show "What's Happening." The lockers of the early '70s wore
platform shoes, loud striped socks, pegged pants that stopped at the knees,
bright colorful satin shirts with big collars, big colorful bow ties, gigantic
Apple Boy hats, and white gloves. Around that time a known TV choreographer
named Toni Basil, who was famous for shows like "Shindig," and "Hullaballoo,"
discovered Don Campbell and his Lockers and helped bring them to international
fame. She was an incredible dancer herself and soon learned to lock. She became
a member of The Lockers, helped develop their dance act, and got them on TV
shows like "Saturday Night Live" and commercials such as Schlitz Malt Liquor
Beer (the one with the bull). I remember seeing her and Don Campbell dance live
at a nightclub called Crenshaw Flats in Los Angeles. I was blown away. She was
actually better than he was! Also around the time "Soul Train" hit the air
(1972) and it became an instant media hit by featuring street dancers,
especially The Lockers, of Los Angeles. The nightclub Crenshaw Flats the
apartment on Crenshaw Boulevard in Los Angels was where the "Soul Train" gang
hung out. At the time breaking was developing in New York, locking the The
Robot were getting popular in southern California. During 1972 and '73 in
Fresno, California, a small city halfway between Los Angeles and Dan Francisco,
a black family of all boys were inventing something new of their own. They
called their dance the Electric Boogaloo. Pistol Pete (who also starred in the
film "Breaking" and was involved with Toni Basil and The Lockers and "Soul
Train" in the early days) and his brothers had created The Electric Boogaloo by
combining locking. The Robot, and the more smooth and controlled movements of
mime. Instead of throwing their bodies in and out of control like locking, or
in total hydraulic control like The Robot, they passed energy through their
bodies popping and snapping elbows, wrists, necks, hips and just about all the
body joints along the way. Electric Boogaloo was more like mime in the sense
that it pantomimed a live wire of electrical current, but it still needed the
control of The Robot to give it style. The Electric Boogaloo became big in San
Francisco even before it hit Los Angeles but when it did hit L.A., the TV
capital of the world, it was introduced through "Soul Train" as the new dance
form and challenged the popularity of locking. The Electric Boogaloo (or
Electric Boogie as it's called now) has since spread to New York as breaking
later hit Los Angeles. It's interesting to see breaking and locking existing in
the same sub-cultures. I think it's partly because they complement each other
as opposites. The Electric Boogie is in control and tends to imitate the
movements of nature like a lightning bolt or a rippling river, whereas breaking
is more out of control and anti-nature or anti-gravitational like a flying
saucer. Another reason they're done together with the same kids may also be
that they're both competitive dances where dancers battle each other to
determine who's best. "If my breaker can't beat you, my boogie can." They live
in the same competitive atmosphere. Because of its competitive nature, I see
Electric Boogie also becoming a competitive sport. This might seem odd because
unlike breaking, it's hard to judge, but it will go the way of breaking because
they have become inseparable in a cultural dance movement. It will evolve into
a competitive thing. Written by Michael Holman in early 80s.
For a more details please seehttp://www.msu.edu/user/okumurak/styles/pop.htmltube |
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