Category Archives: Folk Dance

Ghost Riding The Whip

Nationality: American. Self-Identified Ethnicity: Blend of Japanese, Caucasian and Mexican
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Los Angeles, CA
Performance Date: 4/26/11
Primary Language: English

Video Examples:  http://vimeo.com/22972127

Drew told me that ghost riding the whip is when you blast hyphy music in your car (“whip” is slang for “car”), open up the doors and dance along the car, on the hood, or on top of the car while the vehicle rolls forward slowly in drive or neutral.  Drew described “Hyphy” music as mid-tempo hip hop with unusual slang and goofy lyrics commonly found in the Bay Area.    The type of music encourages its listeners to “go dumb” and have fun with themselves rather than having any serious political philosophy or emotional relevance.  Drew explained that the style was popularized by artists like Mac Dre, E-40 and Too $hort.  People often ghost ride the whip in areas like Oakland at events called “sideshows,” in which large groups of people get together, play loud music, and basically have huge parties in the middle of the street.

Drew learned how to ghost ride the whip from the juniors and seniors in his high school when he was a freshman or sophomore.  He said he and his friends performed the activity a few times throughout high school, usually late at night on abandoned streets.  He said that he also did it once in his high school parking lot.  He claimed that people mostly did it just because it was funny and because they had seen Bay Area rappers doing it in videos.

Drew said he thinks people ghost ride because the act is funny and a part of hyphy culture.  If you want to feel like a part of the hyphy movement, you’ll ghost ride the whip at some point in your life.  Also, it’s fun.

In the videos included at the beginning of the post, Drew and his friend Gordy (also from the Bay Area) demonstrate common dances associated with ghost riding the whip.  However, they told me that you can pretty much dance however you want.  The only rule is that the car has to be moving by itself and blasting hyphy music.

I agree with Drew’s analysis that people ghost ride the whip mostly because it’s fun and funny.  I also would ghost ride the whip with my friends a few times in high school, simply because we felt as if we were doing something funny that we had seen rappers from Oakland do in videos online.

Also, ghost riding has an element of danger attached to it, as there’s always the fear that your car might get out of control and crash.  This makes the practice especially exciting for kids who have just learned how to drive and are rebellious and willing to test their limits.  The fact that Drew did this in his high school parking lot demonstrates that the practice is associated with youthful rebelliousness.

Also, ghost riding and the other aspects of “hyphy” are largely linked to Oakland and the greater Bay Area.  Even though the action is performed by people throughout the country, it’s most commonly found in Oakland.  Thus, ghost riding gives people a sense of identity and community.  It also distinguishes the hip hop scene from other hip hop scenes found throughout the country.

This practice can be found in the film Ghostride The Whip: The Hyphy Movement, a documentary by Peter Sprier released in 2008.  The documentary depicts examples of members of Oakland’s hip hop scene participating in sideshows, ghost riding the whip and doing other tricks with cars.  It highlights the danger surrounding the practice, but also explains how hyphy is a movement that shapes Bay Area identity and youth culture.  Popular Bay Area rappers like Keek Da Sneek appear in the film and explain the ghost riding phenomenon.

The practice has also been written about in several news publications, such as this article in the Washington Post.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/26/AR2006122600994_pf.html

References to ghost riding the whip can also be found in songs such as “Ghost Ride It” by Mistah FAB, featured on the album Da Yellow Bus Rydah.

Dance

Occupation: Student
Residence: Oxford, MS
Performance Date: March 2007
Primary Language: English

“Tinikling”

Ben first was introduced to the practice of tinikling at the age of nine. He learned how to perform the dance during elementary school when a friend of his who had recently moved to the United States of America from the Philippines taught him after school. Ben learned how to practice tinikling from his friend and began to take serious interest in the dance and continued to show interest for about three years. He says he performed the dance at his elementary school’s talent show during his fifth-grade year.

According to Ben, tinikling is a dance/game similar to jump roping wherein there are at least three participants– sometimes more. There are two people sitting opposite from one another who are both holding onto opposite ends of two long poles, which can be made of plastic tubing or bamboo. He said they used plastic because there isn’t exactly a large surplus of bamboo in the United States. Then he said that the people on the ends hit the poles on the ground in unison and then bring the poles together in the middle, while the third person jumps in and out of the poles in a fashion similar to jump-roping. Ben says that after one masters the basics of jumping in and out, it is fairly easy to implement other sorts of movement such as acrobatics for example. He claims that he is able to do cartwheels through the poles while tinikling, a skill, which took him a few painful practice runs to perfect.

Ben is currently a student at the University of Mississippi and studies Philosophy and Creative Writing. He grew up in Marietta, Georgia and attended a public elementary school there where he first came into contact with the practice of tinikling. He is a third-generation American with family backgrounds coming from Europe: Sweden and Scotland.

Variations of Tinikling are also present on a variety of websites such as the following:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tinikling. April 14, 2007. 9:30PM.

Dance – Portland, Oregon

Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: Portland, Oregon
Performance Date: October 30, 2007
Primary Language: English

The Crip Walk

An explanation of how to Crip Walk, or C-walk, is very difficult but videos can be obtained by going to www.youtube.com and simply searching for C-Walk.

Jude Graves is a friend of mine at USC who experienced quite a bit of gang culture back in his hometown of Portland. Most of his friends were affiliated with the notorious Crip gang, known for wearing the color blue and having a feud with rival gang Bloods who wear red. Jude told me that gangs are all about street credibility and respect, so in gang lore, any chance you get to disrespect a rival or assert dominance over an area, you take it. One way Crips stand out over Bloods is by performing a dance, called the C-walk, where they insult their rivals by spelling out Blood with their feet and then crossing it out. Crips also spell out their own names or their gang name, add special moves to the walk, or gesticulate gang signs with their hands while performing. Jude says the C-walk is not just performed to insult Bloods though; it can be used to show allegiance to the Crips, it is done at initiation, or in celebration of a robbery or killing of rivals.

The C-walk became mainstream around the same time as the infamous West Coast-East Coast Rap war was going on. Artists like Ice T, Snoop Dogg, and WC helped make the dance famous by performing it at concerts and shows or on television. Because of this, the C-walk caught on and quickly became a popular method of dancing to any kind of Hip-hop or Rap music. Since the 90’s, when the C-walk began gaining popularity, new variations have been added to it such as the V, the Shuffle, the Heel-Toe, and the Snake.

Jude actually taught me how to do the dance, which is not difficult to learn. Although it was once used only by the Crips to intimidate others and assert their name on the streets, it has now reached a level of popularity that dilutes the seriousness of its origins. The C-walk can be seen performed at parties and dance competitions alike, for it has steadily shifted from gang lore to mainstream Hip-Hop and Rap.

Folk Dance

Nationality: Black
Age: 20
Occupation: Student
Residence: Las Vegas, NV
Performance Date: April 28, 2008
Primary Language: English

Stepping

Subject’s Analysis:

“It has origins of West African traditions. It’s very popular in the black Greek community. You create rhythms and beats with stomping and clapping combinations, with dancing too. Different organizations have different styles, there’s energetic, precision, acrobatic, everything is synchronized. You have props that you use. Synchronization. There’s competitions, and you do it to represent your organization. It’s entertainment, as well as something done at gatherings. These include trains as well, these are like line dancing, some [trains] are complicated, and you perform them at competition. I love it, its fun. There’s some people that may not like it because they’re not good at it. I learned it after crossing, it’s not necessary to become an Alpha.”

Collector’s Analysis:

Stepping is a very exciting, unique, and fun part of the Black Greek community. The steps do actually originate from West African origins. The step competitions or “Stepshows” are highly entertaining and could be considered to be festivals. The “trains” are really fun to watch. The frat/sorority lines up, and then go into a routine that goes with the music that’s currently playing (it is considered a huge insult to join in on the end of a train if you do not belong to the organization dancing). Several of the props that are used in the stepshows are really interactive such as canes that are whirled around and tossed between each member. Sometimes the fraternities will even have themes to supplement their routines.

Music Genre – Silverlake, California

Tecktonik is a music style I observed in a Nightclub in Silverlake, Los Angeles. My informant claims that it is a style of dance that is a combination of hip-hop and techno dance style. It is done recreationally and is apparently extremely new. My informant claims to only have discovered it over the past year, as it has become extremely prevalent in Paris. Although tecktonic is not a genre of music but simply a dance style, the music that it is performed to is a genre of Electronic music, mainly Electronica and specifically French Electronica and Disco Pop. I say the word French electronica because the music that is used for this dance is mostly from French Artists and DJs. My informant told me that because this dance style is very new, it is witnessed extremely rarely even within the mainstream Electronic music community. It was emphasised that Tecktonic cannot be performed to House music, as the culture of that genre does not match the more “niche” electro culture. I would like to point out that footage of Tecktonic dance can be found on the internet, i.e. youtube and would like to make the assumption that it became widespread through the internet. I would like to point out that my annotation is a music video of a French pop artist named Yelle. In a remix to one of her songs, the official music video features Tecktonic dance entirely throughout the performance. My informant stresses that this music video is a major catalyst of the Tecktonic dance culture as it had never used and acknowledged on such a grand scale. As the artists success and popularity grew worldwide, the informant said that “tecktonic grew on an international scale”. On the official website, the video is advertised to “feature Tecktonic”. Internet research tells me that the Tecktonic has been copyrighted and that this is the first dance style to ever achieve copyright status. Attached is an image of the official Tecktonic logo.

Annotation:

Artist: Yelle

Song: À Cause Des Garçons (TEPR Remix)

Director: Bastien Lattanzio

Album & DVD: À Cause Des Garçons [Maxi] [Single]

ASIN: B000ZNW75S