Twerking: Would you want to see Mom bust a move, Miley Cyrus-style?

Twerking, Miley Cyrus-style, got this mom cogitating on 'danthropology' and the long line of dances kids are forbidden to do, from the lambada on back to Josephine Baker. Her basic rule for her kids is: Don't perform any move you wouldn't want to see your mom do in front of your friends.

|
John Shearer/Invision/AP
Twerking, made further infamous this week by Miley Cyrus, has had a place at this year's Teen Choice Awards (Aug. 11) where hosts Darren Criss (r.), Lucy Hale (c.), and judges participate in the 'Twerk' world record.

After Miley Cyrus performed a VMA "twerk" that was to the real street version what skim milk is to an ice cream sundae, people have taken to what we can call danthropology, seeking the origin of twerking, which, like many adult crazes, has infiltrated the kid community.

While most believe the dance began in the 1980s, they should be looking at Josephine Baker wearing bananas at the Folies Bergère in 1925 and African birds instead.

The top comment on most of Baker’s YouTube Banana Dance videos, where she famously wore nothing but a string of bananas around her waist, is “She invented twerking!”

American audiences have had their share of forbidden dances, like the lambada. However, those dances took two while the twerk is a spectator’s sport.

Twerking has become so viral it has seeped into the kid community and has become a frequent feature in little girls’ dance routines and competitions.

Here in Norfolk, Va., you can come on over to the community center and see 6-year-olds bouncing their bums and laughing hysterically when adults come racing in to try to stop them.

I know this because I volunteer at the community center teaching chess during the summer camp. Early in the season I played some Kidz Bop, a compilation of kid-friendly versions of popular songs, and stood there amazed when the room erupted into a teeny, tiny twerkfest. It was both adorable and horrible. That was hard to explain to anyone passing the room, which has glass walls!

Whether you believe twerking began with Baker in Paris, 2LiveCrew or DJ Jubilee in New Orleans in 2006, like many dance crazes, the twerk originated in the African-American community, only to become less fluid in the cross-over to other cultures.

Although it seems more likely for a danthropologist to suggest it came from tribal dances like West African dances, most notably mapouka, from the Ivory Coast, known as “la dance du fessier,” or “dance of the behind.”  

Perhaps twerking did come from Africa itself, not from people, but birds. The Bird of Paradise, peacocks, and other male birds shake their tail feathers to attract a mate.

The real challenge for us as parents is to know when to encourage our kids to dance their hearts out and when to keep their groove things in check.

In the case of my youngest son, I let him dance all over the house in any way he likes. However, we have a strict bottom line when dancing at school, the community center, and parties.

The way to enforce the rule is to tell the kids that they shouldn’t perform any move they don’t want to see their mom doing in front of their friends. It’s a deterrent that works every time because they know Mom is just crazy enough to do it.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Twerking: Would you want to see Mom bust a move, Miley Cyrus-style?
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/The-Culture/Family/Modern-Parenthood/2013/0827/Twerking-Would-you-want-to-see-Mom-bust-a-move-Miley-Cyrus-style
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe