In
the 1960’s during the music revolution with all the changes in the
music business a dance called “The Robot” was created from dancers
influenced from watching movies with Robots. This dance was made famous
from a dancer named Bill “The Robot” Williams of the Lockers crew. It
was a part of the dance called Locking at the time.
In
the mid 70’s in Fresno California a young dancer named Sam Solomon
created a dance called Electric Boogaloo. Today this dance is called
Boug Style Popping and was perfected from him and his brother Pete
(Later on known as Popping Pete) and later on moves were added from the
rest of the members of Sam’s crew (The Electric Boogaloos). Sam thought
that he had created a new style of Locking from watching the Lockers on a
T.V show called Soul Train and inspired by Bill “The Robot”. He even
named his 1st crew “Electric Boogaloo Lockers”.
The
name Boogaloo actually means dance and Sam heard his uncle one day
saying “Yeah Boy! Do that Boogaloo!” After that Sam was known as
Boogaloo Sam and the crew as Electric Boogaloos. Boogaloo is
characterized by fluidity use of every part of the body, rolling the
hips, knees and head. The style is a combination of “The Robot” and the
smooth isolations of mime.
 |
| popping john |
Popping
was created by dancers wanting to look tough like gangsters in Los
Angeles and Oakland when they danced. Popping is characterized by jerky
movements resulting from flexing the muscles at parts of the body. When
dancers Popped they would mutter “Pop, Pop” every time they flexed so it
became known as Popping. Hitting is a term used when flexing the
muscles harder and sudden as if trying to scare somebody. At the same
time dancers watching the waves down at the beach and imitating them
with there body movements were creating a dance called Waving. Electro
was an effect they gave to Waving when they moved the waves through the
body as if they caught some electricity. Inspired by the game Tetris,
the Tetris system was created having the arms and hand movement fall in
places like the bricks in the game. Later on Tetris connected with the
King Tut system that reminded Egyptian dancing like in the hieroglyphics
and influenced by cartoons like Looney Toons forming the system called
Tutting. Toy-man system of moves was inspired by play mobile figures and
action figures that were out on the market having the body imitate the
toy figure moves. Sliding and Gliding give the illusion that the
dancer’s feet are floating on the surface and sometimes looks like ice
skating. Scarecrow is a part of Popping that reminds exactly what its
name implies dancing with the arms out like a scarecrow. Air Posing is
an exaggeration of breathing in and out making shapes at the same time.
Crazy Legs created by Popping Pete has the legs moving at a different
direction from the body and finally look like they re-attach themselves
to the direction that the body is going. Strutting has the body breaking
one movement towards a spot to many smaller movements and with the
Strobing effect it makes it look like there is a strobe light on the
dancer at the time. Spiderman is a style imitating the movements of the
legendary comic hero when he is going up a building attached on the wall
like a spider.
Related styles { Kinds }
Animation
Animatronics
Boogaloo
Bopping
Crazy legs
Dime stopping
Floating,gliding and sliding
Miming
Puppet
Robot/botting
Scarecrow
Strobing
Struttin
Ticking
Toyman
Tutting/King Tut
Waving
Isolation
Best Poppper Ever
All
these dances, styles and systems combined with Electric Boogaloo
otherwise known as Boug Style Popping under the term “Popping”. The
Electric Boogaloos made Popping famous all over the world starting from
the T.V show Soul Train following the Lockers footsteps and taking it
into stage performance shows all over the globe.
