Boogaloos

https://oaklandside.org/2020/08/18/oaklands-original-boogaloos-speak-out...

<<Pioneers of a funky Bay Area dance style are fighting to preserve their history, after an extremist alt-right movement appropriates their name.

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When William “Mr. Penguin” Randolph—a member of the legendary East Oakland dance group The Black Resurgents—found out about boogaloo’s violent doppelgangers, he was appalled. “I heard a news clip talking about these guys in Hawaiian shirts and semiautomatic weapons, talking about they were boogaloos and the boogaloo movement was a movement that would create civil war and neo-Nazism or anti-American government in the United States,” he said. “And I’m like, wait a minute, hold on.”

Randolph says understanding this culture and art form means going all the way back to the early days of boogaloo in the 1960s, when dance moves including “the funk boogaloo” and “the robot” diverged from the James Brown dance known as the “soul boogaloo.” This evolution paralleled the emergence of funk music, which broke away from conventional soul and R&B, with Bay Area artists such as Sly & The Family Stone spearheading the revolutionary new sound.

Distinct, funk boogaloo dance techniques—including “the ditallion,” “the hard pose” or “bam,” “the dime stop,” “the freeze,” and “the hit”—emerged early on. Other movements—“creepin’,” “worming,” “the cowboy,” “the looney cartooney,” “the dynorama,” “vibrating,” “ticking,” “waving,” “3-D,” and “animation”—were added to the lexicon later. “The hit” became “the Oakland hit” due to its use by mascots at Fremont and Castlemont High Schools during competitive sporting events.  

These dynamic, visually arresting movements were incorporated into both solo and group routines; the latter also utilized Temptations-style stepping and other unison movements. Countless hours of practice went into developing the boogaloo repertoire, which was further refined at parks, rec centers, and high schools throughout Oakland, eventually making its way to other cities and larger stages.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRokapZtCeU&list=RDfRokapZtCeU&start_rad...