Waacking is a form of street dance created in the LGBT clubs of Los Angeles during the 1970s disco era. The style is typically done to 70s disco music and is mainly distinguishable by its rotational arm movements, posing and emphasis on expressiveness.
History
In the early 1970s the dance style was known as posing or punking, with being a derogatory term for gay men at the time. Naming the style punking was a way of turning this negative term into something positive. The term "whack" was a specific movement within the punking style which involved moving the arms over the head in a rhythmic fashion. Although the heterosexual dance community took part in punking, they did not want to associate themselves with the negative connotations of the name and therefore renamed the dance genre "waackin". Later, Jeffery Daniel added the "g" to waackin to make it "waacking", the name by which the style is commonly known today. The originators of Waacking were said to have danced to underground and imported Disco music, which was often sped up to create a more energetic atmosphere on the dance floor. The style remained largely underground until it became popularized by the American music-dance television programSoul Train and influenced the creation of Outrageous Waacking Dancers, a Los Angeles-based waacking dance group. Waacking gained renewed attention through the American TV series So You ThinkYou Can Dance in 2011 when a dance routine was choreographed by Kumari Suraj. Over time the dance style has received growing recognition and has been incorporated by dance programs such as the Department for Theatre and Dance at University of South Carolina.
Influences
As with many other street dance styles that emerged from the late 20th century, waacking picked up various influences from other forms of movement and dance such as jazz, gymnastics and martial arts. It's visual similarities with the dance style locking can be attributed to the fact that both styles were developed around the same period of time in the Los Angeles club scene. The main differences lie within the communities that created these dances, where waacking was created mainly in LGBT clubs, locking was created by the wider club-going community. Furthermore, the music of the two styles differs, in which waacking uses disco and locking uses funk music. Another big influence for waacking was Hollywood, in which dancers took inspiration stylistically from movie stars such as Lauren Bacall, Marlene Dietrich, Bette Davis and James Dean. In modern pop culture, the style of dance is famously likened to the movements of the character Garnet in the cartoon showSteven Universe as a catalyst for many of her magical powers, including summoning magical weapons and fusing with other characters.
