....If you put a lot of effort into perfecting this style of 'dance,' you need a hobby. It's not hard. I'll allow for Cat Daddy, I'll allow for various other ridiculous hip-hop/rap-based fad dances, but twerking is where I draw the line in the 'dance' description. It doesn't need to be ballet to be dance (have you SEEN a modern dance, such as Momix?), but if you're insulted because I told you your twerking skills aren't a dance, you need thicker skin. As well as a hobby.
I think the item you're looking to show (seeing as you pulled the 'actress' card), is PERFORMANCE art. Which many people, in fact, do not consider to be art. Or, perhaps, you were looking to tell me that acting is not a career. At which point, you can tell that to the check I just got two days ago for my production of Hamlet. :D
Also: the gym in question had THIS routine, among the most family-friendly at Worlds (I still curse that gosh-darned scheduling fiasco for the debacle that was Medium Coed). Judging by their dance, I'd say they are FAR from hypocritical for saying such inappropriate moves don't coincide with their philosophy on 'appropriate' behavior.
1) I never said that
I put in any sort of effort into perfecting my "twerking" skills. Twerking isn't an activity that I would ever want to put a significant amount of time into. Neither is stamp-collecting, HAM Radio, or many other activities. However, my lack of involvement doesn't prevent me from appreciating the fact that the people who enjoy them put a lot of effort into their work to develop their skills. Even if I did think that perfecting twerking were a waste of time, that doesn't give me justification to demean it as a dance form.
2) Actually, many people don't consider
any type of acting to be artistic (myself not included). I didn't "pull the actress card" to demean your career in any way-- I wrote what I wrote to elicit the exact
opposite reaction that you exhibited. I spent the vast majority of middle/high school performing in musical theatre and traditional stage pieces. In one of the most rewarding classes I've taken, we spent months analyzing (and performing) A Midsummer Nights Dream, Hamlet, Titus Andronicus (which is one of the coolest/most disturbing things I've ever read btw), and Julius Caesar (among other works). I
admire what you do--which is why I had hoped how you (as an artist) would appreciate the irrationality in nonsensically insulting another form of art, regardless of whether or not you value it.
3) As I've written previously in this thread, I think you'll find that just about every body position, dance move, and jump sequence in cheer is as objectively "inappropriate" as twerking. In this particular T&S routine, as every other cheer routine, the athletes repeatedly and unabashedly spread their legs. The majority of the athletes could be considered "half-naked". There are parts of the dance where the athletes repeatedly pop their chests out. Of course, this doesn't mean that anything about what they're doing is actually sexually explicit/inappropriate given the context.
Again, the context and intent of the action is significantly more important in these matters than the action itself. A stripper doing the splits in a strip club? Sexually explicit. An athlete pulling a bow and arrow that exposes her spankies in a cheer routine? Totally acceptable. A partially nude exotic dancer twerking on stage in the club? Sexually explicit. A group of friends playfully twerking because they think it's a cool dance move, or a group of athletes twerking in a cheer routine? Acceptable!
