Liquid dancing
Encyclopedia
Liquid and digits is a type of gestural
, interpretive
, rave and urban street dance
that sometimes involve aspects of pantomime
. The term invokes the word liquid to describe the fluid-like motion of the dancer's body and appendages and digits to refer to illusions constructed with the dancer's fingers. Liquid dancing has many moves in common with popping
and waving
. The exact origins of the dances are uncertain, although they came out of either popping, rave
s, or both sometime from the 1970s
to 1990s
. The dance is typically done to a variety of electronic dance music
genres from trance
to drum and bass
to glitch hop, depending on the dancer's musical taste.
B-boys and funk stylists generally contend that liquid dancing is a development of waving, a technique in popping
. Liquid dancing covers many of the same fundamentals as popping and it is fully possible (and common) for dancers to combine the styles, further blurring the distinction between the two. The defining difference is liquid dancing concentrating on smooth movements while popping is characterized by jerky pops (hits) and contractions.
In 2000, a group of liquid dancers from throughout the northeastern United States
formed the Liquid Pop Collective (LPC). The name later caused some confusion since some thought the LPC did a dance called "liquid popping" but the name was chosen because many members did both liquid and popping. In Philadelphia, they began performing at events run by Reflective Multimedia, a collective of DJs and visual artists. After performing for a bit, they noticed other people in the clubs who they did not know starting to do liquid and digits. Before this, those that were interested in liquid generally knew each other. The LPC was concerned that these newcomers to the dance did not have anyone teaching them. They thought about how funk styles flourished without any direct teachers and came to the conclusion that they needed to develop a standard vocabulary for the dance. Around this time, the LPC put a video (now available on YouTube) of one of the members, Eric, liquid dancing on Napster
. The video spread and people wanted to learn the dance. So, the LPC decided to make an instructional video by the name of All Access Liquid and Digitz, Volume 01 (no other volumes were made) which defined the concepts that are the foundation of liquid and digits and had performances of four members. They sold about 2000 VHS tapes through their now-defunct website lpclabs.com and shipped to all over the world. LPC has since disbanded, though the instructional components are available at http://www.youtube.com/darkmattersquad
. These moves can be combined with video editing to show the imaginary object being manipulated as the person dances.
keychain lights (such as the popular Photon brand), or white gloves under black light
. When a dancer specializes in glowsticks, the dance often ceases to resemble liquid and is then referred to as glowsticking
.
Gesture
A gesture is a form of non-verbal communication in which visible bodily actions communicate particular messages, either in place of speech or together and in parallel with spoken words. Gestures include movement of the hands, face, or other parts of the body...
, interpretive
Interpretive dance
Interpretive dance is a family of dance styles that seeks to translates particular feelings and emotions, human conditions, situations, or fantasies into movement and dramatic expression combined...
, rave and urban street dance
Street dance
Street dance, more formally known as vernacular dance, is an umbrella term used to describe dance styles that evolved outside of dance studios in any available open space such as streets, dance parties, block parties, parks, school yards, raves, and nightclubs, etc...
that sometimes involve aspects of pantomime
Mime artist
A mime artist is someone who uses mime as a theatrical medium or as a performance art, involving miming, or the acting out a story through body motions, without use of speech. In earlier times, in English, such a performer was referred to as a mummer...
. The term invokes the word liquid to describe the fluid-like motion of the dancer's body and appendages and digits to refer to illusions constructed with the dancer's fingers. Liquid dancing has many moves in common with popping
Popping (dance)
Popping is a street dance and one of the original funk styles that came from California during the 1960s-70s. It is based on the technique of quickly contracting and relaxing muscles to cause a jerk in the dancer's body, referred to as a pop or a hit...
and waving
Waving (dance)
Wavinging along his arms, start and end a wave at any point on his arms, and transition the wave through his body as a bodywave. There are seven and eleven point waves. The eleven point wave runs as finger knuckes-knuckles-wrist-elbow-shoulder-chest-shoulder-elbow-wrist-knuckles-finger knuckles...
. The exact origins of the dances are uncertain, although they came out of either popping, rave
Rave
Rave, rave dance, and rave party are parties that originated mostly from acid house parties, which featured fast-paced electronic music and light shows. At these parties people dance and socialize to dance music played by disc jockeys and occasionally live performers...
s, or both sometime from the 1970s
1970s
File:1970s decade montage.png|From left, clockwise: US President Richard Nixon doing the V for Victory sign after his resignation from office after the Watergate scandal in 1974; Refugees aboard a US naval boat after the Fall of Saigon, leading to the end of the Vietnam War in 1975; The 1973 oil...
to 1990s
1990s
File:1990s decade montage.png|From left, clockwise: The Hubble Space Telescope floats in space after it was taken up in 1990; American F-16s and F-15s fly over burning oil fields and the USA Lexie in Operation Desert Storm, also known as the 1991 Gulf War; The signing of the Oslo Accords on...
. The dance is typically done to a variety of electronic dance music
Electronic dance music
Electronic dance music is electronic music produced primarily for the purposes of use within a nightclub setting, or in an environment that is centered upon dance-based entertainment...
genres from trance
Trance music
Trance is a genre of electronic dance music that developed in the 1990s.:251 It is generally characterized by a tempo of between 125 and 150 bpm,:252 repeating melodic synthesizer phrases, and a musical form that builds up and breaks down throughout a track...
to drum and bass
Drum and bass
Drum and bass is a type of electronic music which emerged in the late 1980s. The genre is characterized by fast breakbeats , with heavy bass and sub-bass lines...
to glitch hop, depending on the dancer's musical taste.
Origins
Since the spontaneous rise and propagation of Liquid throughout the rave culture in the 1980’s and early 1990’s, the root origins of the dance have ultimately remained a source of contention between both those involved directly with the dance as well as those outside of the immediate culture. In fact, even the time frame is difficult to pinpoint. Sightings of the dance range all the way back to the early and mid 1970’s. While some argue that the dance evolved spontaneously from combining elements in the rave culture, others still contend that the dance is merely an extension of existing ideas from other art forms. Scores of these artists (Funk Stylists, Glowstickers Contact Jugglers, Mimes, & The Unknown) attended raves regularly all throughout the 1980’s and 1990’s. In the wake of the decline of the original rave scene, liquid has become a standing part of a worldwide club culture and the underground street dancing movement.B-boys and funk stylists generally contend that liquid dancing is a development of waving, a technique in popping
Popping (dance)
Popping is a street dance and one of the original funk styles that came from California during the 1960s-70s. It is based on the technique of quickly contracting and relaxing muscles to cause a jerk in the dancer's body, referred to as a pop or a hit...
. Liquid dancing covers many of the same fundamentals as popping and it is fully possible (and common) for dancers to combine the styles, further blurring the distinction between the two. The defining difference is liquid dancing concentrating on smooth movements while popping is characterized by jerky pops (hits) and contractions.
In 2000, a group of liquid dancers from throughout the northeastern United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
formed the Liquid Pop Collective (LPC). The name later caused some confusion since some thought the LPC did a dance called "liquid popping" but the name was chosen because many members did both liquid and popping. In Philadelphia, they began performing at events run by Reflective Multimedia, a collective of DJs and visual artists. After performing for a bit, they noticed other people in the clubs who they did not know starting to do liquid and digits. Before this, those that were interested in liquid generally knew each other. The LPC was concerned that these newcomers to the dance did not have anyone teaching them. They thought about how funk styles flourished without any direct teachers and came to the conclusion that they needed to develop a standard vocabulary for the dance. Around this time, the LPC put a video (now available on YouTube) of one of the members, Eric, liquid dancing on Napster
Napster
Napster is an online music store and a Best Buy company. It was originally founded as a pioneering peer-to-peer file sharing Internet service that emphasized sharing audio files that were typically digitally encoded music as MP3 format files...
. The video spread and people wanted to learn the dance. So, the LPC decided to make an instructional video by the name of All Access Liquid and Digitz, Volume 01 (no other volumes were made) which defined the concepts that are the foundation of liquid and digits and had performances of four members. They sold about 2000 VHS tapes through their now-defunct website lpclabs.com and shipped to all over the world. LPC has since disbanded, though the instructional components are available at http://www.youtube.com/darkmattersquad
Techniques, concepts, and construction
Liquid dancers use a variety of techniques rhythmically strung together to create an illusion of continuous flow that corresponds to the music.Hand flow
Hand flow is the most commonly used technique in Liquid dancing and simultaneously the easiest to grasp. It consists of curling the fingers of one hand and following them with the straight fingers of the opposite hand. The wrists, elbows, and shoulders may be involved to extend the motion. A Liquid dancer's personal style is defined by his or her individual approach to hand flow, and how it fits into their dance as a whole.Rails
Rails, often a heavy focus in liquid, are characterized by the moving of the arms along a set path or "rail".Waves
Waves maintain the illusion that a wave is passing through one's body by the isolation and alternating tensing and relaxing of one part of the body at a time at a steady speed in a constant direction.Traces
During a trace, one's feet follows the path of a wave going through one's body. The hand moves at the same speed and in the same direction as the wave.Contours
This technique entails the hands following exactly the outline of an object, be it real or imaginary. Most commonly the hands follow the outline of one's own body.Threads
This style maintains the illusion that one is pulling parts of their body through holes created by the positioning of other body parts, typically arms. An example of this would be holding one's shoulder to create a closed loop which the other arm goes through. These are performed at the same speed as the flow of the liquid and waves to maintain an illusion of continuity.Splits
This technique is characterized by the hands moving independently of each other while maintaining the illusion of a fluid relationship between each other. This is typically accomplished by misaligning the hands but using the same finger motions as regular handflow.Builds
Builds are identified by the manipulation of imaginary objects in a manner similar to pantomimePantomime
Pantomime — not to be confused with a mime artist, a theatrical performer of mime—is a musical-comedy theatrical production traditionally found in the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Jamaica, South Africa, India, Ireland, Gibraltar and Malta, and is mostly performed during the...
. These moves can be combined with video editing to show the imaginary object being manipulated as the person dances.
Remotes
Using one part of the body as a remote control for another is referred to as a remote. For example, pulling a hand up while simultaneously lifting a leg as if they are connected by a string is a remote.Levers
Using one body part to create the illusion of applying a driving force to rotate another body part around a hinge. Typically done with a hand driving the opposite hand + forearm around the opposite elbow.Gear
Some liquid practitioners commonly accentuate their dance with light emitting gear. Typically the gear will consist of either glowsticks, very bright LEDLEd
LEd is a TeX/LaTeX editing software working under Microsoft Windows. It is a freeware product....
keychain lights (such as the popular Photon brand), or white gloves under black light
Black light
A black light, also referred to as a UV light, ultraviolet light, or Wood's lamp, is a lamp that emits ultraviolet radiation in the long-wave range, and little visible light...
. When a dancer specializes in glowsticks, the dance often ceases to resemble liquid and is then referred to as glowsticking
Glowsticking
Glowsticking is a form of dancing with glowsticks or other glowstick-like instruments that share the same qualities: durability, consistency in light, safety to toss around, and the material of which they are made, often a soft and pliant plastic....
.
External links
- Floasis: Liquid dance community with forums and tutorial videos
- The Liquid Digest: Liquid-related news, op-ed pieces, clips, and more.
- Liquid & Digitz Dance Repository: A collection of liquid and digitz tutorials.
- popular video of LPEric liquid dancing
- Dark Matter Squad: New organization supporting electronic music dance culture created by original members of the LiquidPop Collective