Thursday night in predominantly white Georgetown is B-Boy night at Modern night club. Break dancing is one of the four aspects that make up hip hop and so is associated with mainly with black culture. I entered the club before the ten pm cover charge began and so sat at the bar and observed for about an hour. More and more people trickled in and the stream of people was an almost equal mix of Black, White Hispanic and Asian. Old school funk and soul music dominated the music selection and some newer hip hop, but not much. The first dance I saw was Asian, his dress was that of most of the b-boys baggy pants, sneakers and a t- shirt. His acrobatic skills were undeniable, he moved with the music but focused more on tricks and style as opposed to staying with the beat all the time. He represents what a person I talked to later as the newer break dancing, which is more focused on tricks and less on the music. So in performing what many consider a specifically black form of art the Asian man brought with him a variation, a different focus and different style to his routine. That may or may not be based on his race and his desire to perform it differently or in a way to illustrate his Asianness.
The most amazing thing I saw at the club was a young white guy dancing with a prosthetic leg. His performance does not as much relate to performance of race, but does raise the issue of handicapped people performing who they are and how that can be related to the performance of Race. One would assume limitations for a person with a prosthetic leg, but he did not perform as a handicapped person, he was a B-Boy who had a prosthetic leg. As I write that, that could perhaps explain the multi-racial composition of the event. All the people there performed as B-Boys who were of a race but the most influential aspect on their performance was not race, but their identity as B-Boys
No comments:
Post a Comment