2008-04-18

The Melbourne Shuffle

Wow - this is a fascinating street dance. Not just because the obvious parallels to tektonik and jumpstyle in the rise to internet fame (see futher last post) but because it's actually dynamic and skillful and innovative.



But perhaps even more interesting from my viewpoint is its apparently huge popularity in Malaysia, which has a surprisingly big hardstyle scene. Relatively, it's even bigger there than in Australia, with competitions, big clubs and even more dance videos. Lots more dance videos.



Besides the hardstyle Melbourne shuffle (how did that type of music get from Holland to Australia to Malaysia?) there's apparently also a "softstyle shuffle" which is danced to (what I hear with my limited ear is) more funky trance music and seems stepped a tad more conventionally. Wikipedia also suggests a possibly less ground-based variant called stomping, seemingly featured here. But honestly, I'm fumbling my way in the dark here - this calls for a lot more web research.

Maybe this blog will provide a good start - so far it seems well-researched and with a worldwide reach. I'm especially intrigued, so far, by the enormous post on the "phats", the special trousers you'll see a lot of those dancers wearing.

4 comments:

Garry Shepherd said...

Hey thanks for the link Johan, not a bad blog yourself ;)

how did hardstyle music get from Holland to Australia to Malaysia ?

We've just started a new forum of Melbourne Shuffle culture to investigate that very thing. This thread will probably give you the answer

http://mso1.cultureforum.net/hardstyle-f19/hardstyle-t37.htm

Birdseed said...

Interesting stuff!

I'm looking forward to what that thread will reveal. I'm especially interested in how it came to be so deeply rooted in Malaysia - and of course (since music is my main blogging interest) if any local producers there are developing the music themselves.

Birdseed said...

Here's another interesting post from another interesting blog I've also bookmarked. The blog also seems to contain a lot of Malaysian hardstyle information, we'll see if I can find out anything interesting.

Anonymous said...

where do u learn how to melbourne shuffle??