Flexing (dance)

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Flexing, also called Bone Breaking, is a style of street dance from Brooklyn, New York that is characterized by rhythmic contortionist movement combined with waving, tutting, floor moves, and gliding. Flex dancers, referred to as flexers, often perform shirtless and incorporate hat tricks in their performance for showmanship.

Video Flexing (dance)

Origins

Before flexing gained mainstream exposure it was featured as early as 1992 on a local television show in New York City called 'Flex N Brooklyn'. The dance is primarily performed to a mix of dancehall, reggae, and "...a chopped-up instrumental called the 'Volume' riddim". According to Pitchfork.com, the producers of this new genre refer to it as FDM (Flex Dance Music). Although flexing looks like a subgenre of popping, it did not come from hip-hop dance, funk music, or hip-hop culture. It evolved from a Jamaican style of street dance called bruk-up. In a 2009 interview with WireTap magazine, dancer Stefan "Mr. Wiggles" Clemente described bruk-up as a "reggae style of animation."

Maps Flexing (dance)

Exposure

Flexing has been performed on the third season of America's Best Dance Crew (ABDC), on the second season of The LXD, and at the Guggenheim Museum as part of the YouTube Play event. In 2011, the Huffington Post published a brief news article on flex dancers Bones the Machine and DJ Aaron. In 2013, NextLevelSquad performed flexing at Breakin' Convention and Adedamola "Ringmaster Nugget" Orisagbemi performed flexing at the Vail International Dance Festival. In 2016, Jacob's Pillow Dance presented FLEXN, a creation of flex pioneer Reggie (Regg Roc) Gray and theatre and opera director Peter Sellars.

The 2013 independent film Flex Is Kings documents the lives of several flexers over a two-year period leading up to a dance competition called BattleFest. Flex Is Kings was screened at the Tribeca Film Festival. Flexing was also the subject of a French online dance show called "Puma the Quest". In 2014, The New Yorker published a seven-page article about flex dancer Saalim "Storyboard P" Muslim.

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See also

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References

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External links

• Flex Is Kings official website
• Bone Flexing in Brooklyn' s Battle Fest - New York Post on YouTube
• The Ringmasters (crew) demonstrating flexing on ABDC on YouTube
• Seaweed: LXD - excerpt from YouTube Play at the Guggenheim on YouTube

Source of article : Wikipedia