VIDEO: Twerking Russian Ballerinas

These Russian ballerinas twerk as well as they dance!

Twerking has become more and more popular over the last couple of years.

Women from all corners of the world are doing it, recording themselves and uploading it online.

Why wouldn’t ballerinas try it, as well?

After all, twerking is just a different type of dancing.

According to Wikipedia, twerking is a type of dance in which an individual, usually female, moves to music in a sexually provocative manner involving thrusting hip movements and a low squatting stance. Twerking is also known as “booty shaking,” “p-poppin” or “pussy-poppin”, and “bounce” depending on the context.

The term seems to be of uncertain origin with common assumptions suggesting it represents a contraction of “footwork” or a portmanteau of the words “twist” and “jerk”. The Oxford Dictionaries blog says “the most likely theory is that it is an alteration of work, because that word has a history of being used in similar ways, with dancers being encouraged to “work it”.

There is evidence from ethnographic interviews in New Orleans that the term began as everyday street language in New Orleans concurrent with the rise of the local style of hip hop music known as bounce.

The earliest use of the word “twerk” on record was produced in a local New Orleans recording by DJ Jubilee. The word specifically originated from the inner-city of New Orleans and was used frequently in New Orleans Bounce music by rappers and djs hosting block parties in the housing projects.

The word became popular In the 2000s when it was used by Atlanta rapper lil Jon and The Eastside boys. A Google Trends search reveals that interest in the word “twerk” arose in November 2011.

The diffusion of the dance phenomenon began earlier via local parties and eventually strip clubs often associated with mainstream rap music and video production aired by video cable television shows that featured rap and R&B music. Popular video-sharing channels amplified interest since the advent of digital social media platforms.

Historically and currently, similar styles of booty-shaking are found throughout the continent of Africa as well as the African and Afro-Latin diaspora. Similar styles of dance are known as mapouka Côte d’Ivoire, leumbeul in Senegal, and other styles can be found in Tanzania, Uganda, and Kenya to name a few. This style of pelvic- and hip-isolated dancing is known as perreo or sandungueo associated with Reggaeton from Puerto Rico.

Twerking can be said to be indirectly linked to African cultural dancing without any direct connections between people from Africa. Without knowledge of its historical or cultural roots in New Orleans and links to a diaspora of styles of dance, the trend was discussed in ahistorical ways.

The history of its origins in New Orleans in the early 1990s is documented in various sources. Twerking like many cultural traditions or expressive dances associated with marginalized groups has become stigmatized in racialized and gendered ways that often associates those who perform the dance—primarily girls and women of color—with deviant behavior.