Dance Masterz

This is a scene from the movie “Paris is burning” -the 1990 documentary film directed by Jennie Livingston. Filmed in the mid-to-late 1980s, it chronicles the ball culture of New York City and the poor, African American and gay and transgendered community involved in it.

 In mainstream world, it was Madonna who made the vogueing popular just like Michael Jackson made moonwalking popular.  Vogueing might have been considered as just a fad.  But vogueing has a long history before Madonna and its culture is still alive now.  In this clip, the best vogueing dancer, Willie Ninja explains the origin of vogueing.  I saw him dancing in January of 2007 and he was still great.  He passed away a few month later. 

Willie Ninja R.I.P.

What he is performing is called “Shine” in Cuban Salsa. Normally, Salsa is pair dance. But Shine is a sort of salsa version of free style solo dance style when the pair split and start dancing individually for a while. Even though Salsa is not a part of street dance culture, this video is definetely worth posting. If you are into house dancing, be-bop or any footworks, you should appreciate this video.

According to the original post on youtube, he is a colombian and the world champion of this “shine” category in 2005 and 2006. I love to see him dancing with house music.