What the Twerk?

I don’t know how to process it.

Last week, I chaperoned the local high school prom, and thing is, the kids weren’t twerking. Not a one of them. Not at all. Not one booty bounce among the hundred-odd teens gathered on that dance floor, living it up. None. Instead, they were happy-dancing, jumping and swaying in a carefree way. Together, friendly-like, all of them. No twerks. But why?

It wasn’t lack of opportunity – there were twerking songs in the mix. “Get Low” by Lil Jon, “Back That Ass Up” by Juvenile. The twerk-ability was there. But the moves weren’t. It’s had me flummoxed and flustered all week.

I know I’m being weird about this. But not in the way you think. I’m making a big deal about it not because I like butts but because I was offended. I was offended in the way every teacher is offended when students shirk their lessons and go their own ways. The way every parent is offended when the kids rebel against the old ways and prefer the new. We invented the twerk. We made the twerk into a household name and taught everyone with a heinie how to shake it like a faulty washing machine. Why are you not using the twerk that we taught you, teenagers? Have you forsaken us?

Perhaps these kids are just an isolated subset, you say. And maybe you’re right, but there was a good mix of kids on that dance floor. Among them, if twerking were still the fashion, someone would’ve busted the move. I can only assume the twerk has died a tragic and prolonged death.

How do I feel about this? Sad? Relieved? Worried? I mean, was twerking just a dance, or was it something more?

What if the booty bounce was a social indicator? What does (did?) the twerk say about us?

I think it says (said?) that we liked big, in-your-face moves. The twerk is (was?) defiant – the dance of a generation determined to stick its rear-end into the past. The dance of the shakers, the movers, the bouncers.

And now what? What will the next dance craze be?

In class, I’m teaching about ecological succession – the change of an ecosystem over time, leading to an eventual climax community, like a beech forest. Lichen grow, then grasses, shrubs, and a hundred years later, stately trees. What if dance is like that? What is the climax community of dance? What will the final, end-stage dance moves look like?

I want you to imagine it. What is the dance of the future? Where are we, as a civilization, headed? What moves will the youth bring us?

Imagine what you will, but I don’t need to imagine. I’ve seen the future, and it looks an awful lot like joy.

– Jessi Waugh