MetaFilter posts tagged with music and dance

Shiny, Shiny Ballet on Czechoslovak TV

The Devil Tesla — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 12:35:40 -0800

It’s the 70s, you’re Czech, sassy, and your future is bright. Disco ballet via coilhouse. (previously)

Ce soir sera une bonne soirée!

Rhaomi — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 12:56:54 -0800

On September 10th, to celebrate their initiation week, 172 communications students at the University of Quebec at Montreal decided to put on a show. After weeks of preparation, the costumed and prop-wielding crowd enacted an exuberant, complex, and flawlessly-choreographed performance of the Black Eyed Peas song "I Gotta Feeling" that sprawled through the campus's multi-story Judith Jasmin Pavilion... and they did it all in one continuous take (on their second try). The feat is just the most recent example of "lipdubbing" -- a video phenomenon where a single camera moves through a crowd of highly coordinated lip-syncers in a single seamless take, with the original recording dubbed over the finished product. Though the basic concept was pioneered by viral videos like the Numa Numa Dance and OK Go's "Here It Goes Again", the current model for lipdubbing was conceived by Vimeo founder Jakob Lodwick, who coined the term after dubbing a recording of himself singing "Endless Dream" by Apes & Androids. According to technical writer and blogger Tom Johnson's analysis of the video, the best lipdubs appear "spontaneous, authentic, participatory, and fun." Lodwick's video was followed up by a Vimeo business partner's staff doing their rendition of Harvey Danger's "Flagpole Sitta" (previously). The technique soon exploded in popularity -- everything from web magazines to TV studios to hospitals got into the act. But perhaps no group took to lipdubbing better than universities. Following the lead of The University Lipdub Project (original video), colleges from multiple nations adopted lipdubbing as a way to showcase their campus life and school spirit:

School, Nation - Video info - Song Institut Universitaire de Technologie de Rouen, France - 140 people - "Thriller" by Michael Jackson HEC Paris, France - 120 people - "Lollipop" by Mika l'Université de Poitiers, France - 56 people - "I Don't Feel Like Dancin'" by the Scissor Sisters Mines de Saint Etienne, France - "I Don't Feel Like Dancin'" by the Scissor Sisters IUT Belfort/Montbéliard, France - 353 people (a world record) - "La Confession de Monsieur Connard" by Les Tock'art HEC Montréal, Canada - 150 people - "Mamma Mia" by Abba Institut Notre Dame de la Providence, France - "Toi + Moi" by Grégoire Ecole Polytechnique, France - "Love Is All" by Roger Glover Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München, Germany - "LMU" (original song) IHECS, Belgium - 100+ people - "Banana Split" HEC Montréal, Canada - 172 people - "Summer of '69" by Bryan Adams European Business School, Germany - "Tell It to My Heart" by Dyane Taylor, "I Get Around" by the Beach Boys ESC Dijon, France - 95 people - "Working Together" by Gonzales Essec Business School, France - 200 people - "Let's Get It Started" by the Black Eyed Peas Emlyon Business School, France - 300 people - "Pop the Music" by Triim, "Video Killed the Radio Star" by Buggles ENSIC, France - 85 people - "Hot N Cold" by Kate Perry Campo Limpo Paulista College, Brazil - 56 people - "Ultramen" by Santo Forte

Bonus one-shot goodness:

Children of Men's climactic 6-minute one-shot scene (spoilers) Honda's "The Cog" (previ-ously) The Way Things Go (previously) Bike Hero (previously) Slydini's Newspaper (previously)

Alekpehanhou, and the funky moves he inspires

flapjax at midnite — Sun, 23 Aug 2009 03:36:54 -0800

Just in case you were wondering, yes, indeed, it is the people who dance to Zinli music in Benin who have the coolest, freshest dance moves on the planet. Once you get past the extended a cappella intro, and that delicious slow groove kicks in at the 3:26 minute mark, this video will treat you to some of the most undulating funky moves EVAR. Now, whether you wanna try some of these gyrations yourself, or whether you just dig a nice, slow, cooly percolating West African groove for listening, go here for more from singer Alekpehanhou the "Roi du Zinli Rénové". More clips from Alekpehanhou: agbon hou agbon mi no ko di hèss Awo mèwito

1990s dance music covers: reviled, acclaimed, maimed and shamed

filthy light thief — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 13:21:29 -0800

Free Friday Frantic (Music) Fun: Ergo Phizmiz & The Midnight Florists cover five 1990s chartbusting, dancefloor filling smash hits with arrangements of acoustic, electronic, homemade, and toy instruments. [More musical mischief inside] The five tracks are hosted on WMFU's Free Music Archive, discussed last year when the FMA started up. This EP is via Music for Maniacs, who previously was the source for a link to the J Marimba Ponies performing Khachaturian's Sabre Dance. Original versions: Deee-Lite - "Groove Is In The Heart" (1990) Culture Beat - "Mr Vain" (1993) Eiffel 65 - "Blue (Da Ba Dee)" (1999) (plus the intro to Fresh Prince of Bel Air thrown in for good measure) (1990) C & C Music Factory - "Gonna Make You Sweat" (1990) Lou Bega - "Mambo No 5" (1999) Snap - "Rhythm Is A Dancer" (1992) Ergo Phizmiz was discussed previously, first for his groups cover of "White Light, White Heat" (the songs can now be found on this newer blog post, which also includes 9 covers of Aphex Twin and 6 modern R&B [Arff & Beef] covers), and later for his collaborative work on the 14-part podcast about the history and practice of sound collage and mashups. Still looking for more audio oddities from Ergo Phizmiz and associates? His discography on F.M.A. includes: - five scenes from Cervantes' "Don Quixote" in an imaginary ballet setting - 55 minutes of instrumental music from the forthcoming 10 part Ergo Phizmiz radio-art cycle "The House of Dr Faustus" - three short pieces of "personal agitprop" that formed as a "result of increasingly frequent comings to verbal blows with intrusive and arrogant neighbours" - a pilot for a project-in-progress in children's radio that features Ergo's daughters - a short little something that is a tribute to Nicolas Cage Oh, and almost 6 hours from the Collected Radio Works by Ergo Phizmiz.

Joyous juju from the king

madamjujujive — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 16:45:26 -0800

Me Le Se and Dance Medley - live clips of King Sunny Ade and his African Beats in Seattle last month just before being inducted into the AfroPop Hall of Fame. More clips from the show ... More clips from KEXP: Iyi Ti Odidere Ni Oluwa No'o Jeun Kan / Sijuade Mori Keke Kan Also, hear his 10 minute interview with Jon Kertzer and view a clip from the Afropop Hall of Fame induction ceremony. In a 2005 interview, KSA talks about how as an actual king in his native Nigeria, he had to defy his family and break with tradition to become a musician. So good he persisted - he and his 20+ band of talking drummers, guitarists, vocalists & dancers were early pioneers in bringing Afropop and juju music to the world at large. More stuff: Juju Music - a 4 minute trailer for a documentary, which features KSA among others Ja Fun Mi (not live) - his signature song, which means "Fight for me" Afropop - a great resource for African music nickyskye's awesome post on glimpses of the African Rock n' Roll Years -You really can't go wrong with surfing any of the africa+music tags on Mefi!

LLangollen Eisteddfod

Balonious Assault — Sat, 11 Jul 2009 15:50:29 -0800

The 2009 Llangollen International Musical Eisteddfod competitions have concluded, with the Pavarotti Trophy for Choir of the World being awarded to The Westminster Chorus. The Eisteddfod includes choral, solo, instrumental, and dance competitions. Video of the competitions can be seen here.

Do you wanna dance?

fearfulsymmetry — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 11:06:14 -0800

Back in the days before music videos, and if the band could not make it to the Top Of The Pops studio, then out would come dance group Pan's People. Admittedly a lot of their performances were well into 'one for the dads' territory... but some of their interpretations of the songs were really rather imaginative if not downright bizarre. (Alright, the last one is from spin-off Legs And Co.) Clips from a documentary on the history of the group

Tiga - Probably not a tiger.

debord — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 21:11:01 -0800

Canadian DJ bloke Tiga has a new album called Ciao. He's made a spoof documentary to promote it. It's really funny, even if you don't know about dance music - A bit like Nathan Barley by the ever wonderful Chris Morris. Part 1 Part 2

Harder Better Faster Further.

loquacious — Sun, 10 May 2009 18:07:38 -0800

Daft Punk revealed in bootleg video at the 1996 Even Further festival. Though it's impossible to see what gear-manipulating is going on, this is an excellent example of a "live PA" of electronic dance music as opposed to DJing.

Knock knock

Mblue — Fri, 08 May 2009 15:07:09 -0800

Greg. Fred. Sam. Bill. Eleanor. Included because it made me smile.

3xDope

cashman — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 21:42:32 -0800

Dance! Rye Rye, Isis from Thunderheist, and RaTheMC are 3 burgeoning emcees that will have you up and on the floor, getting your groove on. Rye Rye hooked up with M.I.A. in Baltimore (2:12 interview 2:07 part II where they discuss meeting). RaTheMC teamed up with Judah (9:28 interview). Isis Salam worked with Grahm Zilla (4:06 interview) - they are Thunderheist. And of course, Twitter accounts for them except the youngest of the three, who is on myspace.

Another one bites the dust...

ThePinkSuperhero — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 21:27:49 -0800

No Bailout for the Arts? Many organizations could use the help.

This video contains so much more than flashing lights

blasdelf — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 02:41:18 -0800

Dancefloor Dale (autoplaying music video) — NSFW after 1:05, and never safe for epilleptics. SFW Intro on YouTube | Polite Dance Song has been featured here before | More Tim & Eric posts… dancefloordale.com is the home of the project, I didn't make it the main link as the video-preview image is spoilerish.

TIP TOP

vronsky — Sat, 20 Sep 2008 12:33:23 -0800

Lollywood '70s

From the Ottoman military to the Balkan Roma

sleepy pete — Sat, 19 Jul 2008 10:44:24 -0800

The Mehterhane or Mehter, as they are often known, are thought to be the oldest military marching band in the world. Starting around the 13th century, the band accompanied the Ottoman empire troops (Janissaries, or yeniçeri, roughly meaning "new troops" and were comprised mostly of young men from the Balkans) into battle, spreading their music along the way and influencing western classical composers like Mozart and Beethoven. Mehter also seems to have influenced the style of music and dance known among Serbian Roma as čoček (Macedonian chochek or чочек; Bulgarian kyuchek or kyutchek--кючек). Čoček as a dance is related to the Karşılama ("face-to-face") style of dance. The rhythm of traditional čoček music is 9/16, but has been modified into 4/4 and 7/8 as well. Here are some examples in costume and in the street. The music is brass heavy as played by modern bands like Kocani (or Kochani) Orkestar, Boban Marcovic, Fanfare Ciocarlia, or Goran Bregovic's compositions for movies like Underground and Time of the Gypsies (here's an interesting article on the use of Balkan as a metaphor, utilizing Time of the Gypsies). The music can be stripped down to guitar and flute or violins and clarinet, and has been utilized by American groups like A Hawk and a Hacksaw (featuring Neutral Milk alum Jeremy Barnes on accordion/drums/bell hat). Due to proximity of origin, the music shares some traits with klezmer as well (but that's a whole other research topic). Interestingly, the terms čoček and кючек seemed to have derived from the Ottomans as well. The word köçek (related to küçük meaning "little or small," but, as one very nice language loving mefite pointed out to me, also means "foal [of a camel]" and by most accounts seems a direct antecedent to the Bulgarian term кючек) was used for men and boy dancers dressed as women. There are arguments as to whether the köçekler were seen as sexualized beings (music plays on first link) or just burlesque, but the practice continues into modern times.

Punk rock pogo robots

homunculus — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 12:00:35 -0800

Punk band Neurotic and the PVCs perform with three discerning robots who pogo for punk. [Via]

A History of Techno

hadjiboy — Sun, 29 Jun 2008 10:36:07 -0800

The 25 Greatest Electronic Albums of the 20th Century. From the instrument that was created by Leon Theremin, to the Moog Guitar that's been named after the legendary Bob Moog (the inventor of the Moog Synthesizer), Electronic music has come a long way since its early days. YouTube [a, b, (extreme caution advised: graphic images of death, destruction and 9/11 c), d, e, f, g, h, i, j, k, l, m, n, o, p, q, r, s, t, u, v, w, x, y] (Previously mentioned here, here, here, here, here and here)

Don't try this at home.

flapjax at midnite — Wed, 04 Jun 2008 07:47:09 -0800

OK, I got yer muhfuggin Single Link You Tube post right here. That's right. Now you tell me that's not amazing. Alright, so I lied. It's NOT a SLYT post. So sue me. But you probably made it here to the [more inside] cause you agree that that was some AMAZING dancing, right? I mean, that was some tippity-top amazing stuff, no? And you wanna see more, right? OKAY! Check the first coupla guys in this clip: I find their nonchalant manner most appealing. Toward the middle, though, we get back into some of that high-speed, jaw-dropping stuff like we saw earlier in the FPP. Wow! And in this clip we get to see the drummers, too, which is of course a plus. And, one more for the road. This one's a little different. Fellow comes home from a typical day in the jungle hunting bush meat, but there's something just a little strange... he's got that white feather on his head, and some kind of juju's got ahold of him! Then his wife gets the feather, and she gets it, too! They're gonna need a priestess doing one of the sacred Edo songs, for sure! And there she is! Everything's gonna be fine.

The World Beyond What?

not_on_display — Thu, 29 May 2008 13:00:08 -0800

About twenty years ago, HBO aired The Mondo Beyondo Show, a sort-of send-up of avant-garde performance shows like Alive From Off Center and Night Flight. Hosted by Bette Midler (as the character Mondo Beyondo), it showcased artists that covered the broad spectrum between performance art, dance, and absurdist comedy. Strap on your Eighties Goggles; here's the meat of the show: Bill Irwin | La La La Human Steps | The Kipper Kids | Yes/No People | Paul Zaloom | David Cale | and the Divine Miss M as Eudora P. Quickly • The Kipper Kids featured Bette Midler's husband, Martin von Haselberg. Wikipedia Page. More Youtubes of Kipper Madness. • The Yes/No People eventually became STOMP. Here's their Brooms music video. • Who is Bill Irwin? Oh, he's generally done everything. (No hating on Mr. Noodles, please--do hate on the red furball he's with. And hands off the McFerrin, too.) • Paul Zaloom, activist and puppeteer, is also better known to the masses as Beakman from Beakman's World. C'mon and Zalooma-loomaloom-Zaloom. • More from La La La Human Steps. Youtuberances. • David Cale is a monologist. That's all I could find out about him, plus this duet with Syd Straw.

High Sheriff on my heels. I better get on my way, yes!

1f2frfbf — Thu, 08 May 2008 12:37:49 -0800

The full length of Tom Davenport's "Born for Hard Luck" featuring Peg Leg Sam, the last of the great medicine show singers/dancers/musicians. Too busy to watch? Read the transcript with footnotes. Other films in Davenport's American Traditional Culture series available here. Tip o' the hat to hortense for the pointer. Previous Folkstreams post.

Ethnographic materials from the Himalayan region

tellurian — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 16:37:00 -0800

Apa Tani bleeding tubes filmed by Christoph von Fürer-Haimendorf and Paro, Bhutan in 1936 from Frederick Williamson, are just two of the extraordinary offerings from the Digital Himalaya Project.

"At Once Idiotic and Utterly Mesmerizing"

nonmerci — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 10:51:34 -0800

The hippest of today's French youth can't get enough of Tecktonik--a dance (YT), cultural movement and apparent marketing ploy (in French), Tecktonic is a style of dance characterized by its lack of footwork and embrace of various ridiculous arm gestures. Coupled with a strong fashion sense (in French) involving copious amounts of neon, pseudo (or full-on) mullet haircuts and jeans that could be painted on, Tecktonik is a dance craze that, since its birth in 2000 at a Parisian nightclub, has only increased in popularity. I can tell you're entranced! Why not give it a try yourself? After you've practiced some of those fly moves, you can dance along to some of the big Tecktonik singles. Finally, be sure and check out the official site for Tecktonik™-endorsed live music, official CDs and much, much more!

happy endings

nickyskye — Thu, 21 Feb 2008 11:40:05 -0800

Soukous Radio is an online radio station that plays/streams this energizing, joyous, African fusion music, known for its bright guitar sound and rumba/salsa beat. The name, Soukous, is derived from the French word secouer, to shake. A popular, recent Soukous video by two Ivory Coast singers, DJ Eloh and DJ Mix, The Bobaraba (which means “big bottom” in the local Djoula language), celebrates booty shaking. Just makes you want to get up and dance. Those who are less amply proportioned have been looking to create a bobaraba. Girls do it, guys too. Kedjevara's version. A selection of CDs from Soukous Haven. Soukous on Wikipedia. This latest Soukous dance, the Bobaraba, is pronounced bob.araba.

(NSC) - RIP Ron Murphy, master vinyl cutter.

loquacious — Wed, 13 Feb 2008 02:55:52 -0800

Ron Murphy cut records, but not just any records. Responsible for cutting the actual vinyl master plates of much of the now revered Detroit Techno including Jeff Mills, Carl Craig, Underground Resistance's seminal Knights of the Jaguar, and much more - he demonstrated impeccable craftsmanship and skill in both mastering records for sound and aesthetics at company known as Sound Enterprises source link AKA National Sound Corporation. Schooled in Motown, dubplates and jukeboxes, he is the bespoke-crafted, analog link between the digital future and analog past that is the roots of Techno music and modern techno DJ culture. One hour interview here, in mp3 format. (Coral Cache link. Original link here. Which includes gems such as "Richie Hawtin? Well, here's the Elvis of Techno!". He's a lovely curmudgeon, I promise. It's worth the download just for the tracks they play in the background and breaks in the interview, all NSC-cut tracks.) Are you a DJ? Own any older techno, club or pop-remix club vinyl? Look for the handwritten (NSC) tag on the run-out spiral on the inside of the record, nearest the label. Ron Murphy cut the plates for that record. Ron Murphy also pushed the the boundaries of plate cutting with his NSC-X2 technique, spiraling two separate tracks together in a paired helix on the platter. He also experimented with reverse spirals, locked ending grooves, and hybrid platters where the outside track spiraled in normally, and the inside track spiraled out and they met between mid-record in a locked groove. Thanks, Ron, for making it sound so good, and caring.

Reach For the Lasers

empath — Wed, 16 Jan 2008 19:42:51 -0800

The bastard offspring of New Age, Techno, Industrial and Acid House, trance is one of the most popular and most maligned musical genres of the 21st century. Trance can be bombastic or delicate, psychedelic or rock and roll, spacey or deep, euphoric or dark, commercial or underground, lush or funky, melodic or monotone, hard or laid back. You can try making some yourself with this toy, or go in depth with this tutorial. You can find it online, but if you want to really experience it, you need to hear it at a club.