Melbourne Shuffle

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The Melbourne Shuffle is a style of dance, originating in the late 1980s in the Melbourne underground dance party scene. The style is taken from typical Jazz moves & incorporated with a modern twist. The basis of the Melbourne Shuffle has traditionally been footwork, either performed sliding left to right, on the spot or in a triangular movement. Performed well, shufflers can seem to be gliding across the dance floor and defying gravity. Dance moves from other numerous styles such as mimeing, popping, locking, liquiding and breaking can also be incorporated into shuffling.

Contents

[edit] History

The Melbourne Shuffle was one of several dances that emerged during the acid house era. Some have described the main dance styles in that period as jacking, stepping and shuffling. However, as the acid house genre became more diverse, two different but not mutually exclusive dance philosophies evolved; the back-step and the shuffle. The Shuffle has continued to evolve in Melbourne nightclubs and events over the years and has adopted moves from established dance styles such as hat tricks, spins and running on the spot moves have been thrown in over time.

Some of the major events, clubs and communities that took part in the evolution of the shuffle over the years are:

Raves and Event Organizers: Land of the Giants. Pureflow. Every Picture Tells a Story. Hardware. Pharmacy (aka Kill Rock Star). Earthcore. Smile Police. Future Entertainment. Oracle Events.

Clubs: Chinese Laundry @ Dome - 1993 by Hardware This club has since been restarted. Climax @ Inflation Night Club - Tuesday Nights from 1994 - 1997 This club largely contributed to the advancement of the Melbourne Shuffle. The Night Filter @ The Lounge - Wednesday night and one of melbournes longest running nights 1992-2001. Originally Awol Then called Escape on Friday nights run by S.O.N. @ Club CBD 1996-1998 (Pre-Bassstation). Bass Station (changed names to just "Bass" in 2006). Bass Australia (the new website for "Bass" as above). Frantic. Wetmusik. Teriyaki Anarki Saki. Hard Kandy. PHD (Pure Hard Dance). GOD (Gospel Of Dance). Bubble Nightclub.

Rave Venues: Global Village. Docklands (The Old Sheds). Kryal Castle. The Palace (St. Kilda). Billboards. CBD (Hardware Lane). Cage. Brown Alley. The Metro. QBH. Bubble Nightclub (Francis St, CBD)

[edit] Music

The music that Melbourne Shufflers originally danced to House Music Acid house in the late 1980s early 1990s and as Trance music came in the dancing style changed to a glide which changed back when Minimal House came in. In 2006 Melbourne shufflers listen to hard trance, hardstyle, jumpstyle, hard house, psytrance, breakbeat, and drum and bass.

[edit] Dancing

Today known as "rocking" to the Melbourne locals, the name "Melbourne Shuffle" has been derived from overseas DJs, partygoers, visitors and the media trying to describe this phenomenon. The Melbourne rave/electronic music dancers don’t generally dance for competition; or to show off, but for themselves, for fun and self-expression. Learning is generally achieved through watching other dancers and incorporating variations into their own style, by which they create an individual style representing their own personality.

Many rave dancers in Melbourne dance for the spiritual side of dancing and do not care about whether they are shuffling or doing popular moves, but rather just feel and dance to the music in their own freestyle rhythm. The trance feeling achieved when dancing at full flight has sometimes been compared to African tribal dances.

Some dancers sprinkle talcum powder on the floor beneath their feet to help them glide more easily. The use of talc to improve dancing has been around for decades, particularly popular with dancers at Northern Soul allnighters in the UK.

History of the Melbourne Shuffle

1985 - 1988 - Melburnians dance on the spot with a bit of bopping not so much legs. (not recognisable as the Melbourne shuffle).

1989 - 1990 - People mixed skank (dance) with a bit of funk, far more leg movement still on the spot and a bit of bop still in it.

1991 - 1992 - The Melbourne shuffle was starting to form it was a more of an advanced version than 1990 and more hand movement, the music was changing and peoples style with it.

1993 - 1995 - Was the centre point, people were gliding because now trance music&house musicwas a big part of the Melbourne Party/Rave culture and the foot movement of the Melbourne shuffle was well into existence. The key move to the Melbourne shuffle was 1 foot was lifted off the ground and the other foot was making a heel to toe movement along to the beat of the music for a short period of time then the roles changed to each foot. This allowed a dancer to glide side to side whilst holding their hands in front following the trebles of the music making the dancing style look hypnotic, some dancers could spin in a 360 circle before changing to the other foot. There are many variations of this dance but the main heel to toe movement remained the key motion giving it the term "The Melbourne Shuffle". It took a lot of skill and balance to perfect properly, There were many good dancers during this point of time.

1996 - 1997 - The Melbourne Shuffle was recognised by interstate and overseas partygoers as an intense unique style of dance.

1997 - 1998 - Minimal house started coming in and the glide went to a funk again which was more quick leg movements.

2000 - 2001 - Dancing style was more on the spot again (this minimised people getting Kung fu'ed whilst dancing) less hand movement.

2002 - 2006 - The hat dance was incorporated involving having a hat flicked off the head and caught and quickly putting it back on. Funk was around still but more of a hard edge funk incorporating jumping a very energetic dance but with far less hand movement compared to the mid 90’s.

[edit] Clothing

Originally Ravers wore standard club clothing for the 1980s this changed in the early 1990s to clothes that were often made by hand or bought from very few outlets, it wasn’t till 1993-1994 reflective material was used on clothes. 1994 a string of clothing stores called Renegade opened selling a variety of rave clothing, from fluoro coloured tops to baggy pants that flared out towards the bottom of the leg. Euphemism also sold rave clothing & records during this point of time. Renegade closed business in 1997, as did euphemism clothing 2001. However Ministry of style in Fitzroy is still operating. Phat Pants started in the year 2000 commercialising rave clothing making them with a very wide leg and often decorated with bright colours and reflective fabric. Sometimes shufflers will incorporate their clothing into the shuffle. A popular example of this is the use of hat. During the shuffle the hat can be spun and thrown. The hat may be spun in an alternate direction to the other movements of the shuffler to cause an illusion.

[edit] Media

"The Melbourne Shuffle" dance style remained relatively underground since its birth in the late 80's and early 90's. The Term "The Melbourne Shuffle" was not used till 1998 when Sonic Animation's Rupert Keiller was interviewed by RAGE. When the interviewer asked Rupert what his unique style of dance was, his reply was "The Melbourne Shuffle" since then the word circulated around the scene for a couple of years before finally being brought to light by a front page newspaper article which appeared in Melbourne's The Age newspaper in 2002, attempting to illustrate what the Melbourne Shuffle was for the first time to the mainstream public because thousands of young Melbournians were shuffling at dance parties every week.

Recently the shuffle has spread to Malaysia, most likely due to Malaysian students studying in Melbourne, discovering the electronic dance music scene and taking the unique shuffle back with them. Since 2005, there have been 'Shuffle Competitions' held in Malaysia.

Shufflers have taken their art form and self-expressive dance style overseas and are a regular sight to be seen at rave parties in the UK, Germany, Malaysia, and Thailand. Melbourne socialite and jetsetter, Jason Fabbri aka. "Dr. Shuff" is an ambassador of this particular dance, and is a regular sight at overseas dance clubs, especially in the United States. The internet has also been a factor in spreading knowledge and interest in the shuffle.

A documentary entitled Melbourne Shuffler was in production during 2004-2005 and was recently released in late 2005 on DVD.

[edit] External links

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