How to Dance Goth: A Hubba Educational Film
Last night at the DNA Lounge in San Francisco, the wonderful Hubba Hubba Revue unveiled (hurr!) Jim Sweeney, Lara Miranda and friends’ How to Dance Goth– the first volume in HH’s Educational Film Dance Instruction series:
Via TouchTheSun.
Many of you are, no doubt, already familiar with these darque dance styles… or various iterations/amalgams thereof. (For instance, those “Cobweb”/”Cappuccino” moves are quite similar to an ancient SoCal spookypants maneuver known as “Pick a Penny Up, Put it Over There”. And “Step Over Your Dead Friend” is a kissin’ cousin to the time-honored “I Have Shit Myself and I’m In Distress” dance often seen in Atlanta, GA goth clubs shortly after a new shipment of ketamine has arrived in town.)
Well done, Hubba Hubba batlings! We await your cyber-industrial tutorial with bated breath.
March 23rd, 2012 at 6:09 pm
nooo, now all the secrets are out!!
March 23rd, 2012 at 8:39 pm
Brilliant.. Those diagrams are better than labanotation!
March 23rd, 2012 at 10:28 pm
I’ve heard something like the spider web one described as Picking the Grapes.
March 24th, 2012 at 12:33 am
where is th straight arm out & down,step forward,turn,repeat with other arm,move?
March 24th, 2012 at 1:09 am
”Cappuccino” is also similar to “Knocking Out Midgets” made popular in Charlotte, NC.
March 24th, 2012 at 1:26 am
Ya know… while I don’t like approving comments that use hurtful slurs on Coilhouse, the plain fact is, most folks don’t seem to realize that “midget” is, in fact, a hurtful slur. (And it goes without saying that a euphemism combining a slur with an act of violence is even more dehumanizing.) Full disclosure: I had never considered just how casually cruel the use of that word was until relatively recently. Well, I’ve since been schooled. It really is hurtful. So I’ll approve this comment, and respond to it with a plea –as a fellow fallible human being– to you and anyone else who uses the term who might be reading this: please be kind and good and actively examine/reconsider your use of “midget”.
<3
March 24th, 2012 at 3:15 am
Catch the bat…
Love the bat…
Release the bat.
March 24th, 2012 at 3:24 am
really funny lol, I’ll start my own steps now.
March 24th, 2012 at 6:00 am
Voltaire wrote about some of these in one of his books. Plus 100 points for using the decorating music from The Sims!
March 24th, 2012 at 1:13 pm
I’ll admit my first response when I see things like this is to get annoyed, because I’ve seen a few of this sort of thing that are mean spirited – but this one is genuinely clever and funny. Also I think I have done all those moves.
March 24th, 2012 at 7:37 pm
I believe alt.gothic (or was it the late, venerated “Take a Bite” e-zine?) established the list of “goth career dances,” e.g.
Goth washerwoman (dip the laundry, swish the laundry, wring the laundry, hang the laundry)
Goth umpire (dust off the plate, ball one, ball two, strike you’re out, SAFE!)
Goth electrician (remove the lightbulb, get a new lightbulb, screw in the new lightbulb)
Never gets old.
I had a friend whose daughter, at 4 years old, would proudly perform her goth dance, complete with calling out the steps. Nothing in the world is cuter than a blonde pre-schooler in a frilly black dress lisping “Grab the bat, love the bat, kick the bath, throw the bat…” for a group of delighted adults.
March 25th, 2012 at 9:38 am
This brings back a lot of memories! I remember inventing stupid names for dance moves such as these (the washing machine, crushing the bird etc.)
March 25th, 2012 at 1:53 pm
I love these! Also, “Directing Traffic” – more of an industrial dance style. There was also “I hate the floor… I HATE the floor!” (what’s commonly referred to as “Punching Midgets” or “Punching Hobbits.”)
I used to use the word “midget” casually also, because as a young adult, I was surrounded by culture that used that word. The word was used humorously by authors I loved – from Kurt Vonnegut to J.K. Rowling – and I just assumed it was okay. And lot of people still do – just do a search for “midget Halloween costume” on Ebay. Many people don’t realize that it’s a slur, and for many years, I didn’t know that, either.
But then I interviewed Selene Luna for Issue 02, and prepping for that interview and then talking to Selene really changed my perspective. I learned that the Little People of America petitioned the FCC about categorizing the word “midget” as a slur in 2009, citing a really hurtful example of how the word is used in media today: http://www.womanist-musings.com/2009/07/its-little-people-not-midget.html. The LPA wrote, “the term has fallen into disfavour and is considered offensive by most people of short stature. The term dates back to 1865, the height of the “freak show” era, and was generally applied only to short-statured persons who were displayed for public amusement, which is why it is considered so unacceptable today.”
Since then, I’ve eliminated the word from my vocabulary – a slow process with slip-ups here and there, but I’m at a point now where I cringe if I hear it. It happened over the course of a couple of years. I completely understand when people use it, because they grew up in the same culture as me. But when you learn of a word’s demeaning, othering nature… it’s something you can’t unsee, and it’s something that I want to raise awareness of, because now I have friends who are affected by this word.
March 26th, 2012 at 5:20 pm
Funny at first, but far, far too long. I do enjoy the concept.
March 26th, 2012 at 10:20 pm
I have seen that bored and contemptuous goth face oh-so many times. Perfection.
March 29th, 2012 at 8:40 pm
No, the best is still by far “Oops, my contact fell out, let me put it back in. Oh look, there’s my friend!”
October 24th, 2013 at 7:16 pm
[…] If you were confused by Lackey’s “picking up pennies” comment – here’s a guide on how to dance goth. […]