Hardcore dancing

" and Mosh"

Hardcore dancing grew out of the eastern United States hardcore scene, especially the New Jersey, New York, Boston, and Florida hardcore scenes. A hardcore pit differs from the usual mosh pit routine of pogoing and crashing into each other in an often controlled, but violent way. Participants in hardcore pits move around with rhythm to various beats, some slow and some faster. Hardcore dancing is typically associated and executed only during certain points in musical breakdowns; this element makes it such that hardcore dancing exhibits less motility than a conventional mosh pit.

As some hardcore bands incorporated slower syncopated, metal-influenced rhythms into their songs, the modern breakdown — and the dancing that went with it — was introduced.Fact|date=February 2007 Early Earth Crisis and Biohazard concerts were common venues for this type of hardcore dancing.

New York hardcore band Sick of it All featured a tongue-in-cheek how-to guide for hardcore dancing in their music video for "Step Down" and AFI's video for "The Leaving Song Pt. II" is a depiction of hardcore and Straight Edge culture, popular for its relentless representation of Hardcore Dancing. A Day to Remember also did a video showing a how to guide for dance moves in the pit, Ron Jeremy was the fictional martial arts instructor showing the moves. Hatebreed's video for 'I Will Be Heard' also depicts hardcore dancing throughout.

2-Step

The 2-step is the dance move performed by hardcore dancers to a steady, faster beat, often in double-time. It involves the swinging or "stepping" of the legs around each other in time to the beat, with the legs usually falling down in time with the snare drum. 2-Steps vary from scene to scene, though the basic idea remains the same, with differentiations usually involving the arms and torso.

Many hardcore dancers strive to produce their own unique 2-Step, often pushing the boundaries of their own balance. For example, a dancer could punch their arms around their body in time with the swinging of each leg. Another could be to bend down to either side and touch the floor while dancing, heavily pushing the boundaries of the dancers' balance. Variations in feet movement are often subtly noticeable. Some dancers may shuffle their feet more, others may hop more, others may drag their feet more and so on. Generally, this dance is the main skill a hardcore dancer strives to develop, as it is the most used form of dancing for many of this scene (2-step sections in songs usually being the most frequent), though preferences on which move to do varies from person to person.

Windmill

The windmill is a dance move involving the swinging of the arms as of like a monkey, often in a circle resembling a mad monkey, though the pattern the arms may make varies. Often dancers alternate arms, keeping one at their side while swinging the other and then switching after each rotation. Variations are common, such as swinging with the fists together, swinging backwards, and swinging with only one arm. A move dubbed "2-Hopping" in some circles involves windmilling backwards while leaning the torso forward to create an almost 90 degree angle with the torso and legs.

Many variations of this include imitating loss of balance and beating of chest. Horizontal swinging of arms is also very common.

In some regions, performers of this move are often referred to derogatorily as "Windmillers", and are often looked down on and called "posers" by members of the metal/hardcore community.

The windmill tends to be the most mocked dance move within the hardcore dancing style, most probably due to being the easiest to imitate.

Penny picking/Brick Laying/Floorpunching/Punch the Midget

The "Floorpunch" is when the hardcore dancer throws his/her fists towards the floor, either intending or not intending to make contact with it. Alternative feet are sometimes stomped to the music as arms are raised. This is dangerous to people behind the dancer if the elbows are thrown hard enough.

There are many different variations of this technique again. For example, a dancer could keep both legs straight and together, double over, stretch out both arms and jump from side to side on both legs, in the imitation of a bird or an airplane.

Hate Moshing/Crowd Killing

Hate Moshing, Crowd Killing is when a dancer involves on-lookers in their moves.

Arguably the most common, or most dramatic is flailing your arms up from the ground. This is often used to create space before a Breakdown.

An excellent way of opening up a pit is the "push-back", simply involving a dancer or dancers having their back to the crowd and pushing them back. This saves harming onlookers who do not wish to dance.

Criticism

Hardcore dancing is heavily mocked outside of its own community, by other metal or hardcore communities and non-metal communities alike. An example would be a hardcore dancer at a ska show, whom oftentimes will be physically injured for doing so.

However at some shows such as "Sounds of the Underground" that various styles on bands play out (thrash Metal, death metal, hardcore, etc.) the pit is shared with hardcore dancers and moshers taking turns. This can be done with the one and one system of moshers moshing every other song and hardcore dancers going on every other one. It can also be done by the agreement of the style of song or band. This usually keeps the two groups happy as moshers do not want to be punched or kicked and Hardcore dancers do not want to be slammed into. This also allows each group to get a rest or break and to in turn keep the intensity up.

When no agreement can be found separate pits are formed. This is usually not the best action since others not wishing to be part of either pit lose a lot of room. And in some cases if an agreement can not be found security will stop both groups for performing their own respected pit.

Many videos on YouTube depict tongue-in-cheek instructional videos on how to hardcore dance, mockery videos and many more that denounce hardcore dancing.

ee also

*Moshing

External links

* [http://www.unityhxc.com/violent_dancing/violentdancing.htm Information about hardcore dancing]
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6RkyxNa2W9o music video featuring hardcore dancing] by Sick of it All
* [http://youtube.com/watch?v=T7dnWB1BiRA A montage of hardcore dancing]