Скачать или смотреть Punk & Whaack Showcase, Beacon Hill Festival

I directed a Punking & Whaacking performance for the Beacon Hill Festival in Jefferson Park, June 2024.

Dancers:
Jamie
Steph
Tony
Audrey
Chong
Hai

Punking originated in the early 70s in the underground gay clubs of Los Angeles. The first dancers of this style were a group of multicultural gay men ranging in their late teens to 20s. Their movements were inspired by old silent Hollywood movies, cartoons like Bugs Bunny, martial arts, figure skating, and their personal lived experiences.

"Punk" was a derogatory word for gay men during this era, and eventually these men decided to call their artistic expression "Punking" as a way to reclaim the term. The first element is "Posing" - creating or recreating dramatic poses as if you were watching an old silent film, and freezing it and taking a screenshot. The second element is "Whacking" - to strike with force, using the body to hit poses with power, credited to OG Punk Tinker Toy who whipped his arms around as inspired by Bruce Lee and his iconic nunchucks.

As the dance became picked up by mainstream culture and grew more popular, people began to simply call it Waacking to not associate with the "negative" connotations of "Punk." Overtime, waacking evolved into a style of its own and is the style primarily known today across the world

It's important to know and acknowledge the history of this dance - many of the OG Punks died during the AIDs epidemic, some were murdered, and thus historical resources are extremely limited.

Punking, and through its evolution into Waacking, is about taking the "ugly", as deemed by society, and transforming it into beauty. Hearing a song, tapping into your emotional response to it, and "vomiting art" - as OG Punk Viktor Manoel says.