Twerk
twerk: verbo intransitivo e transitivo
twerking: sostantivo
Mizz Versatile, a 20-year-old Londoner, who scooped the UK twerking crown in London’s Scala nightclub demonstrates how twerk like a professional.
And the girls gon twerk it Cause the vibe is poppin’…
The video is an extremely self-aware deconstruction of twerking as a trend.
Never have I ever seen a woman work and twerk her body the way Kelis did that night.
Twerk, nella rosa delle finaliste al titolo di ‘parola dell’anno’ 2013 dell’Oxford University Press (la vincitrice è stata selfie), era in circolazione molto tempo prima che Miley Cyrus lo lanciasse durante i suoi spettacoli facendone un fenomeno globale. Il termine cominciò ad essere usato negli anni ’90 per descrivere un tipo di danza energetica in cui, in posizione accosciata, si dimenano le natiche in modo provocante. Di solito sono le donne a eseguire il twerking, che affonda le radici nelle antiche danze africane. Come molte altre tendenze musicali e di danza, anche questa sembra abbia avuto origine nelle comunità afro-americane, quella di New Orleans nello specifico, ma guarda caso a sdoganarla è stata una ragazza bianca sempre nell’occhio dei mass media.
Origini del termine
Pare ormai assodato che twerk derivi dall’espressione work it, col significato di fare qualcosa con energia, capacità ed entusiasmo. Twerk fa rima con jerk (scuotere), che descrive esattamente le movenze della danza. Non è chiaro da dove provenga la t iniziale, probabilmente dal twist, un altro ballo basato sul movimento delle anche, popolare negli anni ’60.
twerk: intransitive and transitive verb
twerking: noun
Mizz Versatile, a 20-year-old Londoner, who scooped the UK twerking crown in London’s Scala nightclub demonstrates how twerk like a professional.
And the girls gon twerk it Cause the vibe is poppin’…
The video is an extremely self-aware deconstruction of twerking as a trend.
Never have I ever seen a woman work and twerk her body the way Kelis did that night.
Twerk, which was pipped to the post by selfie as Oxford Dictionaries’ Word of the Year in 2013, had been around for some time before the gyrations of Miley Cyrus thrust it into the global limelight. The term started to be used in the 1990s to describe an energetic style of dancing that includes squatting together with repeated thrusting hip movements. Twerking is performed mainly by women and has its roots in African dance styles. Like so many dance and music trends, this one originated in the US among the African-American community, specifically in New Orleans. As is so often the case twerking spread gradually into the mainstream and gained widespread media attention only when it was practised by a newsworthy young white woman.
Origins
The consensus is that twerk probably originates from the verb work, as in the exhortation to work it, meaning to perform with energy, skill and enthusiasm. Twerk of course rhymes with jerk, which is what the movements of the dance involve. Where the initial t came from is unclear: possibly from the idea of twisting as you dance.
