American Shufflers - How to find each other !

Do you want to find other shufflers in your part of the USA ? Or join/start a local shuffle crew, or have a local shuffle meet-up?

Of course you do !!!

Just leave a message or comment on the MSO Forum and get those crews and meet-ups happening...

http://mso1.cultureforum.net/north-america-usa-canada-f28/

Meet-Up NYC 24 Oct 2008

Attention American Shufflers in New York, there's a meet-up on 24 October 2008 Time Square in front of Virgin organised by EHS (Emo Hardstyle Shufflers). So lets see some vids huh ? :) UPDATE: Now on Friday 24 October 2008, @4pm

> Yo there's a place to meet up with some other shufflers in New York, My group E.H.S. will be there and bring anyone else who loves to shuffle and whatever.

More info, questions etc >>>

http://mso1.cultureforum.net/meet-ups-f16/shuffle-met-up-oct-20-new-york-time-square-infront-of-virgin-t124.htm#587

UShufflezAlliance - new USA shuffle forum

Well here it is, for our American Shuffle friends, an American Shuffle forum UShufflezAlliance .

MSO has been in touch with the forum creator Empyrean, who is based in Wichita/Kansas, to sus things out, and got a friendly welcome.

Happy to say UShufflezAlliance is wanting to promote the Shuffle in America, is crew/team friendly and welcomes people new to the Shuffle. Great to hear, and I'm sure our American Shuffler friends will welcome a local Shuffle forum.

MSO will be dropping by the forum from time to time to see how the Shuffle is going in the USA. So, might see you there.

Forum: http://ushufflerzalliance.makeforum.org

You might bump into these Shufflers there too, from Houston Texas in the vid below at their 1st Houston Meet Up - and got kicked out of the Mall !, but there's always the street ;) Never mind, one day the Mall will be sponsoring a Shuffle competition there, guarantee it, Can't Stop Shuffle Powa ;)

1st SHUFFLE MEETUP IN HOUSTON Texas (USA)

Great to see our American Shuffle friends with their first Shuffle meet up in Houston Texas. Fantastic guys, congratulations from MSO. We're looking forward to lots more from you !

First melbourne shuffle meetup in houston usa!!!tnx for coming roywhat,keith,amanda,bazzle and all the others.
http://ushufflerzalliance.makeforum.org/

song list:
1.Chemical Brothers - The Salmon Dance (Crookers Remix)

2.D-Block & S-Te-Fan - Ride With Uz(1)

3.Deepack vs. Showtek - Rockin' Steady (Decibel Outdoor 2005 - Hardstyle Mixed By DJ Zany)

4.dj valentino - suck my dick

5.Dj Virus Meets Dj Neo - Raise The Bass

6.Showtek - Shout out (Donkey rollers rmx)

7.Walt - Let The Music Play (Original Mix)

8.Bass Agents - Black Winter

9.Blutonium Boy - Dark Angel (Blutonium Boy Vs DJ Neo Mix)(1)

10.Da TeddyBearZ - Knuffelbeer (hardstyle)

11.DJ Bizerk - Blast That Shit (Mother Fucker Hardstyle Mix) {Only At EuroAdrenaline.com}

12.DJ Coone - Words From The Gang (D-Block & S-te-Fan Remix)(1)

13.SMF - Hahahaha

Banned In New York

Be very careful if you're thinking of dancing the Melbourne Shuffle in most New York City (USA) clubs, because it's banned. And not just the Melbourne Shuffle, but all styles of dancing. You'll see signs like this (pic right) telling you so.

But Freedom of Speech = Freedom of Dance doesn't it? Don't you believe it, and this comes from the Land of the Free -America, too.

How can they enforce it? Locks and chains on club doors usually, and courts have been successfully doing it for 80 years now, as reported in the New York Post...

---------------------------------------------

COURT UPHOLDS CITY'S DANCE 'BAN'

By DAREH GREGORIAN

February 23, 2007

...A bid to overturn the city's cabaret law was tripped up yesterday when a state appeals court held that the statute, which bars (bans) dancing in most bars and taverns, is constitutional.

A group of social dancers had filed a lawsuit saying the law - which requires establishments to have difficult-to-get cabaret licenses if they allow three or more people to dance - violated their right of free expression.

"Recreational dancing is not a form of expression protected by the federal or state constitutions," the state Appellate Division ruled.

In a unanimous decision, the five-judge panel found the purposes of the 80-year-old law were "to protect the health, safety and general welfare of the public by limiting noise, congestion and various hazards in residential areas."

--------------------------------------

NB: 'Cabaret' is an old word for a bar/nightclub sort of thing.

The ban came about in the 1920's USA prohibition era, when alcohol was banned. Part of it was crowd control, with drunken idiots yahoo-ing around in the street outside of venues in residential neighborhoods. Fair enough. We get them in Melbourne, they start fights, smash windows, stab people, and gangs of 15 will bash just one who happens to be walking by - for 'fun'. But they're not dancers, they're violent drunks.

So why not just ban the drunks ?

Our oldskool warehouse parties in Melbourne were done as far away from neighbors as possible. We didn't want to 'disturb the neighbors', we had nothing to prove. We just wanted to be left alone to dance, which is why our first priority was to find an isolated remote site, such as a warehouse in an industrial area that was shut down for the weekend when we'd do our party. We'd arrive, party and leave, and for locals it was as though we were never there. Not the easiest thing to achieve with a mega-watt sound system, a laser light show you could see from Mars and crowds dressed in fluro phatties, but we did it.

It was underground, that was the whole point.

But clubs are a different story, they like everyone knowing they exist, they live and die on attention. They sell more beer when everyone knows where they are. A rowdy crowd out the front is the best billboard they can get. They love the attention even if it's bad. I've known some Melbourne Club owners who deliberately go out of their way to cause controversy, just for the attention. It's a completely different attitude.

For instance who'd even heard of this Tim Sabre idiot or Raw Entertainment, before he said he wanted to ban the Melbourne Shuffle? He was a nobody. But now he's got our attention.

As many Shufflers have commented, it's the violent drunks who are the problem, both inside and outside, not the shufflers. I totally agree. These drunks spoil it for everyone, and they don't care. As long as 'they' have fun, everybody else can go to hell.

But there was a much more sinister side to the origins of this New York dancing ban...Racism.

The thought of New Yorkers of different races mixing together was considered obscene, the segregation laws also made it illegal. Dancing together was just the same.

Someone didn't want the 'wild strangers and foolish natives' (original words) or the weird 'bohemians' for that matter, mixing on the dancefloor, or anywhere really. They feared they might breed. 'Half breeds' was the disgusting phrase used for the children of mixed race.

These were not the most tolerant of times.

Prohibition didn't last long - too many politicians who like to drink I guess. Racism still rears it's damned ugly head, but is less of an issue since the civil rights movements of the 1960's.

But for some unholy reason, dancing is still banned by courts and the ban is considered constitutional.

And we're not talking about some distant past we only know about through old black and white documentary film footage. This is happening now.

No, Free Speech does not equal Free Dance.

And Tim Sabre of Raw Entertainment is trying to introduce exactly the same laws into Australia, using exactly the same legal argument, that has worked in New York City for the past 80 years. Don't let him!

Melbourne Shuffle Oldskool has been in touch with Metropolis In Motion www.metropolisinmotion.org and the New York Dance Parade http://danceparade.org both groups of pro-dance New Yorkers who have been protesting against the New York ban, with dance marathons and protest parades the past couple of years.

We might be able to help each other. Check out their sites, they have some great info, especially as they have 80 years of experience living under dance bans. Understanding the legal reasons for the ban, the press response, and the actions you can take to fight a dance ban, are empowering.

New Yorkers typically aren't shy and retiring types ;) they speak their mind and kick arse. But they have been loosing this battle for 80 years ! It's not just a bad joke. It's for real !

And now the battle is in Sydney and could even spread to you.

So let's stop this thing spreading any further, and see if in the process, we can help our dance loving friends in New York have the same Dance Freedom, the rest of us take as a human right.

So move it or lose it, Protect your Freedom to Dance.

~~~~  <>  ~~~~

American - Melbourne Shufflers

We know you're out there :) Time for some shout outs to our American Melbourne Shuffle friends.

Some of you have emailed and told us you're the only person you know of in town who's even heard of the Shuffle, but there's probably others, you should hook up. Please feel free to post in the comments section of this article, somewhere in town, a club, party, park, street, mall etc to meet some other shufflers in your neigbourhood.

Here's a list (in no particular order) of shufflers from about 150 cities across America who have visited Melbourne Shuffle Oldskool in the past 4 weeks.

So, Howdy, good to meet you! Now how about showing us some vids of your Shufflin! Come on don't be shy ;) We wanna see what you're up to...

Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, Irvine, Phoenix, Roslyn Heights, New Orleans, Louisville, Pleasanton, Seattle, Atlanta, San Diego, Houston, Rochester, Washington, San Francisco, Danville, Jacksonville, Sunnyvale, Malden, Denver, Mc Keesport, Orlando, Miami, Bakersfield, Cranberry Township, Rockville, Cambridge, Newark, Austin, San Antonio, Orem, Providence, Elmhurst, Bala Cynwyd, Hartford, St Louis, Oxford, Camden, College Park, Longview, Rocky Mount, San Jose, Boston, Dayton, Malvern, Dallas, Cincinnati, Salt Lake City, Rocky Hill, Columbia, Glendale, Browns Mills, Mountain View, Norwalk, Plano, Meriden, Ft Collins, Spokane, Thomasville, Conway, Stow, Milford, Milton, Madison, Warrenton, Needham, Bellevue, Clinton Corners, Hot Springs Village, Morgantown, Tallahassee, Watervliet, Bolton, Lake Elmo, Arden, Corvallis, Oklahoma City, Fremont, Lawrence, Bishop, Spartanburg, Pittsburgh, East Rutherford, Fresno, Springfield, Sioux Falls, Hagerstown, Sonora, Lansdale, Bend, Manchester, North Prairie, Commack, Burlington, Poughkeepsie, Philadelphia, Pennsauken, Exeter, Holt, Lancaster, Pasadena, Mount Laurel, Hamilton, Hamburg, Raleigh, Campbell, Kalamazoo, Salina, Sarasota, Tampa, Milwaukee, Jackson, Phoenixville, Center Moriches, Norfolk, Sandy, Orange, Englewood, Wichita, San Rafael, Eatontown, Tempe, Ormond Beach, Herndon, Newtown, Nap, Boise, El Segundo, Ft Belvoir, Winston Salem, Charlotte, Littleton, Baton Rouge, Levittown, Little Rock, Marked Tree, Roanoke, Fairfax, Las Vegas, Kansas City, Reno, Walled Lake, Lawrence, Sayreville, Pompano Beach, Anchorage, Bridgeport, Ft Worth, Utica, Middletown, ...and adding... Albuquerque, Detroit, Coeur d' alene


UPDATE 14 AUGUST 2007

Albuquerque New Mexico added, we’ve just been visited by Detroit too and hey, well spotted Zefrenm, with the Rubber legs Al Norman clip (See comments), and welcome to Melbourne Shuffle Oldskool.

Absolutely right with the early Melbourne Shuffle influence.

Tap was one of the main influences of the Melbourne Shuffle, Tap is actually where the term ‘Shuffle’ as a dance step comes from, usually a soft shoe shuffle, where instead of talcum powder sprinkled on the dance floor to give slip, sand or pumice powder was sprinkled to give percussive sound effect, like wire brushes on a snare drum, to go with the music.

Tap, which originated in New York around the turn of the 19/20th century, was a street dance where African Americans and Irish immigrants both showed each other their stuff, combining to become tap. You can still see the Irish/Scot folk dance footwork in the Shuffle today. Melbourne has a large Celt population. My Scot/Swedish Aunt in her 80’s, still does Scottish highland dance!

Most of the oldskool girl shufflers learnt tap from when they were about 6 years old at the local dance schools. The schools are as popular for girls in Melbourne as football is for boys. So the bboys learnt the tap moves from the girls. Actually the ‘Do like a T’ which Bigmilan suggests starting off with, in his great learn Melbourne Shuffle basics clip, is actually ‘Position 1’ in ballet, which the girls taught the bboys too.

I had a clip of master tap dancer Bill ‘Bojangles’ Robinson and Shirley Temple doing the ‘ Stair dance’ too, but it got removed. If anyone spots it online, please post the link. Bojangles was also famous for putting his hand gun on the table when he played pool – GanstaTap ;)

Here’s some stills from the clip Zefrenm mentions, Rubber Legs Al Norman – I’ll put this clip in the beginnings and brief history post as well, it’s an important reference. Thank’s Zefrenm.

Rubber Legs Al Norman doing what is definitely one of the earliest filmed examples of Melbourne Shuffle influences



Gotta have the ladies in there as well. How come they don't dress like this at Raves ;)



Kings of Jazz: Happy Feet:pt2