SHUFFLE! - Earliest known Shuffle Footage. Melbourne 1991

 

Well here it is, the earliest known classic Melbourne Shuffle footage to date. 31 August 1991, at the Sarah Sands Hotel in Melbourne.

Not the first Shuffler that we know of, rather the earliest video footage we know of. We'll try to stop a few arguments here before we get started ;)

• UPDATE: A few people have commented that the top Aslan is wearing looks like a PHD top with the circle and PHD letters inside the circle. This, they claim proves the footage was shot only a few years ago. PHD is a small commercial club from Sydney that opened in Melbourne in 2002. It closed down due to poor crowd sizes and tried to restart a number of times. But it never really re-established itself after it's 2003/05 peak. Today it is best known for selling it's fluro PHD hoodie seen in Shuffle vids.
  
  However the PHD claim is nonsense, the top Aslan was wearing is a fluro PIL top using the PIL logo (pic left), which were quite common at the time in a range of merchandise styles and colors, even a PIL ring! and are still available today. PIL is Public Image Limited John (Johnny Rotten) Lydon's band after the Sex Pistols.

I shot this. It was a new night that opened and closed on that night. About 800 people turned up to the 3 level event, this footage is on the main dance floor.

It was an indie rock venue, and the pub owner lost money because nobody drank any beer. He complained 'Everybody's drinking water, I had to send home 6 bar staff."

The Sarah Sands was the sort of Hotel that had lunchtime strip shows in the front bar on the pool tables, with whipped cream.

People were just refilling water bottles in the washrooms. The pub owner even turned off the water to force people to buy beer and bottled water ! True

So here's the face of the Shuffler. I believe it's Aslan, a well known Shuffler in the two dozen or so hardcore shufflers during the Melbourne Shuffle's creation. Any oldskoolers who can verify it's Aslan, your comments are welcomed :)

I've got about 8 mins of raw camera footage so you can hear the music and try to get a feel of a very early rave done Melbourne Style.

This is how the Shuffle in all it's forms spread. Individual dancers in a crowd shuffling. The style that's commonly known today we generally call the 'classic' Shuffle. But there were as many variations as there were Shufflers. You mixed up the styles to suit your mood thru the night.

This footage is at 3am after a few hours of live acts on stage. So it's the wind down set and the crowd has thinned out, making space for the Shuffle Brigade to slink their way across the dance floor.

The little old lady is from the CWA (Country Womens Association) selling lollies (candy) to the Shufflers at 3am. She regularly came to raise charity money for the CWA. 'I know the young people like to eat them at this hour of the night' she told me, she was right ;) Munchee time home delivered ! She sold out in about 30 minutes.

Got some really nice dance footage of two other well known Shufflers. (Pic Below) The young lady, I remember well, but have forgotten her name, starts with an S, I think. She was involved in the fashion industry and regularly flew between New York and Melbourne for a fashion magazine ?

The guy on the right is old friend Paul Gaffney / DJ Krusty / Eugene. Paul had a great pink Buick (very big heavy car) which I helped push start on many a morning after a party. It was always getting a flat battery :)

Krusty's long been involved with Green Ant and Rainbow Serpent parties.

 

NB: Earliest known Melbourne Shuffle footage can now be seen in the GLOBAL SHUFFLE movie. www.globalshuffle.com

brought to you by GLOBAL SHUFFLE www.globalshuffle.com

Adelaide (Aust) Shufflers

In Australia the major cities are pretty far apart. For instance, going north Sydney is about 10-12 hours drive from Melbourne, Brisbane another 10 hours drive north (Keeping to speed limits of course). Going west we have Adelaide, only about 8 hours drive from Melbourne. Then Perth, about 3 days drive ! (No exaggeration).

There's a few Adelaide shuffle vids appearing on Youtube these days, and about time ;) Great to see.

One point though. From what we can see in online comments, you all seem to be ripping each others heads off, about who's the greatest, and even being greater because you don't care about being greater !?

Come on guys :) Get it together, you should be encouraging each other, especially when you're starting out. Like the world hasn't got enough wars, you want to start fighting over dance? Better things to do with your life, like Shuffling. ;)

It's been a while since I was down Rundle Mall (Adelaide CBD), but from memory, there's some pretty good shuffling surfaces in it.

According to Jordano in this first clip Shuffle meets happen in the Rundle Mall after school on Thursdays/Fridays in front of Rebel sport.

So lets see some more shuffling coming out of Adelaide !!!

Here's a sample of some Adelaide shufflers - though not all individuals are from Adelaide.

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Jordano Melbourne Shuffle Adelaide HardStyle Shufflers AHS -Adelaide City meetups i think usaully on thursday after skool infront of rebel sport rundle mee well for us anyway after skool since some of us have other commitments friday nights but yeah dont expect this to be right

 

Adelaide Shufflers compilation - in order of FIRST appearance: Josh Cuong Dweebz Hektic Sad Phil

 

ADELAIDE SHUFFLERS COMPILATION #1 -Hektic Dwee Josh Anto Goobarr Wangstain Cbee

 

HSI/mario shuffle in Adelaide - every1 was cleaning up inside after my cuz engagement party so i decided to make a shuffle vid and show these Adelaide people how to do the Melbourne shuffle. try and see if u can find the spelling mistake. the song is called: Psy Man - Backbiter

1920's & 1930's Shuffle Influences

The Melbourne Shuffle grew from a combination of girls doing Ballet/Tap dance and BBoys break dancing, with new steps thrown in.

Most girls in Melbourne learn social dancing from a young age and Tap dancing is a normal part of the dance lessons. The word Shuffle as a dance style actually comes from the Tap dance genre.

Here's some great old movie clips of the sort of dance steps the girls learned, and then showed the BBoys at underground dance parties in the early 1990's in Melbourne. There's some brilliant professional dancers here such as the legend "Rubber Legs" Al Norman.

It's worth remembering that these old movies were made just a year or two after sound was added to film - The Talkies. People would sing along in the cinema with the tunes. So if you feel inclined, you can sing along with them in front of your computer. After all, most shufflers dance along to shuffle clips in front of their computer these days :)

Penny Singleton and "Rubber Legs" Al Norman perform this dance number to the song "Good News" From 1930 . The music is played by Abe Lyman and his Orchestra.

An interesting move here in this first still from the vid. Somehow it never really caught on as a Melbourne Shuffle move. One can only wonder why :)



Check out the 1930's phatties


Some classic shuffle sideways moves


Mass Running Man


Good News 1930

With Abe Lyman and his Orchestra, Nancy Carroll, (Rubber Legs) Al Norman and Skeets Gallagher. From 1930 " Dancing To Save Your Sole

Dancing To Save Your Sole 1930

and the famous The Charleston

The Charleston 1920's

Shifter

Here's a new vid from Shifter, who tell Melbourne Shuffle Oldskool, that they're hard at work training for a competition in September. You can't beat practice to improve your shuffle. Good on ya guys, keep it up.

Some nice video production in this vid too, good to see Shifter having some fun with it. :)

Melbourne Shuffle Oldskool has some video production and editing tutorials, specifically for the Melbourne Shuffle coming up soon, so stay tooned ;)


shifter hardstyle prodigy

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

Melbourne Shuffle Girls

Girls made up about half of the shufflers in the oldskool era, these days there's hardly any. One main reason is the current hardstyle music and shuffle steps.

We'll state the obvious here, hardstyle does a lot of pounding to girls breasts. Yes might be fun for guys (and some girls ) to watch, but it's mighty uncomfortable for girls and can cause a lot of tearing. Just as a lot of moves give guys testicles a lot of soreness (and a sudden high voice) so they avoid them.

Basically if these things, for both guys and girls, are going to bounce, they need to bounce in time with the rest of your body. Otherwise there's serious pain and realistic injury.

Guys testicles are smaller than girls breasts, which means less gravity issues in the bounce, so jump and hardstyle's quick short sharp bounce moves are no real drama for guys, but a nightmare for girls. Similarly you won't see a lot of guys doing star jumps, splits or leg scissor type moves, without holding their breath and praying, where the girls will give the guys a 'what's your problem, just do it' look.

Dancing is a high level athletic activity, and it's not just your legs and feet you need to take care of, your spine takes a pounding, your knees take a pounding, your neck and arms too. Professional dancers at an elite level, have about the same professional career life span as elite professional athletes. You peak at 25 years old, you retire by 30.

If you're going to get an injury from dancing it will be similar to a sporting injury - intense.

So take care, stretch and warm up and warm down - always. Vary your moves from hard to smooth/fluid. Be very careful with bursts of energy, that you don't go in cold or over stretch, which can rip muscles and tendons.

Check out some exercises for dancers, sports and martial arts, and do them. You'll dance better, avoid injury and you'll keep on dancing for years to come.

If you watch the girls dancing in the oldskool vids, you'll find more of a smooth shuffle flow, and liquid moves, mostly to trance and acid, which was common at dance parties. Many of the oldskool girls had recreational ballet and tap training from when they were about 6 years old. The guys came from a hip-hop or martial arts background, so their moves were more burst like. That's not to say girls didn't get 'physical' shuffling, girls with gymnastics backgrounds could dance the guys into the ground.

The two mixed to become the Melbourne Shuffle, but everyone danced according to their body type. Guys with weight lifting physiques don't have the same flexibility as long distance runners. The same goes with girls. That's why there's so much variation.

I worked for many years (as music composer and video artist) with a Melbourne based contemporary dance company called Mixed Company, with male director, Malaysian born Tony Yap. There were a number of western dancers male and female, of all body types, and female butoh dancer, Japanese born Umi Umimare. Not only did we consciously explore all our different cultural attitudes, taboo's, peculiarities etc, but the obvious genetic and gender difference's with different body types. Everyone had strengths and weaknesses.

So keep this in mind when you do the Melbourne Shuffle. We love diversity in the Melbourne Shuffle. Develop what best works for you. It's just about different body types and dancing sensibly, and it's all the Melbourne Shuffle.

There's a lot of girls getting back into the Shuffle scene now, which is fantastic to see. The guys love it too and are generally happy to show their girlfriends (and hope-to-soon-be girlfriends) some moves. And of course the girls are more than capable to work it out themselves, and show the guys some moves!

Here's a sample of what's happening on youtube, some are beginners, some more experienced, but they're all great Melbourne Shuffle Girls.

First here’s some oldskool girls and Russian girls shuffling from Global Shuffle 1

 

Girl DOing HArdstyleZ

SHUFFLE (cute)

anna carol joanne shuffle

Llttle Girl Melbourne Shuffle

RAVER GIRL'S in JAPAN

girls shuffle too

shuffle girls sabrina and claudia shufflen

chIcK ShUffleZ at B'dAy

Sarah shuffling (my g/f)

International Melbourne Shuffle: Apekwhuut / Malaysia

Malaysia is probably the hottest place on the planet for the Melbourne Shuffle outside of Melbourne, at the moment.

>> If you have no idea where Malaysia is, see the GoogleEarth – CybaFaeries map of Melbourne Shuffle sites for Kuala Lumpur (KL) and Johor Bahru (JB), Malaysia.

Originally Malaysian students studying in Melbourne, learnt the Melbourne Shuffle at clubs and parties in Melbourne, then showed people how to do it when they got back home.

These days people such as Apekwhuut (Apek), have learnt the Melbourne Shuffle from Youtube.

Melbourne Shuffle OldSkoolers are more than happy that the shuffle is spreading by technology, as it was technology, or Techno Culture as we called it in the Melbourne Shuffle OldSkool era early 1990’s, that helped create the Melbourne Shuffle. In particular Techno, the generic name for electronic dance music such as acid, techno, trance and hardcore, which was broadcast on Radio and Television (see TVU, RRR, PBS & KISS, Topics for posts)

I contacted Apek after seeing his youtube video of nearly 1 year ago "Mario Woo Shuffle In Competition In time square kl", featuring his old team (crew/group). Apek had only been dancing the Melbourne Shuffle for a few months at this time. Some fine dancing for such a short time at it. And a very good example of what can be done by Melbourne Shuffle beginners - if anyone reading is thinking of starting.

Mario Woo Shuffle In Competition In time square kl


The original team's no longer together, because of the shortage of time with work commitments etc, but Apek has now put together a new team JB Rockers. Apek insists that the team is just for fun and if a promoter or sponsor asks them to dance, they will. And why wouldn't they? There's plenty of Shufflers in Melbourne who'd love to get requests like that.

Unfortunately the Melbourne Shuffle is still underground in Melbourne these days! Yes, even after 15 years. At any shopping center or Civic event they'll get break dancers in, but no Melbourne Shufflers. Sad isn't it.

So in respect of the exhibition Melbourne Shuffling, as you will see in lots of Apekwhuut and other Malaysian vids, I would proclaim Malaysians the World Leaders!! Good on you, well done, and lets hope others pick up on it.

I've posted a range of Apek's vids below, and you can find more at http://www.youtube.com/user/apekwhuut and http://www.myspace.com/apekwhuut

You can find more about Malaysian/Singaporean Melbourne Shufflers at the excellent Clept Forum

JB Rockers
JB Rockers: Aan, NaJib, BoTaKz, AboY, AbAng, AcAi, ALiF, UjAnG, AzHa, ApEkWhuut.


Jb Rocka Feat StyLo ShuFFLeR


azmer and apekwhuut


My Team = Mario Woo Shuffle In Competiton In City square Jb


ApEkWhuuT Shuffle At CS


ApEkWhuuT ShuFFLe


ApEkWhuuT Vs AbanG HardStyLe


My Shuffle Mate


Azmer


And the latest from Apek

Malaysian Hardstyler

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Let us know what's going on in your part of the planet.

Know of someone or a team who we should all know about? Then please email Garry Shepherd - cybafaeries@gmail.com with the links or info.

UPDATE 15 August 2007

Here's some more Malaysian Melbourne Shufflers mentioned in the comments. Keep them coming so we can all find about more about you :)

Shifter Clanz

IqalShifter

Raversquad

Raversquad

Mario Woo Shuffle In Competiton In time square kl

This vids been online for a while now, it’s fantastic. This crew really takes exhibition shuffling to another level, excellent. Great to see some arm movements happing again too, very oldskool :) Too often forgotten with the shuffle today. By apekwhuut in Malaysia. See more by apekwhuut
http://www.youtube.com/user/apekwhuut