Burning Man This Year: How to Twerk Like a Rockstar

In the last couple days it's occurred to me that the verb "to twerk," as it's being used in connection to the Miley Cyrus stuff on television, is different from the way it was used at Burning Man.

The default world version of "twerk" implies not only a certain type of bouncy dancing, but one that is highly sexualized to the point of vulgarity.

As I've mentioned, the human relations at Burning Man take on a somewhat more different form, all in the all, at least on the surface. Like I said, despite the nudity and overt sexuality, it ironically feels more innocent.

To be sure, some of the club camps can get very wild and adult. But out on the playa, at a club on the Esplanade, or on an art car, the dancing usually does not look like the vulgar "humping" you see lately at music awards shows. You might see that on stage at a club, or with certain go-go dancers but that's a different matter (for another post). The dancers on the dance floor usually just, well, dance. Yes, there's some sexualized stuff, but mostly it feels like a slightly more grown up version of the kind of dancing we did at sock hops in 1982.

In my mind, twerking is the style of dance that most young women will fall into naturally, when hearing a techno beat at Burning Man, and elsewhere. It's a wonderful natural motion of the torso and hips that almost every woman with a normal body shape can achieve, almost instantly.  It involves circular motions, and counter-jiggling of certain portions of the body relative to another. To be sure, as viewed by a man, it can come across as highly sexual. But it's not vulgar, even topless. Instead it looks like some kind of grown-up girlish innocent joy, the pure release of the body energy of youth.

All in all, the rave at Burning Man comes across something"twerking" circa 1969, complete with faux geodesic structures:

Take more of their clothes off, and give them a strong bass beat, and you probably almost there.

It seems empirically true this type of ultra-vibuous dancing does not come as naturally for men as it does for women (e.g. see the guy in that video wearing the suit). Especially in the West, we men are more up in our heads, and sometimes male dancing betrays an overbalance to the mental over the physical experience. We have to learn to let go feel bass line vibrating in our torsos, and how to loosen up to it.

But it's not hard to do, really. Partly involves just imitating what women do with their hips, but in a more subtle masculine way, at least at first. Role models are the key. When it doubt, think of Elvis. He pretty much did it right 100% of the time.