Sunday, May 31, 2009

Swing Time



This isn't quite vernacular dancing; its potential YouTube appeal owes more to a "Thriller"-style mass dance event aesthetic than to cutting a rug in domestic settings. Like Gmail's "Hot Potato" video or "Where the Hell is Matt?," which involved an elaborate hoax that claimed it was all a hoax, this video cuts together scenes from a variety of global stages. But it also represents a kind of epideictic rhetoric that commemorates a special occasion, the ninety-fifth birthday of the recently deceased Frankie Manning. The footage is directly addressed to those who lead and participate in the swing community worldwide and serves as both a memorial and a choreographed text for imitation.

Thanks to Rikomatic for the link.

Labels: ,

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home