The History of Waacking (Whacking) "Punking means to make something your b*tch. Instead of being defeated by a person or thing or situation, punking is how we flipped the script to make it our own." – Viktor Manoel, Mexican–American dancer, choreographer, writer, and actor. Highly energetic, funky air moves to disco music dominated the American gay clubs in the 70s. These energetic air moves narrated the stories and emotions of the oppressed class in America. Waacking was one of the treasures created and owned by people of color and the LGBTQIA+ community. Originally called ‘Punking’, Whacking emerged as a style that focused on empowerment and strength. It's worth taking a note that “Punk” was originally a derogatory term, but the pride community reclaimed it as a positive action verb. ‘Punk, Whack, Pose’ became the revolutionary language of the minority. A few OG Punks took Whacking to the next level and presented on the floor of Soul Train. Unfortunately, the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the 80s wiped out most of the first-generation Punks. But the punk world had hope, Viktor Manoel, with whose quote we started this blog, survived. He is an original Punk. The style was not seen in the mainstream media during the 80s and 90s. In 2003, a dancer and choreographer Brian “Footwork” Green began teaching Whacking as a formal dance style, giving birth to a whole new generation of Whackers. The 2000s and 2010s was the period when Whacking’s popularity peaked, and it still peaks and lives in our hearts. The dance style which passed down to us by the people whose voices were taken away from them. Their legacy shall hail and remain legendary. 

Angela's Journey of Becoming and Getting Recognised as the Legendary Isadora Duncan “You were once wild here. Don’t let them tame you.” ― Isadora Duncan, Isadora Speaks: Uncollected Writings and Speeches of Isadora Duncan I couldn’t think of a better introduction to the legendary Isadora Duncan than the one that the Dance Magazine gave in 1977, half a century after her death, “Isadora Duncan came out of California and took Europe by storm. Europeans asked themselves how such a mesmerizing innovator could have emerged from an American wilderness at the turn of the century; no one really knew.” That pretty much sums up the weight of her refreshing approach and magnificent works of art. Born Angela Duncan, Isadora Duncan grew up to be a revolutionary artist. Non-conforming to the rigidity of classical ballet early on in her career, Duncan freed ballet from its conservative restrictions and paved the way for the development of modern expressive and contemporary dance, single-handedly. She was among the first to raise interpretive dance to the status of creative art. (a girl boss indeed). Little Angela was the youngest of the four children of, a wealthy and a ladies’ man, Joseph Duncan and, a fierce and distinguishably musical, Mary Duncan. Five days before Angela’s baptism, Joseph Duncan’s bank closed and he ran away, leaving his family behind. Father Joseph, being the ladies’ man that he was, soon got caught having illicit affairs, and mother Duncan being an OG feminist that she was left the marriage and took all her kids with her. Clan Duncan’s life turned upside down but Mother Mary was a goddess. Mother Duncan worked very hard to make the ends meet, and singlehandedly improved the condition of the poverty-stricken family of a single woman and four babies. She could not afford to get her children tutored, so she set her foot and became the icon we all deserve in our life. She started reading Dickens, Greek Mythology, Thackeray, and Shakespeare, and lectures by free-thinker Robert Ingersoll on free evenings to her children. She also played long recitals by Chopin and Schubert on her piano. When Angela was just eleven, she had to drop out of school and start working to help her family survive along with her other siblings. During that period, the Duncan siblings’ education was pretty much impromptu but nonetheless, they all acquired extraordinary intellectual capacity and talent in creating authentic art. A nightly ritual at the Duncan’s was Mama Duncan playing classics on her piano and pretending to not notice her little baby angela sneak out of her bed, and creatively improvising dances in the lamp light. The family couldn’t afford dance classes or even go to recitals. The Dance Magazine stated, “Isadora’s isolation from the stage and then the decaying world of ballet probably proved an asset in formulating her original works later on.” When she was twelve or fourteen, she started teaching Schottische and Waltz in her neighborhood. The members of the Duncan clan were too making money out of their talent. This tight condition at home, in addition to being surrounded by extremely hardworking and persistent people. Little Angela was becoming a fierce, independent, creative, resourceful, ambitious, and highly intellectual woman. When each member of the Duncan clan was making money, conditions stabilized enough for the Duncan siblings to dedicate some of their time to art. They started producing plays, and their neighbors paid to watch them play. That's how Angela stepped into the world of theatre. In the first show of their first tour, no one came. But the Duncans were persistent. At the age of sixteen, Angela along with her clan moved to San Francisco. And the San Francisco City Directory listed this sixteen-year-old as ‘Miss Isadora Duncan, teacher, dancing’. The reason for the Duncans to move back from Oakland was that their beloved Joseph Duncan had bought them the Castle Mansion. They spent the next two years there, running primarily dance and piano classes and attempting to transform it into an art center. However, they started struggling to pay rent and that's when they moved to Chicago. Eighteen-year-old Angela, now Isadora, was striving to get on stage. She failed. Then they tried her luck in New York and failed again. But she earned her way into a theatre troupe by the impresario Augustine Daly and she left for Europe with them. Her time at Daly was more or less miserable and undoubtedly unsuccessful. She left the troupe after two years and tried to survive as an independent artist in London and yet again she faced another failure. At the age of twenty-two, she moved to Belgravia. There she befriended Charles Hallé and Grant Duff Douglas Ainslie through whom she got introduced to the society of artists and impresarios who held massive influence. Through these connections and the generosity of the two men, Isadora Duncan got a chance to perform a recital taking place under the patronage of Princess Christian and the committee of eighteen. On March 16th, 1900. She performed Mendelssohn's musical poem 'A Welcome to Spring' which was a massive success, The Times dedicated a column in their prestigious newspaper to miss Duncan's performance the very next day, and that marked the beginning of her revolutionary reign.