Friday, May 8, 2009

I Just Wanna Dance

The best coming of age, rites de passage film is the1993 movie Dazed and Confused.

You know those films, they always start with:
It was the last day of school in 1976, a time they'd never forget..........

In one scene, Adam Goldberg’s character leans forward from the back seat of a car; his eyes revealing nothing but a fierce determination; he hugs himself; then yells excitedly “I just wanna dance!”

These movies are such a clique, and the coming of age film has now been hijacked by a new genre; the Judd Apatow Bromance.

What has this got to do with football?

Football is dancing. Yeah, right?

Well the best footballers can be argued are Brazilians and the best dancers are Brazilian dancers.
Well the Brazilians would say that they are the best footballers and dancers anyway; and usually they tend to prove it at the World Cup.If not on it, then most definitely off it.

When Brazil plays at the World Cup the camera man always seems to pan the direction of the camera towards the beautiful Brazilian girls dancing the samba in the stands.

Some footballers spend as much time in the nightclubs as they do on the pitch.

Arguably the best dancer to ever grace a football pitch, Maradona used to train in the afternoons when he was at Barcelona. The coaches had to schedule the training at that time because he was always out clubbing.

Messi was also dancing all over pitch against Real Madrid during Barcelona’s 6-2 demolition in the El Classico over the weekend.

And what of other football dancing cultures?

The Russians have a history of achieving excellence in the art of ballet and gymnastics.
There football can be structured, based on form and shape and mixed with moments of great beauty and power.

Andrei Arshavin has been making plenty of fancy moves for Arsenal recently.

At the 2008 European Championship the Russians danced their way to the semi-finals.
Famous Russian composer Dimitri Shostakovich once said of the beautiful game that:

“Football was the ballet of the masses.”

Not forgetting the Greeks, they have a long history of expressing themselves through dance, and even most of the Barbarians can dance to Zorba the Greek.

The skillfull Karagounis is the Greek’s best dancer I would say.

Of course one of the best examples of footballers dancing is when the goal celebration occurs.

Sometimes it best to stick to the football and leave the dancing to the experts.

Seeing Arsenal’s African duo, Adebeyor and Toure trying to teach RobinVan Persie African dance moves during a goal celebration recently certainly proved once again that dancing next to black people; can make whitey look a bit foolish.

Not to forget the Spanish.
With the Real Madrid and Barcelona divide causing most folks in Spain to be apathetic to the Castillian cause. That division was given as the reason as to why Spain where considered major tournaments failings.

The Spanish where all tango and in sync for Euro2008 championships, the final of the Spanish flamenco football style compared with the funny way German people dance was a win for the dancing purists.

Here are some visual examples of French freestyle football dancing.
This is Le Frank Style:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVEga3hrEV4

Here is footage from the Championnat de France de Freestyle Football
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Jd2nGBwIWs&feature=related

Melbourne Shuffle
Even the Aussies have got some dance moves, the Melbourne shuffle is everywhere on YouTube.
Modern football is so quick these days; you can see similarities in the high energy modern form of dance like the Melbourne shuffle.

Below is a link to the Melbourne shuffle; it perhaps goes a little way towards explaining why the
Aussies have a habit of sometimes going 100 miles an hour on the football field:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPaMdxC6CQI

It’s also not uncommon to see this move brought out at rave parties in the UK, Germany, Malaysia and also Thailand.

So do you think you can dance?

These are just a few examples, I’m sure there are more out there.

If you want to watch dancing with real stars, there is no better place than on the worlds football pitches.
Link here:
http://goal.com/en/news/808/australia/2009/05/07/1251648/comment-i-just-wanna-dance

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