Culture MONDAY, NOVEMBER 23, 2009

hink globally, act virally. Like [ THE WEEKENDER ] a cartoon thought bubble, that T notion seems to hang in the mild afternoon air here, as school lets out early on parent-teacher conference day at ‘The Wilderness’ Alexander Hamilton High School. At two o’clock precisely, students flood from a 1930s brick building evocative of Andy tames Tian����j�in�� Hardy movies. If you are 130 years old, you will get that reference. If you are not, by IAN BaRTHOLOMEW let’s just say that they were Hollywood STAFF REPORTER films in which perky and resourceful teenagers had a tendency to put on shows Jerking, a dance that emerged in LA, has ver the weekend, Novel Hall in somebody’s barn. O(新舞臺) played host to Tianjin And isn’t the Web, in its wildly do-it- become an Internet phenomenon. Renmin Yishu Juyuan’s (天津人 yourself essence, a technological update 民藝術劇院) new production of on the Andy Hardy narrative? And isn’t It blends computerized pop syncopations The Wilderness (原野), a play by this partly why the students hanging with hip-hop beats, blurs racial boundaries, Cao Yu (曹禺), widely regarded out on South Robertson Boulevard have as ’s greatest modern become huge stars on the Internet, encourages sartorial experimentation playwright. The production their fame conjured out of home-grown and rebelliously disregards has toured very successfully YouTube videos of jerking — a new dance in China, and there were some with its own quickly evolving music and a the conventions of urban music outstanding performances, but style of dress? Julian Goins of the Ranger$ the more than half-century gap Julian Goins, the 15-year-old leader of demonstrates one of the moves separating the late 1930s, when the Ranger$, a five-member jerking crew, that has helped jerking go viral. the play was written, and this By GUY TREBAY hops onto the tips of his sneakers — the Photo: NY Times news service version’s modern political and Tippy Toe — and then swivels his body NY Times News Service, artistic climate, was almost ground-ward, legs crossed at the ankle. embarrassingly evident. He pops up like a jack-in-the-box, spins Various well-worn modern and bounces, gliding backward in the theatrical devices were used, Reject, a move that resembles nothing and some recourse was also so much as the , an 1980s made to the conventions of dance-floor step but in reverse. traditional Chinese opera, in The other kids in the schoolyard pay which props are imagined scant attention to the star in their midst. rather than actually present Until his Ranger$ schedule exploded and on the stage. All this was part his mother decided to home-school him, of a heroic effort to make The Julian was just another student. Wilderness seem contemporary. Goofy, gentle, nimbly amateurish, Director Wang Yansong jerking was little known outside certain (王延松) has been too keen precincts of this sprawling city until a on bringing in all the tricks year ago. But in the last nine months or of the theater, both Western so, jerking began an unexpected run as an and Chinese, and their use Internet phenomenon. often appeared inconsistent, When the New Boyz — two teenagers Booty rockin’, suggesting that they were who had been playing high school show stoppin’ there more as trappings of auditoriums — released You’re a Jerk, the modernity and artistic fusion song raced up the Billboard ladder, sold rather than having been 750,000 copies on iTunes and another rigorously thought out as part 400,000 ring tones, provided the duo with of the production’s structure. a base for a national tour and, of course, In addition to the characters, gave rise to untold copycats. lines were also spoken by a “Jerking started off in LA as just a Greek chorus of primitivist clay little inner-city dance,” said one of the fad. And jerking, its adherents say, has a SpongeBob SquarePants and Oscar the high school as a hopeless nerd. preened their moves against the stolid dolls, a device clearly intended New Boyz, Earl Benjamin, 18, known cultural resonance that goes beyond the Grouch. Jerking, said Hasan, the film For Caesar Ruiz, one of the members of backdrop of Hamilton High. to deconstruct Cao’s original as Ben J. “We used to search for it on Reject and the Tippy Toe. director, is “like this huge communal Team Dummy, a Latino jerking crew based “Let’s go mess with the Pink Dollaz,” narrative. Unfortunately, it was YouTube and we noticed it had potential “Jerking is a movement, almost like in collage, all these teenagers coming in Long Beach, California, jerking at first said David White, a limber 15-year-old sometimes difficult to work to be bigger than it was. It was like when the 1980s when rap started,” said Tammy together to collaborate.” seemed cordoned off from young Latino Ranger$ member with a winning smile out who was speaking the you first saw break dancing: it has so Maxwell, the manager of the Ranger$ and It may be, as he suggested, that dancers. “We were like, we want to do this and his nickname, Spotlight, tattooed lines, which detracted from the many different parts, and when you get the mother of Julian Goins. “There’s a certain elements of this collage but we’re Mexican and, not to be racist, across his abdomen. effectiveness of this device. the dance down pat, you wanted to do it style to it, and a music and a lifestyle and originated in gang culture, and that some but this was a black dance,” he said. White was referring to Camera and The excessive use of reverb for all the time. It reminded you of how fun all the kids have really jumped on it.” of jerking’s dance moves amount to But what attracted him to jerking, he China Walker, 16-year-old twins from atmospheric effect was not only hip-hop used to be.” Of course, it is altogether possible little more than riffs on well-established added, were the same things that make a girl group that first posted YouTube annoying, but tended to give the Warner Brothers/Asylum and that jerking will live out its cycle and gangsta steps like the Crip Walk or the so many jerking videos contagious: its videos of salacious home-recorded production a slightly kitschy feel. Interscope were among those that quickly vanish as quickly as it appeared. But for Hoover Stomp. But the overall spirit fresh neo-punk style, its simple beats and jerking songs like Tasty just seven This said, there were signed jerking crews — the Bangz, the the moment, there is no arguing with the of the movement is far from criminal. the sense that anyone with a degree of months ago. The Pink Dollaz were being a number of outstanding Cold Flamez, the Rej3ctz and Audio millions of views the Ranger$ and other And its rebellious disregard for the coordination can learn the dance. “We just picked up that afternoon from school performances, most notably Push. In late spring, Shariff Hasan, 30, a jerking crews have racked up for videos conventions of urban style and music decided for ourselves that there’s no color to join the English rap star M.I.A. at a by Zang Qian (臧倩) and Li filmmaker, began filming a feature, Jerkin’, and music recorded on bargain equipment (old school hip-hop artists are referred in jerking,” he said. “If you feel it, go get it recording studio. Shumin (李淑敏), who take the simultaneously developing a documentary and set to beats created with software to as “baggy daddies”) is, as Moscowitz and show them you’re straight with it.” Batting their false eyelashes, the conventional dislike between and a jerking reality show for MTV. that seems to prove that anyone with a said, “the good, clean commercial kind.” Team Dummy altered its look from Walker twins giggled at White’s antics and mother and daughter-in-law to Sneaker manufacturers like Vlado got laptop can be a star. Perhaps the most compelling thing the oversize T-shirts and khakis that the way the Ranger$ — Jacorey Williams, murderous extremes. Both are in on the act, sponsoring the Ranger$, “Jerking is very ground up,” said about jerking, suggested Randall Roberts, are standard issue in gang-dominated Julian Goins, Langson Higgins and ranked as artists of the first whose offhand way of mashing up Todd Moscowitz, the president of the music editor of the LA Weekly, is parts of Southern California. They began Dashawn Blanks — amiably corkscrewed grade, and their talents showed fashion influences — punk, 1980s pop, Asylum Records, who added the Rej3ctz, how handily its practitioners manipulate dancing and posted videos on YouTube, and did clumsy back flips on the grass. in a cast of energetic but clearly skater culture, Daisy Age hip-hop and the New Boyz, the Bangz and the Cold the Web, scouring culture of historical and according the mysterious Web laws “It is the kids who are really pushing less experienced performers. goth — breathed life into the weary Flamez to the label’s roster this year. context, freely deploying any tool that that can send a laughing baby video this narrative along,” said Roberts of the The cast members worked proposition that fashion’s most compelling “It’s sprouting up everywhere you look,” comes to hand. “It’s like they’re dipping global, these unknowns quickly attracted L.A. Weekly. Yet as with so much else on hard, but were undermined not innovations often come from the street. said Moscowitz, who noted that when back and forgetting that things like thousands of viewers. the Web, there is some mysterious alchemy only by the director’s fussy mix- Seen in formal terms, said Sally the New Boyz appeared this month at gangsta rap ever happened,” he said. Their online metrics, while respectable, involved. Ask the Pink Dollaz, astonished and-match presentation, but Sommer, a dance historian who teaches a mall in Flint, Michigan, the police There is much to admire, Roberts were nothing when compared with as anyone at their overnight success. also by the material itself. Cao at Florida State University, jerking may were called to control a crowd of 1,500 suggested, in the vision of teenagers of those logged by the u.c.L.A. Jerk Kings, “When this whole jerking thing first was among the first generation merely be a cousin to the “lambada or the in a space designed to accommodate a all sorts united in pursuit of a music that whose oddly titled White Boys Jerking started happening and it blew up, we of Chinese writers to work in twist.” It is certainly, Sommer said, less fraction of that. blends computerized pop syncopations has drawn over 2.7 million views, or the were like, ‘No way! Shut up!’” said the form of Western drama, and physically demanding than or Teenagers there had apparently gotten with hip-hop beats, that obliviously blurs Ranger$’ Jerkin in JerkVille, which has Camera Walker. for all the extravagant claims vogueing or the other highly skilled and jerking’s fashion memo, the one that racial boundaries and that encourages more than three million. “To be honest,” her twin sister, China, made for his reputation, he innovative urban forms of dance. But calls for skinny jeans, fat gold chains sartorial experimentation of a kind that, As school let out last week, the added, “we really had no idea this was all was not a particularly subtle the lambada was a fad. The twist was a and T-shirts featuring characters like Hasan said, would have marked him in unlikely superstars from the Ranger$ going to get out.” exponent of the form. For that matter, even the superior plays of Western contemporaries such as J.B. Priestley when performed today, often also TOP FIVE seem strangely irrelevant. This production made a MANDARIN ALBUMS significant change to the ending P L A N E T POP of the play in an effort to Nov. 13 to Nov. 19 provide some contemporary cottish Susan Boyle, delicate woman in a clinic. The Royal Swedish Opera “extremely favorable” progress political relevance — this one of the biggest stars of This, then, is no mere bunch said Soderstrom had “a unique following his sentence for reviewer detected a reference to the Internet age, seeks to of songs; it is a commemorative ability to move the audience assaulting ex-girlfriend Rihanna. the moral trauma of a revolution Sturn global celebrity into record mug of a major national event, both through her voice and Brown, 20, must now return that turned on itself — but sales this week with the release rendered as a silver gewgaw through her acting.” to court in February for another this did irreparable damage of her debut album I Dreamed that plays music. She would be remembered hearing before Superior Court to what passes for character a Dream. Named after the song Pirates of the Caribbean particularly for her performances Judge Patricia Schnegg, who development and made for from the musical Les Miserables star Johnny Depp is the sexiest as Tatiana in Tchaikovsky’s sentenced the singer to 180 days something of an anticlimax. that made her famous, the man on the planet, according to Eugene Onegin and the of community labor in August. For all the criticisms 12-track album is a mix of pop People magazine. Marshallin in Strauss’ Der Brown has already completed that can be leveled at this covers like Madonna’s You’ll See Depp, 46, headed a list of 15, Rosenkavalier, the Opera said. 100 hours of community labor production, the high caliber of Jam Hsiao (蕭敬騰) and Love and The Monkees’ Daydream catching People’s attention not Jonny Depp, heartthrob and family man. Her name would also long and undergone seven sessions of the acting was enjoyable and Moments (愛的時刻自選輯) with Believer and Christian stalwarts so much for his swashbuckling Photo: REUTERS be associated with the role of a domestic violence counseling it was good to get a glimpse 1 20.47 percent of sales like Amazing Grace. antics in the Pirates franchise, Marguerite in Gounod’s Faust, program, his lawyer Mark of what is happening in Weeks ahead of the album’s or his freakish charm in Edward Proposal, and Jake Gyllenhaal for which she won great acclaim Geragos lawyer told the court. mainstream drama on the other Landy Wen (溫嵐) and release, it topped Amazon’s Scissorhands, but his softer of Brokeback Mountain. with performances in the US “It’s an extremely favorable side of the Strait. Dancing Queen pre-sale charts. Boyle is the side as a family man. Depp also won the magazine’s and in the former Soviet Union. progress report,” Schnegg said 2 with 14.83 % church mouse who roared on The “star has had women “Sexiest” honor in 2003. Born in 1927, in Stockholm after reviewing a document Britain’s Got Talent last spring, swooning since his days as a teen The Swedish soprano to a Russian mother and a detailing Brown’s case since his Elva Hsiao (蕭亞軒) and turning the tables on judges and detective on 21 Jump Street. Elisabeth Soderstrom has died at Swedish father, Soderstrom Aug. 25 sentencing. Diamond Candy (鑽石糖) audience members disdainful Yet it’s his devotion to his family the age of 82, the Royal Swedish made her debut at the city’s Brown was sentenced to five 3 with 10.09 % that a woman over 25 blithe to that really makes the actor so Opera announced on Saturday. Drottningholms Theater. years probation, a year-long the rigors of Botox should open endearing,” People gushed. She died in a Stockholm She continued to appear domestic violence program Genie Chuo (卓文萱) and her mouth in public. A viral Depp’s companion is French hospital on Friday morning. regularly at the Stockholm and 180 days of community 1+1Play n Fun pandemic on YouTube made singer Vanessa Paradis and he is During a career spanning opera while pursuing her labor after pleading guilty 4 with 5.85 % the Scottish 40-something an the father of Lily-Rose, 10, and half a century, the singer international career, and made to assaulting Rihanna on the international star. This is her Jack, seven. performed regularly at New her final stage appearance as eve of the Grammy Awards in Yoga Lin (林宥嘉) and dream come true, we are told; The slightly built actor York’s Metropolitan Opera and the countess in Tchaikovsky’s February this year. Senses Around (感官／世界) never mind that the whirlwind who often sports a whispy Covent Garden in London, and The Queen of Spades in 1999. The incident shocked the 5 with 4.72 % taking her from West Lothian goatee beard and floppy hair made numerous appearances R ’n’ B singer Chris Brown music world and left Rihanna Album chart compiled from G-Music (www.g-music.com.tw), to happy ever after has already beat out 33-year-old actor at Britain’s Glyndebourne was praised by a Los Angeles nursing cuts and bruises to based on retail sales landed this psychologically Ryan Reynolds, costar in The summer festival. judge on Thursday for making her face. — Agencies Photo courtesy of Novel Hall