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����jin�� 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 China’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$, a five-member jerking crew, that has helped jerking go viral. the play was written, and this BY GUY TREBAY hops onto the tips of his sneakers — the PHOTO: NY TIMES NEWS SERVICE version’s modern political and Tippy Toe — and then swivels his body NY TIMES NEWS SERVICE, LOS ANGELES artistic climate, was almost ground-ward, legs crossed at the ankle. embarrassingly evident. He pops up like a jack-in-the-box, spins Various well-worn modern and bounces, gliding backward in the theatrical devices were used, Reject, a move that resembles nothing and some recourse was also so much as the Running Man, an 1980s made to the conventions of dance-floor step but in reverse. traditional Chinese opera, in The other kids in the schoolyard pay which props are imagined scant attention to the star in their midst. rather than actually present Until his Ranger$ 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.