Style
The basic steps allow for a variety of interpretations, some of which might appear quite violent. Pogo dancers have their choice of:
- keeping their torsos rigid or thrashing them about;
- holding their arms stiffly at their sides or flailing them;
- keeping their legs together or kicking about;
- jumping straight up and down, jumping in any direction, or spinning in the air.
Occasionally, dancers collide, but this is not necessarily part of pogo dancing. An uninformed bystander might get the impression that the dancers are attacking one another. People sometimes get injured when pogoing, but, more often than not, pogoers who fall to the ground are helped up instead of getting trampled. There is a general understanding that the pogoing is fun, not a fight. As the more aggressive hardcore punk emerged in the early 1980s, dancing became more violent and evolved into both moshing and slam dancing, in which dancers run and jump around, deliberately shove and slam into each other. The risk of injury in moshing is significantly higher, although it is generally agreed that moshers are not attempting to cause each other serious injury.
Read more about this topic: Pogo (dance)
Famous quotes containing the word style:
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—W. T. Lhamon, U.S. educator, critic. “Material Differences,” Deliberate Speed: The Origins of a Cultural Style in the American 1950s, Smithsonian (1990)
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