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Memphis Jookin or Detroit Jittin: Urban Dance Craze Alive in Motor City, Onlookers Recount Dance Duels

Dance movements of any particular urban sect seem to vary depending on the city and state (sometimes, even the borough). I wouldn't be surprised if at some point the "Showtime!" dancers on the MTA coined their own style of dance (perhaps "Subway Slinging," as they sling themselves from the railings).

Yeah, that might be an awful name for a new dance craze, but you get my point.

However, two forms of street dance that I was actually ignorant of for a long time were Memphis jookin and Detroit hit. Both borrow form one another, but the latter seems to be a more current and obscure form of movement.

Per Alastair Macaulay at the New York Times, the dance forms are still very much alive--an integral part of the famed Detroit dance scene.

Accordingly, both forms are African-American derived and mostly males perform them; both move feet and other body parts intensely (more so in the case of jookin, a very smooth and uninterrupted flow while jit appears almost to have some kind of eastern European echo to it, not unlike a Russian "kazachok-bis").

What's more interesting about these dance fusions are the duels that accompany them. In a civil setting, usually in a park with a large concrete area, duels seem to be the thesis of the idiom, itself.

"Whereas there's no doubt that Memphis jookin is a flourishing idiom," says Macaulay, "Detroit jit seems to have a far smaller body of support."

"But it's an exciting idiom that changes your view of the city. Much about Detroit today is depressed, but here's this dance form of throbbing speed and vitality and pride"

Thus, keep on the up with some of these dance genres below.

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