ENTITY · CONCEPT / TERM

Dancehall dance lineage

Well supported

Dancehall dances have authors, names and dates, which is unusual and makes them traceable. A move is created, named, carried by a record, taken up by the floor and then displaced by the next one — Bogle to Butterfly to Willie Bounce to Dutty Wine and on. Following that line is the closest thing the music has to a documented movement history.

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At a glance

Type: Concept / term →
Era: Street dances and micro-economies →
Confidence: Well supported

Share a memoryWrite it, say it, or send a photo.Correct this recordA date, a name, a spelling we got wrong.Add a source leadA flyer, tape, article or photograph.

Connections

Media & sources

Articles & sources

Open source ↗

Jamaica Observer — Out There Without Fear: Jamaica's Dancehall

WEB · rights discovery only · source reference

Clickable source for Dance Jamaica, Weddy Weddy and documentary context.

Source link ↗

In stories

Story · Well supportedDancehall bodies, voices and vibes men

The record is only part of it. Dancehall is also a dance vocabulary, a weekly street calendar and a man on a microphone whose job is to make the room feel like something.

Debate & reception

What people argued about this record — two documented positions each time, kept apart from verified fact. Browse every argument in the archive →

Commentary

Dancers are authors of dancehall history

One side

Artist-centred history

The other

Dancer authorship

Dancehall dance creators and crews should be credited as cultural authors, not treated only as background performers in artist stories.

Read the argument →