Dancing in Japan

One of the things I've consistently noticed when going out on the weekend is that Japanese people are bad dancers. Think about it though, in the US, we pull from many, many, many cultures to make our dances. Our country is a melting pot and our dance culture is wide, varied, and pretty amazing.

Now, let's think about Japan and their tradition of dance....they have the Japanese Fan Dance....if you've seen that...it's..well...very reserved even though they can do some great things with the fans. Now this is not to say that Japan has not discovered things like hip-hop dance. John and I watched a hip-hop dance competition in the mall. This type of thing seems to be reserved for children though.

So, all this boils down to is that in clubs they like to do dances that have preconceived moves. This ensures that the dancing stays fairly orderly and everyone can do it.

So I present to you a few videos:

This is the Cupid Shuffle at a club in the Tokyo area. Most clubs play the Cupid Shuffle at least twice in a night and the ENTIRE club runs to the dance floor for this line dance.

I've actually been to this club. It's half on base, half off base. You see EVERYONE doing the electric slide.

Lastly, we have a flash mob in a suburb of Tokyo doing the YMCA.

Also the other night, we did the Tootsie Roll. I can't find any videos of that though. I might have to make one myself.