Friday, August 30, 2013

If Twerking is Egwu-Ukwu Reloaded, What Do You Think of the Oxford Dictionary Definition?

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I got introduced to the word twerking just a few days before Miley Cyrus blew up the internet with her version of the dance at the MTV video music awards [see here]. Someone send me a video of a compilation of various people twerking and said, is that not Egwu-Ukwu (translate - Dance of the hips)?

I don't know what it is called in other Nigerian languages, but there's this dance movement in most Igbo free-style dances where the lady kinda rolls her hips. Owerri women, I think, have a special variation on this dance move, as well as Yoruba women.

In fact, I watched a dance troupe from Ogwasi in Delta performing this dance three years ago without knowing it had an American name already. They even did the style where you spread your legs, put your hands on the ground, and shake what your mama gave ya. As you can imagine everyone, especially the men went wild. What I have not seen traditional Nigerian women dancers don't do sha is stand on their hands with legs in the air and do the dance.

Now, twerk is an official word in the Oxford online dictionary as seen above. What do you think of the definition? Can we call the Nigerian Egwu-Ukwu Twerking?





5 comments:

  1. It's funny that Twerk ended in the dictionary.

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  2. It's funny people still know what the term 'decent' or 'provocative' means..
    Let's just say if ibos were to dance the waist dance, you won't be sexually aroused, you would appreciate the culture.
    But Twerking... That?!
    That's on a whole different block... It's a prelude to sex!
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    ReplyDelete
  3. It is definitely egwu ukwu reloaded to another level lol

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  4. I don't think we can (or should) call Egwu-Ukwu twerking because twerking is unique to the US despite similarities. Just like Egwu-Ukwu is unique to Nigeria and mapouka to Cote D'Ivoire and ventilatou to Senegal and niiko to Somalia and wining to the Caribbean etc. Booty shaking can be found literally anywhere in the African Diaspora, you may find this article on twerking and other forms of booty shaking in the African Diaspora interesting.

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  5. I find Twerking disgusting.

    ReplyDelete

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