Meaning of Twerking

Twerking eithertwerk is the English word that designates the act of dancing provocativelywith sensual pelvic movements, very similar to the perreo of reggaeton.

He twerking It consists of putting your hands on your hips, having your knees bent, and performing hip movements in and out continuously and repetitively to the rhythm of the music.

In it twerking The influence of African dances, such as mapouka, is recognized, although there is no doubt its similarity to perreo, which is a distinctive type of dance from the reggaeton culture, whose richness of movements and complexity is, of course, superior.

In the United States, the twerking is part of the culture hip hop since the 1990s, and initially referred to the sexy and provocative dance performed by strippers to their customers in exchange for tips.

However, celebrities from the entertainment world, such as Beyoncé, Rihanna and Miley Cyrus, had a lot to do with its global popularization. The first, in 2006, used the word in the lyrics of her song “Check It Out”. For her part, Rihanna in May 2013 included in her video “Pour It Up”choreographies of twerkingwhile Miley Cyrus danced to it in her presentation during the MTV Video Music Awards in August of the same year, all of this, of course, generated an immense global media impact.

Currently, this type of dance is promoted as an aerobic exercise that allows you to burn up to 600 calories in a classroom for approximately one hour, which is why there are schools that teach twerking in different places around the world.

Origin of the word twerking

According to him Dictionary oxford, twerking is a current popular culture term, recently officially added to the English language, that means dancing to music in a sexually provocative manner, including a squatting posture and hip thrusting movements.

In reference to its etymology, it is presumed that its origin took place in the 19th century, the product of a fusion between twitch either twistwhich mean ‘contraction’ or ‘torsion’, and jerkwhich means ‘rapid or jerky movement’, all of which we could translate as ‘shaking movement’.