Let’s pretend a music-loving, extraterrestrial landed on planet Earth, and rather than saying “Take me to your leader,” the curious alien wanted to know about our earthling music. In this special case, I would take out my iPhone, and I would show my new friend this video, because wow. While it doesn’t show every kind of music genre or every song, it is a fantastic cross-section (and introduction!) of popular music that has been getting people to boogie from the 1960s onwards.
These four boys decided to do their version of the “Evolution of Dance,” the original being one of the first-ever viral videos of YouTube in 2001 from dancer Jason Laipply. These boys took inspiration and revamped it as the “New Evolution of Dance.”
The routine starts off in the 60s, to Ben E. King’s classic, “Stand By Me.” The young men are dressed for this style of music, wearing old-fashioned slacks and suspenders and retro black and white Chuck Taylors. The music transitions to “Let’s Twist” by Chubby Checker, another popular song of times, before James Brown’s “I Feel Good.” It’s a clever throwback to which the boys are only getting started!
The performance goes on for several minutes as the crowd-pleasers dive into more genres and music from “Everybody Loves Kung ** Fighting” to Britney Spears and Beyonce! And don’t underestimate these boys’ skills! While they pay tribute to the moves of each song (like shaking it for Sir Mix A Lot!), they’ve incorporated some **nny and unexpected twists throughout. There is some breakdancing, “Dirty Dancing,” flips, twists and sunglasses pulled out of nowhere! Seriously, these hips shaking, move busting, body shaking teens have their choreography down pat. I can’t imagine how long it took them to plan and bring it to life on stage. They must have spent hours coming up with splicing the music to match the integration of the moves. Who would have thought it would come out so well?
Have you seen a performance like something like this? If so, tell us your story in the comments, we’d love to hear from you!
Click below to watch these four bring their A-game. It’s pretty remarkable all the time and effort that went into this performance for their classmates.
