Did you know you’re not legally allowed to use the phrase Super Bowl or Super Bowl Sunday in Ad Copy, ever? I loooove studying little rules like this :) Good thing I will never run ads here. FCC guidelines and I will never ever ever get back together, like ever1.
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Hi! This blog post is dedicated to, PARRIS GOEBEL! ^This is such a crisp angle! I practiced this :24 second clip for three days nonstop when I found her NEW TikTok account through my algorithm’s hyper-dance-fyp. When I WORK this piece of choreography in the studio, I’m Parris (Rihanna).
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All of the following for choreographing the hell out of Rihanna, and dancers' halftime performance! Allow me to quickly introduce you to the ROYAL FAMILY DANCE CREW, coming from The Palace Dance Studio based in New Zealand. For your primer, starting to break into Internet/culture level hype at World of Dance in 2015; a full Family dance I’ve seen clipped and chopped in many media posts, but the intro choreography is still eating 8 years later. KNOW THEM!
It takes every intentional cell in my body to not scream in delight each watch at the 3 min mark for the “dip” section! Consider this *Officially* re-entering my competitive phase like a whip-noise.
When I was active in competitive dance, growing up doing this in various dance styles and combinations of teams for more hours than anything else per week starting age 9, this format of competitive dance was referred to as our “Company production.” In my studio, this specific dance was meant to include all Company members in our full age range (typically ages 4-18) and used a theme to mix several songs into a 10~ minute track. We would dance on and off stage multiple times for :30s sections, using side stage quick costume changes between our assigned parts, changing full-ish costumes three or four times within the 10 minutes, until approximately 100 of us closed the dance in the finale. Personal costume highlights include an Olympic wrestler, Time-warping decade dancer, a Disney princess/girl-powered theme production, a purple velvet suited and wigged Prince, purple sequin MC Hammer pants (I had a small solo) and many, many other pop culture icons from MTV and the 80s, leading up to my personal best being 1 of 100 Napoleon Dynamites on stage. Five out of seven weekdays of my teen life at practice in one of two Companies I danced in with seasons of weekend late nights ON and backstage for dance performances and competitions.
!!!This!!! Makes me miss it,
You can bet your A$$ I’ve been practicing the Rihanna choreography for the last month since the YouTubing, and then scrapping TikTok for 8 counts. Allow me to draw your attn to the richness of Practice here,
The Sex With Me choreo that didn’t make the cut! Now I see and feel this movement when I re-listen to the track. The first four hits of this 8 count make me shriek as loud as I can in crazed delight to envy and back around to pleasure. The specific hand ‘five finger on it’ choreography should have made it, but the TV overlords would freak out even more!
++ BITCH BETTER HAVE MY MONEY by Tricia guest workshopping at Millennium Dance Complex in LA must be prerequisite linked too; This video always plays in my head when I hear this song. And, like any ex competitive dancer, I’m a huge fan of their videos and guest choreographers work visiting this studio for years.
I didn’t watch “the big game, ” a legally approved way to cite the game surrounding these ICONIC performances in copy without FCC fear. I stand by my intentions every year to not air or stream it live, and waiting for it to hit the Internet for mass consumption. There is no reason for me to watch or explain in full detail here why I don’t and won’t. I have plenty of reasons that spring to mind! During my college years and some grueling ad hours at a desk job, the commercial aspect of this mainstream moment captivated my “eyeballs” for visibility and virality too. Now, again, the only piece I pay attention to is the halftime performance. It's been a pop culture standard in my life ever since I remember watching, which I think my memory of starts in 1993.
Watching dance through many types of performances on TV and through music videos playing on channels like MTV were my first dance teachers. Watching and rewinding the tapes my family would record on blanks and learning 8 counts, sometimes self teaching starting from the chorus expanding my sections of dance to have working choreography for the whole track. Hours sweating on the living room carpet “rehearsing” for my showtime later that afternoon also in the living room, with homemade costumes and video-recorded.
I’m still saving money where I can by finding New & Improved ways for me to use my kitchen sink for practice! This entire post-rihanna-super-bowl-halftime-performance-personal rabbit hole was ignited by being served this at-home dance practice by @ bethannrobibson, “pov: you’re my fiancé walking in from work & this is what you see”. (work!) Another note to add for whoever would like to marry me in the distant future, and the role will require coffee for core building.
Always thinking about my past lives and path possibilities, and what could have been On Keeping the costumes.
Another way dancers experience Rihanna-level choreography is when the crew is fresh off the field and visiting traveling dance workshops, hosted on weekends in major cities' hotels, ballrooms, conference room, and mega complexes (or in larger studios, hosted in-house), usually by one company working with many professional choreographers and dancers.
RUDE BOY Choreo STAYS on my Spotify Shuffle Repeat, my learning started by watching and rewatching Ri-Ri before being served these bois on my fyp. The Rude Boy choreography is obviously extremely fun and high energy to imitate at home, and no I am not practicing the full walk down to plank with the two whip cobras before going into the tail feather move. It’s so fast!!! and every at home dance practice I enjoyed from TikTok’s fyp caption reads the same variation, “how did they do this dance for 13 minutes 🥵”
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I must note, I’m enamored with the sleek set and all costume design, including Rihanna’s ongoing payments of red respect in homage to Andre Leon Talley. I hope she didn't pay a cent more of her personal money than she needed to give this performance, in context. If I was her, I would plan for a very minimalist set and costume design for this fucked up corporate event too. Powerful 13 minutes, putting overdue respect back on Rihanna’s iconic name, and she very literally is bringing new life into the world at the same time.
I highly recommend learning and practicing this dance for increased self-confidence. Fits all!
When I’m practicing my halftime choreography, I’m Rihanna. Walking forward a few steps, pivoting to whip back to watch the crawl while I’m still moving myself back to work, work, work, work, work, work, work
No word will ever compare in my body to the dancer’s cry and cheer in studios, warmups, practice, rehearsals, hallways, odd in between spaces, backstage, in curtain calls’ wings, off the court side, and on stage when we say to each other, “WORK!”
Colore