How to Dance at an 80s Party
When people think of the 1980s, they tend to remember not only big hair, scrunch socks and Pac-Man, but also the pervasive dance styles. Michael Jackson's music and moonwalk shaped '80s pop culture, Jennifer Beals' moves in "Flashdance" started a workout-wear fashion trend, Kevin Bacon got more than a whole town dancing in "Footloose" and "The Breakfast Club" had girls across the nation trying to dance like Molly Ringwald. To learn how to dance at an '80s party, watching the right movies is a good place to start.
- Difficulty:
- Moderate
Instructions
-
-
1
Steal moves from Jane Fonda's workout tapes. Dancing in the '80s was wild and energetic, as the similarity between Fonda and "Flashdance" will attest. Beals does Fonda's jogging-in-place move, tossing her head forward and back at the same time. Olivia Newton-John's "Physical" video reinforced the trend.
-
2
Practice a few pop-and-lock moves like the moonwalk and the robot, which involve isolating one part of the body at a time in rapid succession, giving a strobe-like appearance to the movement. The moonwalk involves sliding the feet backward one at a time to give the impression of gliding across the floor, while the robot uses upper-body isolation to give the appearance of stiff arm, head and torso movements.
-
3
Do the Molly Ringwald -- a jerking, turning, punk-style dance popularized in the library-stairs scene of "The Breakfast Club." Ringwald kept her elbows close to her sides and pumped her arms on a vertical axis while alternately kicking her feet out in front of her. After a few kicks, she spun in place, letting her arms fly out to her sides.
-
4
Try the worm, a break-dance move in which you lower your chest to the floor with the strength of your upper body, roll the length of your body down the floor and spring forward on your toes. The effect, if you can achieve it, is that of an inchworm crawling across the floor.
-
1
