Ze frank how to dance


Throwback Thursday: The Internet 1.9 Genius of Ze Frank

The party invitation that started it all.

Do you remember Ze Frank? Don’t be ashamed if you don’t. You see, long ago, in the before time of the internet (around 2005), there was no Facebook or Twitter, and none of those obligatory “share” buttons that universally clutter and slow down your web pages even though no-one uses them. Which, combined with the fact that his early creations were often created using a sometimes lethal, long-abandoned tool called “Flash”, meant you had to share his creations with elaborate incomprehensible strings of text like http://whateveryourdomainis.com/d4x_ss3/pages/poop/how_to_poop.html, and you probably had to do it by email, for chrissakes. It’s a wonder anyone even discovered he existed. But exist he did, one might even say he thrived for several years. To paraphrase Jack Nichilson’s character Art Land in Mars Attacks, “Ze Frank was thinkin’ ’bout viral when there wasn’t no viral”.

You may very well have seen his later work, which has millions of YouTube views. His True Facts series had a much broader reach than his earlier series The Show, but they both were hilarious in their own way. There’s a good chance you’ve seen “True Facts About The Angler Fish”:

Although Ze Frank got a lot of page views back in his early days, he didn’t rise to the God-like status of say, Grumpy Cat or Rebecca Black. But he did make a splash, and his notoriety probably played a part in securing his current job as president of BuzzFeed Motion Pictures. Which would probably be more suitably described as a Satan-like status. And which is ironic in another way: the formulaic success of sites like BuzzFeed and UpWorthy have pretty effectively killed the kind of organic sharing that made viral a thing in the first place, and made his new job possible. It’s like a time paradox in a Star Trek episode or something!

Strangely, ZeFrank doesn’t seem to have any videos about time travel. Or maybe he has simply traveled through time deleting them all. But he DOES have a funny cat video, proving the simple mathematical theorem cat+video=views. It has more views than any of his other clips:

But ignore our snark about his current employer, Ze Frank was an “Internet 1.9” genius, carving out a clever new niche in era when smartphones barely existed, and many were still on dialup. He created hundreds of clever and engaging videos, games, and interactives that were shared on “web forums” and “webrings” everywhere, and did a lot of it using – as we joked earlier – the animation/design tool Flash. Fortunately for us he didn’t delete it all in shame, it’s preserved for eternity in the labyrinthine archives over at ZeFrank. com. Or until he forgets to pay a hosting bill, whichever comes first.

Below are a couple of personal favorites of ours, but you can’t really get the full scope of his capricious genius without actually visiting his website, where his Web 1.9 creations are meticulously archived. You can learn more about ZeFrank on Wikipedia of course, or he’s done a heck of a lot of TED Talks too.

How to Dance Properly

One of ZeFrank’s first viral successes was How to Dance Properly, which was actually a party invite he had sent to a few friends. In 2001, this was a pretty sophisticated little dookickey to send as a casual invite, and it exploded in popularity. Fortunately for Ze Frank, the address of the party was not included in the page. (We’ve embedded a similar doodad further below, these items aren’t vary “share friendly”).

 

This is just a screengrab. Click the image to visit the actual Flash page.

My Advice to You

Again, this felt a little edgy in its day. ZeFrank takes on the character of your probably gay Euro-trash club friend, and answers advice questions in a clickable Flash page.

 

Sequencer

Although it’s not terribly musical, this little gizmo was the first time I personally had seen a Flash-based music sequencer embedded in a web page. It seems downright primitive now, but it was pretty amazing back then.

How To Impress Your Date

This one was hugely popular. We’ve embedded it here with an iFrame, because we know you’re too lazy to actually click on anything on this page so far. We hope ZeFrank doesn’t sue us, now that he’s a CEO with a hugely-funded tech firm. If the block below is all bunged up on your phone or something, just go visit the freakin’ page here

Ze Frank | Know Your Meme

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About

Ze Frank is the stage name of Hosea Jan Frank, an Internet comedian and performance artist who is credited with pioneering the vlogging format through his web series the show with zefrank and numerous other projects.

Online History

In March 2001, Frank launched the website ZeFrank.com,[4] which featured Flash animations of the comedian performing a variety of dances (shown below).[5]

Frank continued to create various projects for the site, including an online birthday invitation that brought millions of visitors to his site through a widely circulated email, several Flash games and short films. In 2002, Frank won a Webby Award[6] for Best Personal Website. In February of 2004, ZeFrank gave a talk at the TED Conference about his experiences with performing comedy on the web (shown below).

In September 2012, the viral content site BuzzFeed acquired Frank's startup company to produce video content for the site.[7]

The Show

On March 17th, 2006, ZeFrank launched the online video show The Show with ZeFrank on the Blip[1] media platform, which took the format of a daily news show providing commentary on current events. The show rain until March 17th, 2007 but has since had all episodes removed.

A Show

On February 27th, 2012, Frank created a Kickstarter[2] campaign to fund a new show titled A Show. On March 9th, the funding period ended with over $146,000 of the $50,000 goal pledged.

On April 9th, 2012, Frank launched the new show with a video titled "An Invocation for Beginnings" (shown below).


True Facts Series

On December 7th, 2012, the first in the series of comedy animal videos titled "True Facts" was uploaded to YouTube (shown below), in which Frank narrates humorous factoids about the echidna monotreme animal from Australia (shown below). In the first 10 months, the video accumulated more than 4.22 million views and 3,000 comments. As of November 2013, 21 additional videos in the series have been released.


Notable Videos


Search Interest

External References

[1] BlipTV – ZeFrank

[2] Kickstarter – A Show With ZeFrank

[3] Wayback Machine – ZeFrank.com

[4] ZeFrank – Ze Frank

[5] ZeFrank – How to Dance Properly

[6] Webby Awards – 2002

[7] All Things D – BuzzFeed Hires Web Video Pioneer Ze Frank

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90,000 12 life hacks, to quickly learn how to dance from Mamita Dance

Dances

Author: Pavel Gather
Psychologist, Lecturer Salsa and Tango

Dances

Author: Pavel Pavel
Psychologist, Lecturer Salsa

on At the start, you always want to get a quick result. When it doesn't happen, the hypothesis arises that everything takes time. After a conditionally acceptable time, humility comes to mastering pair dances, which, perhaps, is not given, and I will just do what I learned somehow.

This is the most common story of those who believe that the mere act of attending a pair dance class is enough to learn how to dance.
Absolutely not. If you want to really dance well, you have to make an effort outside of the dance class. A good teacher will definitely be needed, but the initiative should be on your side.

1. Listen to music

The most common and accessible advice that is given already in the first lessons. And it definitely works. Music creates a certain atmosphere of the dance and intuitively you want to move to it. It doesn't matter where you listen to music - in the car, on headphones while walking or doing household chores.

An addition that will help you dance better is your active participation in the music. Sing along, dance or simply beat musical accents with any free parts of the body. In the subway, for example, it is enough to tap out bright moments with your fingers, in the car to sing along with sounds, and at home you can jump for pleasure.

2. Watch videos of good dancers

It's complicated, but also obvious. It’s more difficult, because without recommendations from more experienced dancers, unfortunately, it’s not so easy to find a good quality video on the net (I mean not the resolution quality, but the content itself).

Meaningful video viewing is about building an understanding of HOW dancers make a particular impression on a partner or viewer. Technology is at the heart of everything. Understanding how the pros do it is a big step forward.

It is important to distinguish a show from a disco dance, a staged performance from an improvisation, a stylized dance from an authentic one, etc. Ask for recommendations and dance teachers will always throw off a couple of videos of worthy landmarks.

Tango Z. Showreel.

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3. Dance in salsatecas/milongas/discotheques

A very delicate moment when it is worth coming to the first party. From a technical point of view, most students in 1-3 months have a sufficient set of figures and techniques to come and dance calmly. Psychologically, the same moment can be stretched out for an indefinite time. After all, it is imperative to “not lose face”, “learn more figures” and be sure what to do in case “there is an unfamiliar movement”.

In fact, the partygoers don't really care (except for a small layer of non-professional teachers who want to help inexperienced dancers by treating them as customers in the future). It is important to come and try dancing after a month of classes. You can only with friends or guys from your group. This will be enough to feel the adrenaline and inspiration from the dance.

4. Dance with partners or partners not of your level

The conventional wisdom that you need to practice in groups of your level does not withstand the test of experience. Perhaps now your eyes widened in surprise, and you want to meaningfully read the phrase again. Yes, you saw everything correctly: when you dance with a partner of your level, you don’t grow anywhere.

It's important to understand that not only does it work one way and you have to dance with cooler dancers, but it works even more effectively the other way. It is no coincidence that teaching pair dances dramatically raises the level of the teacher himself. You have an endless stream of very beginner dancers.

How it works. A more experienced partner needs to be "stretched". It's easy and obvious. With beginners, you need to take more initiative on yourself, see the general pattern of the dance more widely, turn on and insure more, try to be an example and be more careful. The quality of interaction begins to grow significantly. And wonderful partners too.

Dancing with partners of your level doesn't make you grow. Dance with both beginners and more advanced dancers

Dominican Bachata Women's Style Online Course

Want to learn how to hypnotize those around you with the most appetizing part of your body? On the course we will tell you all the secrets.

Interesting

5. Learn to dance for a partner and for a partner

Turks and Argentines are one of the best partners in the world. In Russia, partners are highly valued. Why? The answer is simple. In Argentina and Turkey, it is not questionable for men to ask another man to lead in one piece or another and give feedback on the quality of the lead. For them, it will be a great shame to hear moralizing from a partner, or even more so to be known in the community as an insecure partner.

In Russia, due to the constant, often far-fetched, opinion that there are more women in pair dances, partners calmly get up and study their partner's part. Such partners then grow into very cool dancers and teachers. In no case do this at parties, only in class. Here we are talking only about the learning strategy. At parties, be yourself.

6. Do not memorize the links

Always try to look deeper and understand the through principle and idea of ​​movement. Understanding what and how is done will make it possible to independently generate any sequences and chips.

Human memory is limited and there will always be a moment when something will escape and your repertoire will be limited by the size of RAM.

In Argentine tango, for example, there are seven levels of movement construction that, when mastered, will allow you to make millions of combinations. And how many dance sequences can you really remember? In rueda, more than 150 figures dance in a rare circle. It's hard to keep more in mind.

7. Develop your body

Many years of experience in teaching couple dance shows that as soon as everyone pairs up in a class, any progress in individual style ends. But it is the individual style that distinguishes everyone at the disco: partners change, and style is always with you.

The body as the main instrument of dance must be very plastic, responsive and emotional. Surprisingly, not all pair dance schools have a general physical warm-up. It is vital to tune the body and understand how it works.

You can always train extra and concentrate more on the basic steps, as their true value is as body work. The sequence of steps is, in fact, the simplest thing that can be in pair dancing. The quality of individual performance determines the craftsmanship.

8. Try on the images of inspiring dancers

A psychological life hack for those who have already mastered the steps, but still feel that there is not enough brightness and drive. Most are terribly afraid of being someone else's "clone". Here the action is the same as under the influence of hypnosis - the more you resist, the more you plunge into an altered state of consciousness.

With a high degree of probability, you are already dancing like someone else's "clone". A meaningful fitting of someone else's image is that you mentally take the image of the one who inspires you (inspiration is critical in this case) and "put on" yourself. Then you start dancing and trying to feel in general how it is to be able, for example, to be the best partner or the sexiest partner in a disco. This is much more difficult than it seems. But it works extremely efficiently.

9. Dance to offbeat music

Habitual rhythms keep you tight. Tango salon or speedy timba leave little room for experimentation and fantasy. Pattern dancing is always noticeable and is reserved for beginners.

The truly new is born outside of the usual. Look for places to experiment. If there is no place, organize self-training. The main thing is not to get carried away, because music determines the style. We bring something new to pair dances, rather than trying to change them.

Search, improvise, don’t be afraid to go beyond, develop in different directions, be inspired by music atypical for the style

10. Try your hand at basic dance directions

dances exist according to their own non-choreographic laws.

This is the deepest delusion, which has turned into a ceiling for the qualitative development of partner dances. After all, all professional dancers, for example, in salsa or bachata, build their ideas on the basic choreographic principles.

Do not think that choreography is only applicable on stage. Any meaningful movement of the body can be choreographic. In general, try classical or modern choreography. Basically, hip-hop can work too.

11. Look for battle sensations

Pair dances return us to an active position of manifestation of our body. As in the days of our ancient ancestors, we impress the members of the opposite sex by how dexterous, hardy, sexy, etc. we are. Modern laws of the jungle in the entourage of big cities.

If you look around the dance floor, it becomes clear that the majority are clearly herbivores (not in the sense of vegetarians, but in relation to those around them). I am sure that predators are always more interesting in terms of the attractiveness of the image - try to find a counterbalance among herbivores, for example, a cat woman or a lion man.

The conversation is about an internal position, not about aggressiveness. Lability and lack of control are inherent in adolescents, and not in adult self-sufficient people.

Accordingly, even a training or friendly battle gives, on the one hand, practical skills - to make a bright sequence of movements, bring an idea to a climax, show a spectacular feature, on the other hand, develops the psychological basis of the dance - self-confidence, resistance to extraneous attention, self-control and self-control in complex elements.

12. Communicate with professionals

The environment shapes the internal position. Basically, real passionaries of the dance community are ready to openly talk, discuss and support the development of dance in every possible way. Universal principles and the ideas they articulate have a much longer and more practical perspective than meets the eye.

Accept that, for example, behind the words "listen to your partner" is not only a beautiful metaphor, but also a practical skill to literally listen to your partner. At the same time, always treat every thought, even the most respected teacher, as a private opinion.

Your skill will lie in finding the scope of the idea even in conflicting opinions. Most often, the contradiction is speculative and the truth lies in the angle of perception or situationality.

Your dancing growth will stop sooner or later. This can happen at the level of three basic steps or years of experience in teaching and show performances. Regardless of your level, the suggested 12 life hacks can get you off the ground and greatly accelerate your dance growth. There is no way here without your motivation and activity. Take your dance development into your own hands. 9Ol000 Dangerous sexuality

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How to dance bachata? Learning to dance bachata at home

Rehearsal bases, dance halls, recording studios
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How to learn to dance bachata?

The ancestor of modern bachata is the dance of the inhabitants of the Dominican villages, which was their only joy after hard work. But times have changed, now bachata has turned into a passionate pair dance, built on the sensual and harmonious movements of partners. Distinctive features of bachata: the closest contact with a partner and plastic, even somewhat erotic movements. A man in a dance smoothly leads his partner, gently hugging her. The woman responds to his actions, accompanying each of her soft steps with plastic movements of her hips.

The answer to the question of how to dance bachata is quite simple. After a few lessons, everyone can master the basic movements of this dance and feel its rhythm.

Bachata dance technique

Bachata is easily recognizable by the characteristic movement of the hips. The basic step of this dance consists of 3 small steps accompanied by undulating body movements. The main element of bachata is the smooth rotation of the hips for women and the body for men, which is called "kick". This requires good mobility of the muscles of the lower back, back and hips. It is from these muscles that the smoothness, wave-like movements and, accordingly, the beauty of the bachata dance itself depend.

The question arises: how to learn to dance the Dominican bachata, if these muscles are completely undeveloped? For many who want to dance, it is precisely the fact that they feel completely unplastic and embarrassed to dance that becomes an obstacle. To begin with, it is useful for everyone to recall simple exercises familiar to us from childhood: the usual tilts of the torso in different directions and circular rotations of the body, slowly stretching the muscles. This will help your body get used to the stress. Those who regularly stretch and consider themselves flexible enough also often face the problem of stiffness during dance. This is because plasticity and flexibility are not the same thing.

Plasticity and flexibility: what's the difference?

The difference between flexibility and plasticity is that plasticity is achieved through the work of muscles and joints, while flexibility is achieved by stretching tendons and ligaments. For the plasticity of movements, it is important to have a good stretch of the ligaments, but flexibility does not guarantee plasticity, so you need to pay attention to the loading and stretching of the muscles.

To learn how to fully perform the basic elements of bachata, you need regular exercises to develop the muscles of the back and lower back, which are best done at first under the supervision of a professional, using the dance hall hourly rental service, and then at home, on your own. Just before class, it is important to warm up the body with appropriate exercises so that it feels the rhythm and easily responds to any of your movements - this is a very important point in how to learn to dance bachata at home.

Basics of Bachata

Bachata captivates with its sensuality and emotionality. It is based on emotions and the ability to express them during the dance. It simultaneously reflects passion and tender love, perseverance and soft humility, the ability to feel a partner and resist him. Therefore, it is so important not only to learn the basic movements and repeat them, but also to tune in with your partner on the same wavelength and talk to him without words, expressing your feelings through body movements. This bewitching wave of togetherness of partners moving passionately to hot music creates a wonderful romantic atmosphere in the dance hall.

Let's summarize a few simple rules on how to dance bachata beautifully. Remember that bachata is a set of technical movements that must be performed in a relaxed and playful way. To do this, it is important to constantly improve your dance technique. Regular practice is the key to success. During the dance, it is important to completely relax and liberate yourself, helping your partner to do the same. Only then you and your partner will be able to feel each other and synchronize your movements, which will make your dance unified, lively and harmonious. Also an important role is played by the selection of a qualified teacher and a cozy dance hall for training.


Learn more

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