The Importance of Bounce Movement
Thursday, March 17, 12:30pm, ACC 9ABC
Last year, bounce finally reached the masses at South by Southwest, but in New Orleans, rappers like Big Freedia and Katey Red had been doing their thang in clubs for a decade.
Bounce is a physical experience as well as a community experience, mainly for women – a place to feel safe outside confines of identity and gender. That bounce and its offshoot, sissy bounce, center on call-and-response lyrics and slap-happy beats is not coincidental. Anyone who saw Big Freedia at Fun Fun Fun Fest knows that when the beat drops, so do inhibitions. She explained the phenomenon to the Chronicle last year.
“It’s like we step into their shoes and they can relate to what we’re saying and what we’re going through. We’re like girls. We’re going through the same things they are with the boys, so they really understand us.”
Never bounced? The only way to learn is to do. It’s really a matter of being there, in the crowd, feeling the beat, and reaching within. Like yoga. You’ve got to look at the ass in front of you, the one that seems like it has its own gravitational pull, and find the force in your own backside.
This article appears in March 4 • 2011.