THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, August 2, 1996 TAG: 9608020041
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY MICHELLE MIZAL, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: 109 lines
THE MUSIC IS AS SPICY as salsa, but with a twist of techno.
The dance has some hand-jivin' and hip-shakin' steps. It's seen at house parties, on cruise ships, weddings and baseball games.
Hey! It's the ``Macarena'' - a new Latino line dance inspired by the song with the same name by the flamenco-singing duo Los Del Rio. It's the nation's most popular song - No. 1 this week on the Billboard Top 40 Chart. This week ``Macarena'' was the second most played song in France. It was No. 6 in Germany while in the United Kingdom the song was in the top 10.
Even the U.S. Girls Gymnastics Team did their a rendition of the Macarena Tuesday night at the finale of their Olympic events. The ``Butterfly'' step and hip-swaying were, naturally, substituted with a back flip.
It's new, it's phat and it's just all that. And when the song starts people are gonna dance. And dance. In fact, it's the most popular dance since the ``Electric Slide'' and it's so easy that even Gramps and Granny can groove with the moves.
The ``Macarena,'' the name of legendary virgin from Seville, is 90 percent hand and arm movement and 10 percent hip and foot coordination. It can be done alone or with a group of people.
Although in a recent magazine article Los Del Rio's Antonio Romeo Monge and Rafael Ruiz credited the success of ``Macarena'' to the Pope who blessed them two years ago, locals say the dance is contagious because it's a cinch to learn.
``It's so easy,'' said Diana Wallace, 16, a Norfolk home-schooler. ``You can learn it in less than five minutes.''
She should know.
On this summer afternoon Diana and six local teens are gathered in a photography studio of The Virginian-Pilot. Only two know the dance. The rest, including Diana, have come to learn.
The music starts - that familiar HAIIIIYIII! and funky back beat combine to get the bodies moving.
Right arms extend straight out first with palms down. Then the left arms.
Hey Macarena!
Right palms turn to face up. Then the left palms.
Hey Macarena!
Hands and arms behind heads and then back to the front to cross bodies.
Hey Macarena!
There's some hip swaying and a quick quarter turn to the right. Then it starts all over again.
Hey Macarena!
In less than five minutes all seven are ``Macarena-ing.'' That's all it took.
Although some people say the song is definitely for women, both guys and gals as well as young and old like to do the dance.
``It's a hilarious idiotic little dance that anyone can do,'' said Cruise Holidays co-owner Marilyn Eliason, who admits to being a Macarena fanatic. She said that once she saw a lady in her 80s doing the dance.
``I think it's a fun experience and builds character . . . you learn how Spanish music and American dance combine together,'' said Tony Clayton, 17, a rising senior at Norview High School in Norfolk.
There has, however, been some disagreement as to the ``correct'' way of doing the Macarena. The video promotes an easy 10-step dance with some swinging of the hips. But locals do a 14-step-Macarena with more arm crossing and leg-movements like the ``Butterlfly'' dance, which was popular last year.
Then there's the version that's a combination of both with the added hand movements and hip sways instead of the ``Butterfly'' move. But regardless of recent Macarena dance evolutions one thing is for sure - it's a success.
``It's refreshing,'' said Jill Bender, 25, a Virginia Beach resident, ``It's something to do instead of the `Electric Slide.' Everybody is doing it.'' She said that she first saw the Macarena at a Norfolk Tides game last month. ``These 12-year-old girls stood up in their seats behind us and started doing it. I said, `Hey, what are you doing?' and they told me it was the Macarena.''
No one really knows exactly where the dance originated. The most accepted theory is that the Macarena is kin to the Spanish flamenco dance and the rumba.
Rebca Byrne, who is from Venezuela and a Spanish professor at Tidewater Community College, remembers the dance being popular in Spain in the 1950s.
But the dance may go far back to ancient Egyptian times.
Some people even say the dance was started by Arabian belly dancers.
This much is certain: The song started three years ago with two middle-aged Spanish men. Monge and Ruiz were inspired by Diana Patricia, a ``flamenco'' dancer in Caracas, Venezuela. That night he wrote a song about a girl named Macarena who goes out dancing while her boyfriend is out of town. It was a hit in Spain that summer but in 1994 the song went international when BMG (Bertlemann Music Group) decided to market it.
But it was last year that the remix by the Bayside Boys, a Miami radio disc-jockey team, made its debut. It's the (Los Del Rio) The Bayside Boys Mix that has America singing and dancing.
Locally, ``Macarena'' has been in Z-104's ``Top Five at Five'' for the past six weeks and is requested 50 to 75 times a day, said midday disc jockey Paul McCoy.
Disc jockeys at the Abyss, a local dance club, say that not a day goes by without someone begging for the song.
Since sales began two months ago, more than 900 people have bought the single, cassette or CD at one Virginia Beach music store.
``It's caught on,'' said Planet Music assistant manager Susan Burton. MEMO: Michelle Mizal is a rising junior at Old Dominion University and a
summer intern at The Virginian-Pilot.
LISTEN UP
To hear the ``Macarena,'' dial INFOLINE at 640-5555 and enter
category MOVE (or 6683). ILLUSTRATION: Color photos by MORT FRYMAN, The Virginian-Pilot
Doin' the Butterfly: Virginia Beach resident Jill Bender, 25, and
Tidewater community College sophomore Josephine Macapiniac, 19 do
the Macarena.
Series of 10 Sept-by Step photos by CNB