Oakland's TURF Dancing Goes Global (With Video)

After going viral in Europe, a video finally catches on at home
By: Queena Kim

It’s the old filmmaker’s joke, “We’re big in Europe!”

Well, that’s certainly the case for YAKfilms’ YouTube video, “Dancing in the Rain,” which shows four men TURF dancing on the corner of MacArthur Boulevard and 90th Avenue in Oakland. The video was going viral through Europe and is now catching on in the United States.

TURF stands for “Taking Up Room on the Floor,” and it’s a form of street dancing that originated in Oakland. In contrast to other street dances, TURF aims to tell a story. And so “Dancing in the Rain” is a memorial to dancer D Real’s (he’s in the white shirt) brother Rich, who was killed in a car accident on that corner.

The day after Rich died, D Real and a few dancers were gathered in YAKfilms’ Yoram Savion's office at Youth UpRising trying to think of a tribute that went beyond the standard R.I.P. T-shirt. Youth UpRising is a youth leadership center in Oakland with a professional dance studio. 

Before his brother’s death, D Real had strayed from dancing and was beginning to dabble in music. In one of their last conversations, Rich told D Real to forget about music and focus on dancing, his real talent. So in memory of Rich, D Real and three friends who were willing to brave the pouring rain danced for this this video.

The Oakland-based video crew YAKfilms has been documenting – and in part, shaping – TURF dancing for a few years now. YAKfilms posted “Dancing in the Rain” on YouTube in November. Ten months and 300K hits later, the video is finally being posted on blogs stateside, says Savion.

Using YouTube Insight, a web analytics tool, Savion has been able to track the video’s hits. “Dancing in the Rain” first got traction in Germany, then France, Brazil, Russia and Denmark, Savion says.

“The hits started picking up in the U.S. a week or two ago,” Savion said. “While TURF dancing started in Oakland, to me YouTube has taken TURF beyond the neighborhood, and it’s becoming a global phenomenon.”

TURF dancing is known for incorporating all types styles from the break dancing to popping and ballet. From his vantage point as a video teacher at Youth UpRising, Savion says that YouTube has been instrumental in TURF dancing’s evolution.

“The dancers would come to my office and watch YouTube videos,” Savion said. “They’d watch everything. Once we even saw a random video of 1950s jazz dancing in Chicago that the dancers would incorporate into TURF.”

In “Dancing in the Rain,” you can see dancers taking “en pointe” to a different level. And about 58 seconds into the video, you can also see one of TURF dancing’s signature moves--the “glide”--when the dancer who goes by the name “Man” skates across the water. On a dance floor, Man would glide across the dance floor to mark his turf.

To the untrained eye, the glide sorta looks like the moon dance, which begs the question: Was Michael Jackson the original TURF dancer?

“No, not in anyway whatsoever,” Savion said. “TURF dancing came about in the last 10 years. Michael Jackson was moon dancing long before that, and he had his own style, just like James Brown had his own style. But the genius of TURF dancing is we’re not inventing anything, we’re documenting and incorporating so many dance movements.”

Hat Tip: Oakland Local

Correction: A previous version of this story referred to 90th Avenue as 90th Street. This version has been corrected. Corrections page.