Kicking with Kung Fu

Back in 1844, social critics condemned the polka as a menace to life, limb and morality. They should have lived long enough to see the Kung Fu, the latest dance fad karateing the country. Inspired by the Oriental hand-to-hand combat form (via the weekly TV series of the same name) and a best-selling spin-off record called Kung Fu Fighting, the dance resembles a samurai samba.

Partners start by facing in opposite directions and bumping their hips together three or four times. Then there is a shift of the left foot so that the partners can face each other diagonally and rhythmically throw punches into the air. Next they move into a contact dance, as precisely orchestrated as a waltz, during which the male rains soft blows on the girl's derriere, striking her on beat. Some partners also aim mighty kicks at each other--without contact.

Kung Fu is essentially an Oriental successor to the Bump, which in turn was preceded on the dance floor by the Philly-Dog, the Boston Monkey, the Boogaloo, the Frug, the Roach, the Pony, the Watusi, the Mashed Potato, Jack-the-Ripper, the Fly, La Pachanga, the Dish Rag, the Slop, the Hully Gully, the Horse, the Twist and the Madison (renamed the Stomp). And before that, as exhumed by late-night World War II movies, there was Frank Sinatra jitterbugging.

Kung Fu, anthropologists of the dance note, is in fact one of the few dances since the jitterbug in which the dervishes do have bodily contact--hand, bottom, and shoulder. Apparently invented in gay bars and black clubs, it percolated through the country, catching on in the Midwest, New York City and Southern California. The Kung Fu kick has helped, in the process, to rejuvenate many moribund nightclubs, which serve up karate music as late as 4 a.m. "It's fun and it's easy," says a 15-year-old student from Detroit, "but you have to be extremely careful to space yourself. If one of your kicks connects, your partner may end up in the hospital." Polka, anyone?

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