Flagging dance

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The art of flagging dance sometimes called flag dancing, but more commonly referred to as flagging, is the undulation, spinning, or waving of flags in a rhythmic fashion to music. Practioners of this form of performance art are usually referred to as flaggers, though until the 1990s this mostly referred to those waving flags in the context of sending signals across short distances in circumstances where the intended recipient cannot hear (as in signaling airplane pilots taxiing on airport runways, or regular motorists at road construction sites); a practice called semaphore. Flaggers in these circumstances usually must be certified by a regulatory agency or authority, hence job postings asking for "certified flaggers." Since the 1990s, however, the terms 'flagger' and 'flagging' have been increasingly used in the context of flag dancing.

1 Origins
2 Contemporary flagging
3 Sources
4 External links

[edit] Origins

The origins of flag dancing are said to reach as far back as the development of the earliest flags, though it is unclear if any actual studies have ever been done on the subject. Some point to evidence of flagging in Chinese folklore dating back three thousand years. Others refer to the Maori indigenous tribes of New Zealand. Today, there is at least one Italian flagger troupe, the Grouppo Sbandieratori founded in 1991, that traces its local flagging history to1363. The lack of hard studies aside, it is reasonable to accept that artistic flagging has probably been around as long as flags themselves.

[edit] Contemporary flagging

[edit] Christians and gays

Today, flaggers can be found in some Christian evangelical events, where flaggers using flags on poles or rods will wave one or two flags to music while in a spiritual rapture. More commonly, flaggers are now found in the gay subculture, and to a lesser extent, in the alternative subcultures of poi and fire dancers, where spinners of hard objects or fire may branch out into flagging. For reasons that may be obvious to the reader, the Christian and subculture flaggers are mutually exclusive groups, and are not known to overlap.

The current rise of flag dancing began with the appearance of party-goers dancing with very large fans at gay discos at the end of the 1970s, and the start of the 1980s. The fan dancers disappeared almost overnight by 1984, when the onslaught of AIDS reached pandemic proportions within the gay community, hitting the gay nightclub scene especially hard. In the mid to late 1990s, with the advent of rave-style circuit parties that bring thousands of partiers together from distant places, survivors of the fan-dancing era found a venue to re-introduce the concept of nightclub dancing with fans to a new generation of gay club-goers. This new generation adapted it to pieces of fabric without the fan spine, using instead a malleable weight on two sides of a now-square form - which became a flag.

[edit] The flags

The added weights to the otherwise loose fabric made it possible for the new flaggers to spin and move the fabric through the air in ways similar to fan dancing, but with the added maneuverability of a very flexible material. Flags used by these new flaggers can be of almost any fabric, but silk, organza and lamé are preponderant, with silk being the most favored. Silk flags are usually dyed in vibrant, ultraviolet fluorescent colors, creating an almost hypnotic spectacle when waved rhythmically to music.

Note that this type of flagging, while similar, is distinct from the waving of flags on poles or rods as one would encounter in a color guard unit of a high school or in the military; or for that matter, the Sbandieratori group.

[edit] Flagger troupes

By the dawn of the third millennium, flagger groups had formed in New York City and San Francisco, and were often part of the backdrop of circuit party events. These were soon followed by the formation of flagger troupes in Minneapolis, Seattle, and Houston in the United States, and in Belo Horizonte, Brazil. Of these, two operate today as choreographed performance troupes, similar to dance troupes: Axis Danz, founded in New York in 1998, and in Texas, the Flyboys of Flag Troupe Houston, founded in 2002 (Flyboys in this context should not be confused with Flyboys of the World War II era, which refers to airforce pilots).

In its current incarnation, the art of flagging is usually disseminated from one person to another, one acting as a mentor, and the other as an apprentice, though one can find classes offered in cities with strong flagger presence such as New York, Houston, and San Francisco. In any case, many flaggers with several months of practice claim to experience a form of meditation or rapture in the midst of a flagging dance, perhaps similar to the Christian flagger experience.

Interestingly, in Brazil, the English words "flagger" and "flagging" are now used to specifically refer to this type of dance or performance art. See Portuguese Wikipedia Flagger article.

Even now in Australia we see the emergence of Troupes like 'Flagmania' who are really bringing this artform to new heights within the gay and wider communities, at both amateur community and corporate event levels.