Time Warp
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Time Warp is a dance featured in the cult film The Rocky Horror Picture Show, performed during the chorus of the song of the same name. The song is both an example and a parody of the dance song genre in which much of the content of the song is given over to dance step instructions. The dance is one of the major audience-participation activities during screenings of the film. It has become a popular song beyond the reaches of the cult film, and is often played at dances and weddings. Cover versions have been recorded by such artists as Alvin and the Chipmunks, Black Lace, Damian, Groovie Ghoulies, Jive Bunny and the Mastermixers, and Sebastian Bach of the glam metal band Skid Row, as well as an Italian adaptation by Elio e le Storie Tese.
The basic dance step is described in the chorus of the song:
- It's just a jump to the left.
- And then a step to the right.
- With your hands on your hips.
- You bring your knees in tight.
- But it's the pelvic thrust
- (five pelvic thrusts forward)
- That really drives you insane.
- Let's do the time-warp again.
After which the dancers turn around and repeat the same motions.
A tap dance often appears in the middle of the song, but recent versions have replaced it with such diverse substitutes as a Dance Dance Revolution pattern, an air guitar solo, and a rally-like chant.
The song, fourth in the film (after "Science Fiction/Double Feature," "Dammit Janet," and "Over at the Frankenstein Place") or the fifth song in the play ("Sweet Transvestite" precedes "Time Warp" in the stage version), consists of verses sung by alternating characters, serving as the introduction to two of them, and choruses sung by the chorus of "Transylvanians" and the Criminologist (played by Charles Gray). The characters that sing the verses are, in order, Riff-Raff (Richard O'Brien), Magenta (Patricia Quinn), and Columbia (Little Nell Campbell). After the second full chorus, Columbia launches into her tap dance (see above).
The song is reprised/revisited briefly at the end of the film, in flashback.
[edit] References in pop culture
This song has made its way into the University of California at Berkeley's freshmen orientation programs, known as CalSO ([1]). During the 1970s, the newly admitted freshmen were taken to the midnight showing of the Rocky Horror Picture Show, and taught the dance as part of the night's activities. Although the cinema disbanded, the tradition remains to teach new freshmen the Time Warp and dance it to the Cal Marching Band's rendition of the song at the orientation programs over the summer.
The 1980 film Fame features characters performing the Time Warp at a Rocky Horror screening.
In Season 1: Episode 2, of Spaced, Tim leaves his own party in disgust when the Time Warp plays, saying "I hate it! It's boil-in-the-bag perversion for sexually repressed accountants and first-year drama students with too many posters of Betty Blue, The Blues Brothers, Big Blue and Blue Velvet on their blue bloody walls!"
The song was performed by Chico Slimani on the UK talent search program - The X Factor.
The song was also performed in the episode New York and Queens of the television show The Drew Carey Show. Drew Carey (Drew Carey), Lewis Kiniski (Ryan Stiles), Oswald Harvey (Diedrich Bader), and Kate O'Brien (Christa Miller) alongside many nameless extras perform a cut-down version of the Time Warp against Mimi Bobeck (Kathy Kinney) and Nigel Wick (Craig Ferguson) and other nameless extras.
In October 2006, the song was ranked and voted 338 out of 2006 songs featured in the Triple M Essential 2006 Countdown.
