Filthy

The song is by Justin Timberlake. Jake Kodish choreographed the song and demonstrates. His free-form style has several nice touches; throwing a kiss at a point in the lyrics when a kiss is not appropriate, sudden hanging poses, showing filthy hands on his own body and so on throughout the random routine. It's nearly impossible to think of the entire spontaneous-looking thing as a routine. But it is.

Maybe Kodish made it up on the spot. Maybe he had been practicing some moves, but it looks spontaneous to me. It took the whole thing for me to realize each set that follows is copying Jake Kodish. There is a distinct move at the beginning, a rocking motion between legs, that clues they're all doing the same thing.

I really really like the young man in the center for the first set, he slathers on his own interpretation, little things within each movement, flicks off his pants, off his jacket, some movements alluring, others rejecting, and that face. He is so young! The man at the end knocks it out.

How do you even recall each move and hit it on point like this?

I could never do that. I could never do anything like line-dancing. And it's weird because I was always very good at picking up ASL signs. This is very much like sign language.

Except sign language makes sense. And this dancing does not. There are only a few points of appositeness where movement can be made to show the lyrics along with the mood of them and they really stick out.

I think, to memorize dance steps, each movement, each step, each hand configuration, each pose, each gesture and each facial expression and body positioning are linked and told as a story. Each body configuration and placement must say something in the story. The more bizarre the story, the better. Bizarre stories are much easier to remember. That is, I think each dancer has a story they are repeating, recalled in such a way to include every single detail of body positioning that strings together and is told along with the music. It's spectacular.



The song Filthy by Justin Timberlake shown in ASL by Clever Trevor.

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