The basics:
Dance: It’s Friday
Choreographer: Tim Gauci
Music: “Friday” by the Glee cast
Description: 2 wall 100 beat intermediate phrased line dance
The review:
The original version of “Friday”, by Rebecca Black, has gained notoriety as the “worst song of 2011” which is probably only half-deserved. Certainly it is a song that should never have seen any kind of public release, given that it was made by the music industry equivalent of a vanity publisher, but in my opinion it never truly hits the depths of “painful to listen to”, something I reserve for large segments of the hip-hop and metal genres. This dance, however, is set to the Glee-ified version of the song, which actually makes some headway on making the song listenable. And yet, I don’t think I can quite forgive Tim for getting it stuck in my head.
As for the dance, it is interesting to see it as a sequenced dance – a 52 beat A section and a 48 beat B section, with a fairly straightforward sequence even given the short A wall in the middle. Sequenced dances are uncommon, due in part I think because many dancers are already worried about remembering the dance without having to remember two or more dances plus the order in which they’re meant to be danced. The alternative for this song, though, would involve half a dozen bridges and restarts, so I definitely agree with the choice of a sequenced dance. The difficulty is reduced a tiny bit by making B fairly simple and repetitive – something which many sequenced dances tend to do, for good reason.
Probably the hardest part of this dance is the speed – “Friday” is a quick piece of music, and the steps in “It’s Friday” don’t make much concession for this. The opening counts of A are especially quick, with cross heel jacks and a fast rocking chair meaning that there are essentially no breaks until count 8. Otherwise, there isn’t anything particularly special or different in most of the steps, although the “kick & point & point, turn/flick” in counts 33-36 of A deserve mention of fitting both the rhythm of the music and the lyrics of “kickin’ in the front seat”, and the weaves with points (or, as many people do them, flicks) in counts 33-40 of B also fit the music perfectly. This is one area where sequenced dances have an advantage over normal line dances, since it is much easier to tailor the rhythms to the different parts of the dance.
Overall, “It’s Friday” is actually quite fun to dance, despite its speed and the mental anguish the song itself causes me. It’s obviously only going to appeal to fans of sequenced dancers, and the quick footwork could trip a few people up, but I can see it becoming a bit of a cult favourite.
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