Мош-пит: Тарихы мен мәдениеті

Style of dance

Moshing (also known as slam dancing or simply slamming) is an extreme style of dancing in which participants push or slam into each other. Taking place in an area called the mosh pit (or simply the pit), it is typically performed to aggressive styles of live music such as punk rock and heavy metal. The dance style originated in the southern California hardcore punk scene, particularly Huntington Beach and Long Beach around 1978. Through the 1980s it spread to the hardcore scenes of Washington, D. C., Boston and New York where it developed local variants. In New York, the crossover between the city's hardcore scene and its metal scene led to moshing incorporating itself into metal beginning around 1985. In the 1990s, the success of grunge music led to moshing entering mainstream understanding and soon being incorporated into genres like electronic dance music and hip hop. Due to its violence, moshing has been subject to controversy, with a number of concert venues banning the practice, and some musicians being arrested for encouraging it and concertgoers for participating.

The name "mosh" originates from the word "mash". While performing their song "Banned in D. C." in either 1979 or 1980, H. R., vocalist of Washington D. C. hardcore band the Bad Brains, shouted "mash it mash down Babylon!" Because of his faux Jamaican accent, some audience members heard this as "mosh it mosh down Babylon". Beginning around 1983, metalheads began to refer to the slower sections of hardcore songs as "mosh parts", while hardcore musicians had called them "skank parts". Once Stormtroopers of Death released their debut album Speak English or Die in 1985, which included the track "Milano Mosh", the term began being applied to the style of dance. The term was then further popularised by Anthrax's 1987 song "Caught in a Mosh".

The direct predecessor to moshing was the pogo, a style of dance done in the 1970s English punk rock scene, in which crowds members would jump up and down while holding their arms beside them. According to The Filth and the Fury, it was invented by Sex Pistols bassist Sid Vicious in 1976. As a prominent punk rock scene in Southern California began to form in the late 1970s and early 1980s with early hardcore punk groups like Fear and Black Flag, moshing as it is understood today began to develop, originally termed "slam dancing". According to Steven Blush's book American Hardcore: A Tribal History (2001), there is a common belief amongst those involved in this scene that the dance was invented by former US marine Mike Marine in 1978. His specific style, involving "strutting around in a circle, swinging your arms and hitting everyone within reach", would go on to be termed "the Huntington Beach Strut". The Orange County Register writer Tom Berg credited, Costa Mesa venue, the Cuckoo's Nest (1976–1981) as the "birthplace of slam dancing". Examples of this early moshing were featured in the documentaries Another State of Mind, Urban Struggle, the Decline of Western Civilization, and American Hardcore. Fear's 1981 musical performance on Saturday Night Live also helped to expose moshing to a much wider audience. By 1981, slam dancing had become the predominant style of crowd interaction in the southern California scene, as Huntington Beach and Long Beach became the scene's heart. Washington, D. C. band the Teen Idles toured California in August 1980, where they were first exposed to slam dancing. Upon returning home, they introduced the practice to the Washington, D. C., hardcore scene. That particular scene took a more chaotic approach to slam dancing and saw an increase in stage diving, whereas in the Boston hardcore scene slam dancing became violent and incorporated punching below the neck, developing a style called the "Boston thrash" or "punching penguins". Another development in the Boston scene was "pig piles" in which one person was pushed to the ground and others would begin to pile on top of them. This originated during a D. O. A. set, which was initiated by SSD guitarist Al Barile. The New York hardcore scene of the mid 1980s, modified this early slam dancing into an additional, more violent style. In their distinction, participants may stay in one position on their own or collide with others, while executing a more exaggerated version of the arm and leg swinging of California slam dancing. As fans of heavy metal music began to attend New York hardcore performances, they developed their own style of dancing based on New York hardcore's style of slam dancing. It was this group, particularly Scott Ian and Billy Milano who popularised the word "moshing". Ian and Milano's band Stormtroopers of Death released their debut album Speak English or Die in 1985, which included the track "Milano Mosh". This led to the term being applied to the style of dance. The same year, moshing began to incorporate itself into live performances by heavy metal bands, with one early example being during Anthrax's 1985 set at the Ritz. This was exacerbated by the success of Lollapalooza, which began in 1991 as a touring festival. In his book Festivals: A Music Lover's Guide to the Festivals You Need To Know, writer Oliver Keens stated that "Lollapalooza's greatest impact was to expose Middle America to the joys of stage diving and moshing You can see Lollapalooza's legacy in the way mosh pits have become an integral part of youth culture; beyond rock and metal". By 1992, the practice had become so common that concertgoers began to mosh to non aggressive rock bands like the Cranberries. Moshing slowly entered hip hop during live performances by the Beastie Boys, who began as a hardcore punk band before adopting the hip hop style they became known for. The 1991 collaboration song Bring the Noise by thrash metal band Anthrax and hip hop group Public Enemy led to a number of mixed genre tours, which brought metal's moshing to the attention of hip hop fans. This was solidified as a part of hip hop by Onyx's 1993 single "Slam", a song which alluded to slam dancing and had a music video featuring moshing. Following the video's release, pits became increasingly common during performances by hip hop artists including Busta Rhymes, M. O. P. and the Wu Tang Clan. Moshing has been present during electronic dance music performance since at least 1996, with the Prodigy's performance at Endfest. By 1999, moshing had become commonplace during techno performances, especially hardcore techno. At late 1990s parties such as New York's H Bomb, Milwaukee's Afternoon Delight and Los Angeles' Twilight, attendees inverted the intellectualism and PLUR credo which permeated electronic music genres, like intelligent dance music, earlier in the decade, by incorporating crowd participation acts similar to those found at hardcore punk, metal and goth performances. In the 2010s, the success of Skrillex and his "DJ as rock star" attitude brought moshing into mainstream dance music. The 2010s saw the rise of a number of hip hop artists who used an "anarchic energy", which some critics at the time compared to that of punk. These artists, notably A$AP Mob, Odd Future and Danny Brown, revived moshing in mainstream hip hop, which led to pits becoming a staple of performances in the genre.

The Huntington Beach strut or simply the HB Strut is the original style of slam dancing which was popular the Southern California hardcore in the late 1970s and 1980s. It involves "strutting around in a circle, swinging your arms and hitting everyone within reach". A wall of death is a form of moshing which sees the audience divide down the middle into two halves either side of the venue, before each side runs towards the other, slamming the two sides together. However, the band's vocalist Lou Koller has stated that he merely revived the practice in 1996, as he often saw a similar act performed in the 1980s New York hardcore scene. Loudwire senior writer Graham Hartmann referred to it as "Perhaps the most bad ass and dangerous ritual you can experience in a mosh pit". Hardcore dancing is a term that covers multiple style of moshing including windmilling two stepping, floorpunching, picking up pennies, axehandling, bucking, and wheelbarrowing. The practice began in New York City in the 1980s. Crowd killing is when a mosher moshes against the crowd around the sides of the pit. According to Kerrang! writer Amanda van Poznak it is generally looked down upon. Hip hop pits are generally less violent than those in hardcore, instead consisting of "a mass of people enthusiastically nudg[ing] each other while jumping in unison". Simulating the crowds with computer models, they found out that a simulation dominated by flocking parameters produced highly ordered behavior, forming vortices like those seen in the videos.

When moshing, concert goers have rules that they must stick to, the most important being to pick people up so as not to trample upon any fallen participants. Unreliable source: date=April 2024
Other etiquette rules are to not intentionally hurt others, if people are caught in a mosh pit, just mosh (or search for an exit from the pit); also, you are not forced to take part in a moshing dance. Unreliable source: date=April 2024 If a mosh dancer drops something that could be important to them and a concert goer finds it, they should hold it above their heads until it is reclaimed, and for moshers knowing where the pit boundaries are is important. Moreover, throwing heavy objects is usually frowned upon, though the tossing of water or beer is accepted; it is also best to not make the accidental hit of flying elbows (for example) personal. Finally, the mosh dancers should respect the concert staff.