Para Para

Para Para (パラパラ^?, "Para-Para" or "ParaPara") is a synchronized dance that originated in Japan. Unlike most club dancing and rave dancing there are specific synchronized movements for each song much like line dancing. Para Para is said to have existed since the early 1980s when European countries started selling Italo disco and Euro disco, and in the mid-to late 1970s, new wave and synthpop music in Japan. However, it did not achieve much popularity outside Japan until the late '90s.

Para Para is strongly associated with Eurobeat. Dave Rodgers, a Eurobeat artist, has described Para Para as the only way to dance to Eurobeat, which is usually "so fast."

Para Para dancing consists of mostly arm movements; very little lower body movement is involved save for perhaps moving one's hips or stepping in place (although a few routines require more detailed leg motions).

One view of the origin of ParaPara is that it started in the early 1980s when men working in the VIP room in clubs would choreograph dances to impress women. Another is that it developed from the Takenoko-zoku subculture that danced the streets of Harajuku. A third and final view is that the name is derived from an onomatopoeic characterization of the hands movements.

The dances are performed to fast, upbeat music such as Eurobeat and Eurodance. Fans of Para Para dancing often call themselves "paralists." ParaPara's history is largely described by the community and historians as times of growth or "booms" in which ParaPara's popularity increase over time, while a glacial period describes a decrease.

ParaPara is thought to have started in the late 1980s at high-class discos during Japan's bubble era. People dressed in black suits would teach routines at places like Aoyama King & Queen and Maharaja Azabujyuuban. It is difficult to learn some of these dances now because videos were never made. Which clubs made certain routines during this era is largely unknown because it was not recorded.

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Wikipedia