The pogo is a dance where the dancers jump up and down to an eight-count rhythm, similar to the dances of the Pentecostal faith and various African tribes. This basic steps allows for a variety of interpretations, including some which appear quite violent. Pogoers, as pogo dancers are called, have their choice of: keeping their torsos rigid or thrashing them about; holding their arms stiffly at their sides or flailing them; keeping their legs together or kicking about, and; jumping straight up and down, jumping in any direction, or spinning in the air. The pogo takes its name from its resemblance to the use of a pogo stick, especially in the stiff torso, rigid arms, legs together variation. For other uses, see Dance (disambiguation). ... The Pentecostal movement within Protestant Christianity places special emphasis on the gifts of the Holy Spirit. ... Pogo Stick A pogo stick is a device, usually considered a childrens toy, used for hopping up and down. ...

Groups of punks usually pogo at punk rock shows, making it a style of punk dance, though it may be performed in other contexts. At punk shows, groups pogo in the audience as well as on the stage. Typically, a group of pogo dancers assembles immediately in front of the stage, forming a so-called circle pit, mosh pit or pogo mob. A group of punks at a music festival. ... Punk rock is an anti-establishment music movement beginning around 1976 (although precursors can be found several years earlier), exemplified and popularised by The Ramones, the Sex Pistols, The Clash and The Damned. ... The Punk dance term is to describe various forms of dance behavior popular among young fans of loud, hardcore music: rock, heavy metal, nu metal, punk rock and the likes. ... A circle pit or mosh pit is a large and usually roughly circular clearing in the audience of a music concert about two to ten meters from the front of the stage. ... This article or section should be merged with mosh. ...

Occasionally, a dancer may go offbeat and collide with other dancers. There is no system to it. Dancers follow only their intuition. An uninformed bystander might get the impression that the dancers are beating each other up. People sometimes get injured when pogoing, but, more often than not, pogoers who fall to the ground are helped up instead of getting trampled. There is an understanding that the pogo is fun, not a fight. There are more violent versions of the pogo, for example the "pig pogo", where people kick and lay about. The risk of injury in this variant is a little higher, although it is still taboo to hurt others on purpose.

In The Filth and the Fury, Sex Pistols bassist Sid Vicious claims that he invented the pogo sometime around 1976. At punk shows in the early days of London's punk scene, Vicious often had to stand behind crowds which obscured the bands, so he started jumping up and down to get a better view. The move caught as the anti-disco dance of the punk movement. The Filth and the Fury is a reference to a headline featured on British tabloid paper the Sun after an interview on BBC Televisions Today with Bill Grundy; Siouxsie Sioux (of Banshees fame) was a 17 year old groupie who was on the show with the drunken Pistols when... Sex Pistols were, despite their short existence, a very influential English punk band. ... Sid Vicious in a 1978 mugshot related to his arrest for the murder of his girlfriend Nancy Spungen. ... 1976 (MCMLXXVI) was a leap year starting on Thursday. ... London is the capital city of England and of the United Kingdom, and is the most populous city in the European Union. ... Disco is a genre of music that originated in discothèques. ...

Jon King of Gang of Four helped popularize the pogo as a stage move. Jon King is the name of a musician, Jon King a gay porn star, Jon King ... The Gang of Four on trial The Gang of Four (Simplified: 四人帮; Traditional: 四人幫; Hanyu Pinyin: ) was a group of Communist Party leaders in the Peoples Republic of China who were arrested and removed from their positions in 1976, following the death of Mao Zedong, and were blamed for the events...

Stage diving, crowd surfing, moshing and hardcore dancing developed in part from the pogo. Stage diving is the act of getting onto the stage at a concert while a band is playing—usually heavy metal or punk rock—and then diving into the crowd below, hoping they will catch you. ... Crowd surfing describes the process whereby a person is passed from person to person, transferring the person from one part of the concert venue to another, above everyones heads, with everyones hands supporting the persons weight. ... Moshing is a type of dance characterized by jumping around and or pushing others to loud punk, hardcore, and heavy metal music. ... Example of hardcore dancing Hardcore dancing is a form of mosh (or slam dancing), an activity performed in a mosh pit at hardcore music shows. ...

During the mid-1990s many bands desiring to be viewed in a "classic punk" light, as opposed to the various offshoots, embraced the pogo as a sign of true punk and its roots. The term pogo punk came into use - the most obvious example being Blanks 77.

Ringo dances something similar to the pogo in the 1964 film A Hard Day's Night. Richard Starkey, MBE (born July 7, 1940), known by his stage name Ringo Starr, is a popular English actor, singer, and musician, best known as the drummer for The Beatles. ... // The British release A Hard Days Night was The Beatles third album, released in 1964 as the soundtrack to their first film of the same name. ...

In an episode of Pee-Wee's Playhouse Pee-Wee taught Cowboy Curtis how to pogo after curtis taught him how to square dance Pee-wees Playhouse was a childrens television program starring Pee-wee Herman (played by Paul Reubens) that aired on Saturday mornings on CBS. The show ran from September 13, 1986 until 1991 and was enormously popular with both children and adults. ... Pee Wee may refer to: Pee Wee Russell, jazz musician Pee Wee Reese, Hall of Fame baseball player Pee-wee Herman, a character created and portrayed by Paul Reubens The Pee-wee Herman Show, a stage production about Pee-wee Herman Pee-wees Playhouse, a television show about Pee... Cowboy Curtis was a character from the highly popular childrens show, Pee-wees Playhouse. ... Square dance is a folk dance where four couples (eight dancers) begin and end each sequence in a square formation, with one couple on each side of a square. ...

See also

• Anarchist Pogo Party of Germany

Wolfgang Wendland, chancellor candidate of the APPD The Anarchistic Pogo Party of Germany (German: Anarchistische Pogo-Partei Deutschlands, or APPD) is the self-declared party of the Pöbel (mob) and social parasites. It was created in 1981 by two punks in Hannover and took part in the 1998 election...

External links

• About the pogo dance