# Harlem Shake (dance) *The Harlem Shake is a distinctive Black dance born from Harlem’s street and youth culture that later had its name and image stripped and misapplied to an unrelated internet meme.* > Black's Encyclopedia — the sourced record of Black American life. > Portal: The Culture · Status: In review · Revised: July 23, 2026 · Revisions: 1 > Canonical: https://www.blacksencyclopedia.com/record/harlem-shake-dance-8cd9 ## Questions this record answers - What is the original Harlem Shake dance and who created it? - How did the Harlem Shake spread from Harlem streets to music videos and television? - Why is the viral “Harlem Shake” meme not the real Harlem Shake? - Where in the Black press and archive do we see early documentation of the Harlem Shake? ## Summary The Harlem Shake is a shoulder‑driven, rhythmically controlled dance created by Black youth in Harlem in the 1980s and 1990s and carried into global culture through hip‑hop, street performances, and Black media. Years later, an unrelated viral meme borrowed its name and erased the people and place that built the original style. ## Street Origins and Community Authors The dance emerged in Harlem parks, schoolyards, and basketball courts as young Black dancers developed a loose, fast shoulder shimmy paired with quick upper‑body movements and footwork. In interviews collected by local community organizations and Black‑run media, early practitioners describe the style as a way to show personality, rhythm, and control within crowded block‑party and playground circles. Within the neighborhood, the dance was known simply as the “Harlem Shake,” a name that tied the movement vocabulary directly to place and community. The creators were not established studio choreographers but everyday youth and street dancers who refined the form through friendly battles and performances at talent shows, church events, and after‑school programs. Their authorship lives in testimony, video recordings, and local memory rather than formal copyrights. ## Documentation in Black Media As hip‑hop grew, Harlem‑based artists and video directors brought the Harlem Shake onto regional and national screens. Black newspapers in New York, including the Amsterdam News, ran features and event listings that mentioned the dance at community centers, clubs, and youth showcases, treating it as part of Harlem’s vibrant street‑culture landscape. Music videos by East Coast rappers in the late 1990s and early 2000s included scenes of dancers performing the Harlem Shake, often in front of neighborhood landmarks and corner stores. These visual records fixed the dance’s look — the signature shoulder shake and upper‑body looseness — for wider audiences and affirmed that the style was rooted in Black Harlem youth. Black‑owned cable shows and local access programs likewise highlighted the dance in segments on neighborhood talent and fashion. ## Technique, Style, and Influence The Harlem Shake’s technique centers on rapid, controlled shoulder pops, relaxed arms, and a bounce that rides the beat rather than fighting it. Dancers combine these elements with individual flair: head tilts, hand gestures, and footwork patterns that keep the upper‑body looseness anchored in musical timing. In clubs and block parties, the Harlem Shake became a shorthand for Harlem identity, a way to mark one’s origin and skill. Its influence appears in later urban dance forms that emphasize upper‑body groove and personality over strict footwork, and in stage performances where choreographers integrate Harlem Shake motifs into broader routines. The dance’s contribution to popular culture lies in how it carried Harlem’s improvisational, competitive spirit into widely shared visual language. ## Mislabeling and the Viral Meme In the early 2010s, a wave of internet videos labeled “Harlem Shake” showed groups of mostly non‑Black participants performing random, chaotic movements to an electronic track, with no connection to the original dance’s technique or cultural roots. The meme used the name as a catchphrase while discarding the shoulder‑based vocabulary and the Harlem context. This mislabeling turned the Harlem Shake from a specific Black cultural practice into a generic joke, obscuring the people who created it and the neighborhood that gave it meaning. Commentaries from Black writers, dancers, and Harlem residents pushed back, pointing out that the viral videos bore little resemblance to the actual dance and that the meme exemplified a wider pattern of Black styles being borrowed, renamed, and detached from their creators. ## The Archive’s View For the archive, the Harlem Shake belongs firmly to Harlem’s Black community, authored collectively by youth who built and refined the style in everyday spaces without access to formal protections or industry credit. The dance’s journey from local circles to music videos demonstrates how Black street culture seeds mainstream aesthetics. The later meme’s erasure does not negate that authorship; it confirms the vulnerability of Black cultural forms in settings where names and labels can be reassigned without accountability. By restoring the Harlem Shake to its origin and naming its makers as a community, the archive defends the dance as part of Harlem’s legacy and of the broader Black contribution to global popular culture. ## The archive's standing The archive holds the Harlem Shake as a canonical Harlem street dance, created and maintained by Black youth whose movement intelligence shaped hip‑hop visuals and club culture. Its stature rests on the way it carries neighborhood identity and improvisational skill into a distinctive, recognizable form. The later appropriation of its name for an unrelated meme illustrates how Black cultural authorship is routinely stripped and repackaged, but that theft does not define the dance. The archive centers the original Harlem Shake as evidence of Harlem’s creative leadership and insists that popular culture honor the people and place that made it. ## Community Creation in Harlem The Harlem Shake grew out of informal circles rather than studios: schoolyards, parks, and gym bleachers where Black youth traded moves and challenged one another to push the limits of control and rhythm. Dancers describe the early Harlem Shake as a way to take the looseness and bounce of party dancing and concentrate it into the shoulders and upper body, creating a look that was instantly recognizable. Local talent shows, church socials, and block parties provided stages where the dance could spread and refine. Community organizers and youth program staff remember encouraging performances that featured the Harlem Shake, seeing it as both entertainment and a form of self‑expression for kids navigating a city that often denied them formal spaces. The dance’s authorship is collective and iterative, rooted in the relationships and rivalries of Harlem youth. ## From Street to Screen As Harlem artists gained visibility in the wider hip‑hop world, they brought the Harlem Shake with them. Music videos shot in the neighborhood showcased dancers performing the style in front of housing developments, storefronts, and basketball courts, embedding the movement in Harlem’s physical landscape. Black‑run television programs, including local access shows and segment blocks on national networks, highlighted the dance in features on “Harlem style” alongside fashion and slang. Articles and event listings in the Amsterdam News and other Black New York papers mention dance contests and club nights where the Harlem Shake is a featured element, confirming its status as a local phenomenon before it appeared in mainstream outlets. These records anchor the dance in time and place and give names to some of the early practitioners, even if they never received formal choreographic credit. ## Movement Vocabulary and Cultural Meaning Technically, the Harlem Shake is distinguished by its rapid shoulder movements, relaxed arms, and a buoyant, off‑center bounce that rides the beat. The style rewards dancers who can keep their shoulders loose while maintaining precise musical timing, creating a visual effect of controlled chaos. Culturally, doing the Harlem Shake signals belonging: it says “I am from here” or “I know the code.” In parties and battles, the dance serves as both a greeting and a challenge, inviting others to match the performer’s rhythm and swagger. The form carries years of practice and neighborhood stories, turning a simple motion into a marker of identity. ## Name Theft and Misrepresentation When the “Harlem Shake” meme surfaced online, the label migrated from a specific dance to a generalized concept of sudden, chaotic motion. Videos under the meme tag almost never included the shoulder‑driven techniques or Harlem context; instead they framed the dance as random flailing after a musical drop. Black dancers from Harlem publicly criticized the meme for misusing the name and erasing the original creators, noting that viewers who lacked prior exposure now associated “Harlem Shake” with something the community had not authored. This episode fits a familiar pattern where Black cultural products — dances, slang, styles — are stripped of context, then popularized under new ownership. ## Reclaiming the Record In response, Black artists and community historians have worked to document the original Harlem Shake through interviews, archival footage, and essays that trace its evolution inside Harlem’s youth culture. They emphasize that the dance predates the meme by decades and that its core moves and meaning remain alive in Harlem and in the memories of those who danced it in its early years. The archive aligns with this reclamation, treating the Harlem Shake as a case study in both Black creative brilliance and the mechanisms of cultural erasure. By fixing the dance in its rightful lineage and correcting the record where the name was misapplied, the archive asserts Harlem’s authorship and preserves the style for future dancers who seek the true history behind the movement. ## Sources 1. Amsterdam News (New York), various issues 1998–2004, entertainment and community sections referencing Harlem dance contests and the Harlem Shake, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York Public Library. 2. Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, Video Oral History Collection, interviews with Harlem dancers and youth program organizers discussing the origins and spread of the Harlem Shake, ca. 2000–2015. ## Related records - https://www.blacksencyclopedia.com/record/harlem-shake-dance-craze - https://www.blacksencyclopedia.com/record/block-party - https://www.blacksencyclopedia.com/record/hip-hop - https://www.blacksencyclopedia.com/record/line-dancing - https://www.blacksencyclopedia.com/record/soul-train --- Cite as: Black's Encyclopedia, "Harlem Shake (dance)," revised July 23, 2026. https://www.blacksencyclopedia.com/record/harlem-shake-dance-8cd9 Text under the Black's Record License: cite the record, keep attribution attached, cite the revision date.