Chicago Footwork (Juke)

Chicago Footwork is a blistering feet-first battle dance from Chicago's South and West Sides, and the dance predates the music genre that now carries its name. Dancers were working out combinations in the mid-to-late 1980s, and by 1988–89 Ronnie Sloan's House-O-Matics crew had organised it into group form on the South Side. In the Auburn Gresham basement known as The Dungeon, Anthony 'Ant' Brown and the Dungeon Boys built the Erk N Jerk — still the most recognisable foundational step — and turned isolated moves into chained combinations. The soundtrack caught up when Chicago DJs began pushing ghetto house records faster; RP Boo's 1997 'Baby Come On' is generally treated as the first footwork record, and DJ Clent's 1998 Beatdown House crew, with DJ Rashad, RP Boo, DJ C-Bit and Majik Myke, locked in the 150–165 BPM template of beat-skipping kicks, chopped vocal samples and sub bass. The dance is executed almost entirely from the knees down: heel-toe scissoring, ankle flicks, slides and drops at double time, usually inside a ring where crews trade turns. Collectives such as The Era have since carried footwork from Chicago basements to international stages.