Atlanta is home to so many Black cultural landmarks, including T.I.’s Trap Museum, Slutty Vegan, and now the upcoming Twerk Museum celebrating dance and history.
If there’s anybody to show you how to twerk from within it’s Nikki St. John, the Creative Director of The Twerk Museum. She has a BFA in theater from Howard University and is a professional pole dancer and certified Twerk Technician.
“We show how when our ancestors were taken from Africa and stripped of their culture, their religion, their history, their heritage, one of the things that remained was dance. So we’re showing how the work that we do today connects to a really rich African history that celebrates, dance in different forms. And twerk is one of those forms that is celebrated,” she said.
Fans may remember Nikki from her viral “Get Your Booty To The Poll” campaign, where Atlanta’s elite exotic dancers encouraged voters to get to the polls.
During Black History Month, Nikki and her business partner Kiara Mahan, teamed up with Torwa Joe, to create Twerk-themed Twerkingo Game cards.
“We really want to bring something to our audiences that they feel like, wow, we really got a piece of our culture. We really stamped something that was really Black, something that really belonged to us,” Mahan said.
Together, the ladies are redefining twerking from shamers and focusing on the rich African origins of the dance.
“Shaming was taught to us but we’re out of that pocket. So we’re going to celebrate. We’re going to run it on back in every single style of dance movement created by a woman of color, especially a Black woman, Afrocentric style, anything that shakes your hips and, clap those clappers,” Joe said.
“It was used as a ritual. It was used to choose pairings between mates. It was even believed to help you get closer to God. So there are so many things that we today do not know about our ancestors and their rituals how they move their bodies and what they use their bodies for. And so we are bringing all of that to the forefront today,” Nikki added.
The first four game cards will be released, focusing on basic twerk moves from Africa, the Caribbean, South America, and America.
The game starts with a certified Twerk Technician instructor teaching moves from the game card, with step-by-step instructions for beginners and advanced variations for seasoned twerk-a-holics. Next – play the moves you learned! There are four different ways you can win Twerkingo and we have prizes for them all. Players can come to Twerkingo Game Nights in Atlanta, join online through Zoom, or click here to purchase the digital and physical board games.
Peach Pop 5 got an exclusive lesson from the Twerk Museum owners. Check out the video below.
