2009 Pop Conference Bios/Abstracts

Kurt B. Reighley

Kurt B. Reighley is a Seattle-based DJ, writer, and entertainer. As DJ El Toro, he is the host of "In Between Sleep & Reason" on KEXP 90.3 FM Seattle. His work currently appears in The Advocate, The Stranger, SF Weekly, and on No Depression and MSN.com.Panel(s):
Viral Video
Saturday, April 18, 2009, 1:30 - 3:00Abstract:

"Papaya: Strange Fruit"
Start with a Polish jazz singer, blessed with a five octave range and a style that owes as much to Meredith Monk as Ella Fitzgerald, whose credits including the theme to Rosemary's Baby and a '70s funk groove sampled by the Beastie Boys. Add in some Filipino drag queens and a tropical fruit, and what do you get?

17,000 different videos on YouTube, all of the same dance craze.

"Papaya," an obscure 1975 single by Urszula Dudziak, and previously best known to a handful of cross-dressers who lip-synced it in nightclubs, sparked the biggest international dance craze of 2007. Game show host Edu Manzano parlayed what started as an audience participation stunt into a recording contract, and kicked off a trend that got a whole population dancing: Prison inmates, army regiments, even entire supermarkets. By 2008, the hosts of "Good Morning, America" were dancing the Papaya, while Anderson Cooper turned it into a running gag on CNN's "AC360."

How did a dance so banal it makes the Macarena look like a burlesque bump-and-grind ignite a nation? How do its sexless moves and popularity with large ensembles reflect—or reject—the social and political climate of the Philippines? How would its legion of fans react to know of its origins in the gay underground? And after 17,000 videos, is Urszula Dudziak any less obscure than she was 18 months ago?

Let's trace—and maybe even learn—the steps of "The Papaya Dance."