Though the term seems to be of uncertain origin with common assumptions suggesting it is a contraction of “footwork” and a portmanteau of the words “twist” and “jerk”, there is evidence from ethnographic interviews in New Orleans that the term began as street language in New Orleans with the rise of the local hip-hop music known as Bounce. The dictionary said the word had been around for 20 years, in fact, the word was a runner-up in the Oxford Dictionaries Word of the Year 2013.
According to the Beaverton Police Department, three women who were “twerking” in front of Beaverton City Hall were arrested and found to be in possession of drugs on Monday afternoon, reported Fox 12 Oregon. Twerking is a type of dancing in which an individual, usually a female, dances to music in a sexually provocative manner involving thrusting hip movements and a low squatting stance.
According to the Beaverton police, 20-year-old Coura Velazquez came to the municipal court to pay a fine for a warrant, and when she and her two friends left the building they began “twerking” in front of City Hall near the municipal court windows.
A police spokesman reported to FOX News 12 that, Coura Velazquez and Brittney Medak, who are both from Vancouver, exposed their genitals while they were twerking, and that Brittney Medak went on to lift her skirt and urinate between two cars. “Medak then lifted her skirt and urinated between two cars,” Beaverton police spokesman Officer Mike Rowe said, according to Starcasm.
The third woman, 22-year-old Leokham Yothsombath, filmed the incident with her cell phone and several court employees watched. When the group left City Hall, they were stopped by a Beaverton police officer who searched Brittney Medak’s car and found evidence of several drug-related crimes, according to the police spokesman. WGNTV reported that the Police say that they had marijuana, cocaine, meth and prescription drugs on them.
It has been reported that, all three women were taken to the Washington County Jail. In the United States, twerking was introduced into hip-hop culture by way of the New Orleans bounce music scene. In 1982 the twerk was first performed on live television in the Top of the Pops show by the group Haysi Fantayzee while performing their song John Wayne Is Big Leggy. In 1993, DJ Jubilee recorded the dance tune “Do the Jubilee All” in which he chanted, “Twerk baby, twerk baby, twerk, twerk, twerk.”
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