“Every Friday, the queens of rock travel the highway to hell, wondering if this will be a trip without return. Stepping on the accelerator, carefree, young, and free. The curves of Canning Highway lead them downhill to the promised land: Raffles Rock bar. “
“Highway to Hell” (AC/DC) is since 1979 the road to hell for all rockers. A song with its own legend that evokes as none the essence of living to the limit and drinking to forget, or rather to favor, the encounter with death that awaits after the curve.
A band of rock star dancers
“Highway to Hell” is represented by four dancers who take on the roles of singer, guitarist, bassist, and drummer of a rock band.
“Going down, party time
My friends are gonna be there too.”
The tone of the choreography is festive and somewhat cocky and cheeky, and seeks the essence of rock from its most rebel facet.
Pic: Carlos Santos
The aesthetics of the choreography is in accordance with the idea of a music band: rocker t-shirts, black tights, studded belts, motorcycle helmet and leather jacket. Likewise, instruments are used in the introduction and in the end to help to set the scene.
Rebel flashes
The choreography is not planned as a monolithic block: each dancer has an individual moment during the first verse and also uses figures in pairs and groups to break with the type of linear composition in which the value is found in the identical execution of the interpreters.
Remember that in this piece the dancers represent similar but not equal roles, so a choreography created from the premise of “identical dancers” (same look, same movements, same expression) loses much appeal.
The tempo of the song is 116 BPM, which we could qualify as a medium from the point of view of a Rock & Metal dancer. Unlike Painkiller of Judas Priest, when you execute the choreography, you don´t fell a sensation of great speed.
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- Pics: Miguel Ángel García
A lot of winks to the public abound in the composition:
- Crazy poses and gestures, in different points of the choreography and in consonance with the lyrics of the song.
- Use of musical instruments: only in the opening and in the final of the choreography, given the difficulty of dancing with them.
- Guitar solo: designed in two levels, the dancers interact with the audience in pairs during this moment of song.
- Group figures: they are important to give at certain moments the feeling of a group, interspersed with the moments of individual attention for each dancer mentioned before.
Choreography for all audiences
As we usually commented in this website, each piece of rock or metal is a world and not all are appropriate to be accepted in certain events.
However, the choreography “Highway to Hell” is a live representation of what exists in the collective imagination as a rock band, so it is appropriate in all kinds of shows and events in which rock music is also accepted.
It was originally created at the beginning of 2017 as a project within the choreographic training of Morgan East & West dance center and later it was represented in the Spanish edition of Gothla in November of the same year.
Rock dancers at Gothla Spain: Zarina (choreographer) and dancers Mila, Verónica Montero, BloodyMary and Olivia.
