'Moving is medicine': Austin shufflers build community through emerging dance craze
Just before dimming the lights and securing the doors of Austin's Balance Dance Studios, Ciara Castro exchanged smiles, hugs and "I love you's" with her students as she wrapped up another night of instruction.
The evening, like many, began with the full-time shuffler and TikTok star encouraging the group to delve into a state of free-flow as they contorted their bodies and stomped on the mahogany wood surface of the studio space.
Striking with each beat, their feet reeled inward and outward as their arms swayed up and down and side to side. The movements created a hypnotizing effect that grew as each dancer added their own style to the mix.
For Castro's students, and the growing number of shufflers in Central Texas and beyond, the art form has served as a source of community, self-expression and creative solace.
“Movement is medicine," said Castro, 25, who's been shuffling since 2016. "That can be yoga or going to the gym for some people, but for us, it's art. When you go to festivals or raves here, people are just moving and it’s tribal for us to dance as humans.”
First came the 'Melbourne Shuffle'
Birthed in the electro-clubs and raves of Melbourne, Australia, during the late 1980s, the ever-evolving dance has grown more international in the decades since its emergence.
Built on the T-shape movement, the dance was known as the "Melbourne Shuffle" before other dancers caught on, blending moves traditionally linked to country, hip-hop and b-boy culture to create the nuances of today.
The splicing of the original shuffle has helped new stylings like the House Shuffle, Cali-style, Malaysian-style and others take shape.
The largely underground art form's popularity has come in waves; shuffling flirted with mainstream audiences in the mid-2000s with the establishment of YouTube and in 2011 with LMFAO's rave-spiraling hit "Party Rock Anthem."
Underground dance now a social media craze
Shuffling has gained an even larger following with social media trends on Instagram and TikTok, especially at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The culture of shuffling was already extremely thick before it happened on social media, but it blew up over quarantine," Castro said. "It was on stage for 'America’s Got Talent,' there are commercials with my friends in it and it’s always been a great time.”
With nearly half a million TikTok followers, Castro is among the most well-known shufflers in Texas, but she credits shuffler Matthew Farguson and others for breaking ground in the growing Austin scene.
“I would say the Austin scene is a collective, for sure," Castro, a Corpus Christi native, said. "But if you’re talking social media-wise, I think I’m the face of Texas. But Austin, collectively, I can’t take credit for that. It’s been here and it’s so rich.”
The rise of Austin's shuffling scene began with local meetups
Farguson and other notable shufflers began holding meet-ups in 2016 in downtown Austin. They went from a handful of attendees at each event to eventually drawing in 20-50 dancers.
Long from the days dancers were T-shaping in parachute-sized cargo pants, shuffling has endured many changes, Farguson said.
Even still, America has been behind for years, said Farguson, a Denton native; he and other dancers were forced to rely on YouTube videos to develop their vocabulary of moves.
“Nobody was teaching it, so I spent about three years just kind of not looking that great until I came to the Dallas scene in 2010 to 2011," Farguson, 33, said. "I’ve been doing it for a while, but every step of the way it’s picked up in popularity.
“Here in Austin, there hasn’t been much resistance. They embrace it and it’s a pretty big community here and it’s grown really fast.”
Farguson said the popularity of shuffling in the city has grown exponentially with Castro's presence, as she and her friend and roommate, Brigitte Johannessen, have taken the foundational moves and nuances they learned to further build up the local dance community.
While she wouldn't place Austin at the center of the shuffling craze, with communities in California and Florida being much larger, Johannessen, a native of Bergen, Norway, said the city's dance scene has inspired more recognizable shufflers to join the city's circles.
"There’s a really big force in Austin," Johannessen, 27, said. "We’ll host meetups where people from San Antonio, Houston, Dallas and from all over have come through because we have a lot of talent here.”
After shuffling the past two years, Stacy Veitch, 48, said she's been further immersed in the dance because of the people who lead and occupy the local shuffling scene.
"It’s been amazing; the people are so welcoming and I love it so much," she said. “It's people from all walks of life, different ages and they’re all just so accepting. It’s a really good vibe.”
Linda George, who's been learning how to shuffle under Castro, said the shuffling community has felt further tightknit with its expansion, despite the varying styles and geographic separation.
"This genre is universal and underneath folk, country, hip-hop, it’s the foundation to a lot of music in general," the Tupelo, Mississippi, native said. "I feel like there’s a collective shift that’s happening with this genre for humanity, and I think it’s a beautiful thing.”
The future of shuffling may come with its commercialization, dancers say
As with hip-hop, shuffler Maxwell Sasaki expects businesses and mainstream entities to capitalize on the dance because of its global reach and appeal.
“We’re really on the precipice of where things are starting to transition in the commercialization of shuffling," Sasaki, 31, said. "There will always be the commercialization of any art, and dance, but I think it's going to become more of a movement.”
With the growing admiration and potential commercialization of shuffling, Johannessen said she's split, in part, because of the emotion she and others have within the shuffling space.
While others may seek likes or shares on social media, or profit, Johannessen said the purpose of the craft is far greater.
"This is completely passion-driven," she said. "None of us are out to do this to become some kind of celebrity dancer or anything like that. It’s always been out of expression and inspiration, and the fact that people around us have embraced us with open arms is very powerful.”
Concerning the future of shuffling, Sasaki said it will be on the back of the community members itself. And in time, the genre will find its true place in the larger dance community, he said.
Stomp into shuffling
Austin's Ciara Castro offers several online and in-person classes and workshops for people looking to learn the foundations of shuffling. To sign up, go to beacons.ai/ciaracastro_.
Over 80 detailed dance tutorials can be found at www.theshufflecircle.com.