Whack. Strikingly, with Force 

Learn how to be strikingly fabulous, while dancing on that beat with Ashley ‘Colours’ Perez. 

Whacking (also known as waacking) is rooted in punking. Whacking started in the 1970s as a multicultural underground dance style, emerging from gay clubs in Los Angeles as a form of self-expression.

It was influenced by Hollywood silent films, cartoons such as Looney Tunes, and the original Batman TV series. The dance faded in the 1980s and '90s. Whacking started to resurface in the mid-2000s. Striking, arms rolls, arm pathways, and posing are some of the movements associated with this dance.

Ashley ‘Colours’ Perez  is co-artistic director of Mix Mix Dance Collective, with whom she has co-created two full-length works and represented Canada at the 2017 Jeux de la Francophonie in Abidjan. Mix Mix has completed an artist residency at York Woods Library and presented new work at Fall For Dance North in 2017 and Contemporaneity 3.0 (Toronto, Ontario) 2019. Ashley was awarded the 2018 Dora Mavor Moore Award for Outstanding Performance, Ensemble in the Dance Division for Floor’d presented by Holla Jazz in 2018. Ashley was a resident choreographer and performer with the artist collective House of Dangerkat. Developing works that allowed her to travel and perform in places such as New York, London and Paris. Her most recent teaching enterprise has been Class with Colours, to share the essence of Whacking - the glam, sass, and punk - with people of all backgrounds. These workshops have popped up at spaces such as Sketch Studio (Artscape Youngplace), and Parks N’ Wreck, Guelph Youth Dance and Meridian Hall.