Turfing is a street dance that originated in Oakland, California.

The chances are that you may have come across 'Turfing' and emulated or have tried to imitate it. But you probably have had no idea what it is. There is an even, a much likelier possibility that you may have clubbed it under an umbrella term of something similar.

What is Turfing?

It is a form of an American street dance that originated in Oakland, California. And it is actually an acronym!

Originally known as, 'hitting it', it was Jeriel Bey, a dancer who is credited to have developed the established coinage. He was trying out terms with more marketability and had once even tossed around, 'having fun with it', for consideration.

Eventually, he played on the street lingo, 'turf', which can be understood as a hip expression of 'blocks' or 'sets', which in turn is a colloquialism of neighbourhood or colony. This dance form was essentially a showpiece or representation of various 'turfs' of Oakland. Bey stretched 'turf' to mean 'Taking Up Room on the Floor'.

From Oakland Bogaloo To Its Own Identity

In general, the earliest roots of this dance form can be found in the Oakland Boogaloo movement of California that began in the middle of 1960s. But later, during the 1990s, it developed its distinct and idiosyncratic idiom to emerge as a genre on to itself. In fact, together with 'hyphy' music, Turfing came to be seen as the intangible phenomenon that became synonymous with Oakland.

Going Mainstream

It was left to Jeriel Bey to take Turfing to a wider reckoning. He managed that with the establishment of his group, 'The Architeckz', in 2002. Soon enough, Turfing began to pick up. The biggest breakthrough was being featured in music videos. The most notable ones that first displayed this dance form was Keak Da Sneak, E-40 and Baby Bash. Incidentally, it was hip hop musician, Sneak who had termed the coin, 'hyphy', Bay area slang for hyperactive.

All along Turf dance was being promoted as dance-offs within the Bay area community. In 2005, Bey and his formation, The Architeckz, formalised the concept of these friendly dance matches into a city-level competition by roping in the krump dancers from Los Angeles. New York and Memphis took home these friendly rivalries with dancers into their 'turfs' as well. Turfing went international with the release of E-40's single, Tell Me When to Go, in 2006. It grabbed major eyeballs in 2012 when turf dancer cum skateboarder, Alonzo (Turf) Jones, aka Retro participated in the season 7 on NBC's America's Got Talent.