Do you know how to do the Diski Dance?
The Diski Dance, the signature dance of the 2010 FIFA World Cup, is now more popular than ever.
As previously reported here on Shine 2010, this South Africa Tourism initiative was launched last year before the FIFA Confederations Cup 2009. Sugen Pillay, Global Manager of Events at South Africa Tourism, last year stated that when foreigners arrive on our shores later this year he wants them to already know how to do the dance. This will be made possible by the instructional clip on the South Africa Tourism website, which can also be downloaded to the user's computer.
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Promoted at the Confederations Cup
In the build-up to the FIFA Confederations Cup 2009 the dance was performed at virtually every major sporting event held. It was also performed for those in attendance at the World Cup Final Draw in Cape Town in December last year.
Since the Confed Cup, the dance has become very well-publicised, and can now be found virtually everywhere online- exactly what the organisers would have been hoping for. A quick search on YouTube gives multiple results, a few being:
- The official South Africa Tourism video illustrating how to do the Diski Dance;
- The Diski Dance is here being performed in Cape Town at Spier Rose Garden;
- Dancers at the Cape Town International Convention Centre;
- A Diski Dance TV Commercial;
- Many random entries, such as this one of First Car Rental staff learning to do the Diski Dance in a company promotion.
Official Diski Dance website
There is now even an official website tied in to SA Tourism devoted entirely to the dance - Learntodiski.com.On the site one can see viral internet dancer Matt Harding, who was brought to South Africa and given a crash-course in the Diski Dance. Viewers get to watch Matt dance his way from Cape Town to Johannesburg and everywhere in between.
The site is even running a competition whereby the public can send in the video of themselves busting their best moves and win a trip to the World Cup.
Back to basics
Those of us with two left feet can view the dance broken down in the individual parts on the SouthAfrica.info site, in an article entitled "How to do the Diski Dance".
Yet more proof of the dance taking off overseas can be found in a news article from last week where it was reported that "The Philippine Diski Team performed their dance during Monday's Philippine Sportswriters Awards (PSA) as part of promotions of the upcoming 2010 FIFA World Cup."
The term "Diski" comes from local slang - South African soccer has quite a different style to that seen overseas, with the slang for the local style being called "Diski".
Diski gets world dancing to South African Beat
The Diski Dance - a campaign designed to get South Africa and the world dancing to the 2010 World Cup beat - was launched at the INDABA travel trade show 2009.
The Diski Dance will be introduced to the world with a 60 second commercial which will be screened on major global television networks (BBC World, CNN International, Sky, EuroSport, Fox) and will reach more than 600 million consumers between now and kick-off.
Diski Dance TV Commercial
Join the Diski Dance ahead of the 2010 Football World Cup in South Africa!
It takes its inspiration from South Africa’s uniquely flamboyant football style: diski. Diski football becomes a dance that almost anyone, anywhere can do and football fans are encouraged to not only learn the dance, but also to add their own routines to it.
“This will take the dance and welcoming spirit of 2010 to millions of South Africans. It will also give the campaign the domestic traction that it needs if South Africans are to truly welcome the world to this great celebration,” says Sugen Pillay, South African Tourism’s Head of Marketing for 2010.
Pillay says both the commercial and the dance give evidence of South African’s sense of fun and inclusiveness whilst demonstrating to both ourselves and the world how committed we are as a nation to this global sport spectacular.
“This campaign is for the people of South Africa. This is our World Cup and we invite all to learn the Diski Dance and heartily welcome the world to the great party that this Word Cup is going to be,” says Pillay.
