Finger-tutting is a type of dance that involves intricate movements of the fingers. The word "tutting" is a street dance style based on angular movements which are supposed to stylize the poses seen on

relief Relief is a sculptural method in which the sculpted pieces are bonded to a solid background of the same material. The term '' relief'' is from the Latin verb ''relevo'', to raise. To create a sculpture in relief is to give the impression that th ...

s in the art of ancient Egypt, and refers to "

King Tut Tutankhamun (, egy, twt-ꜥnḫ-jmn), Egyptological pronunciation Tutankhamen () (), sometimes referred to as King Tut, was an Egyptian pharaoh who was the last of his royal family to rule during the end of the Eighteenth Dynasty (ruled ...

". Popularity of this dance style increased after Jay Gutierrez or "Jsmooth" revealed his innovated style of finger-tutting in the credits of ''

Step Up 3D ''Step Up 3D'' (also known as ''Step Up 3'') is a 2010 American 3D dance film directed by Jon M. Chu and written by Amy Andelson and Emily Meyer. It serves as a sequel to 2008's '' Step Up 2: The Streets'' and the third installment in the ''St ...

'', released August 6, 2010. Finger-tutting received international attention after dancer/choreographer Julian "JayFunk" Daniels performed in a viral Samsung commercial entitled "Unleash Your Fingers". Later, the dance group Finger Circus popularized the form through commercials and

YouTube YouTube is a global online video sharing and social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by Google, and is the second mo ...

videos. Finger-tutting received further international attention after practitioner John Hunt, also known as Pnut, made a

viral video A viral video is a video that becomes popular through a viral process of Internet sharing, typically through video sharing websites such as YouTube as well as social media and email.Lu Jiang, Yajie Miao, Yi Yang, ZhenZhong Lan, Alexander Haupt ...

entitled "Greasy Fingers". Filmed, directed and produced by Statussilver. Later, Hunt was featured prominently in the video for the

Taylor Swift Taylor Alison Swift (born December 13, 1989) is an American singer-songwriter. Her discography spans multiple genres, and her vivid songwriting—often inspired by her personal life—has received critical praise and wide media coverage. Bor ...

song "

Shake It Off "Shake It Off" is a song by American singer-songwriter Taylor Swift, taken from her fifth studio album, ''1989''. Swift wrote the lyrics and composed the melody with producers Max Martin and Shellback. An uptempo dance-pop song featuring a saxop ...

". More recently, finger-tutting has been featured in the Syfy show '' The Magicians'' and the Marvel Studios film '' Doctor Strange'' as one of the ways in which characters can cast various spells. JayFunk helped with the finger-tutting in ''Doctor Strange''. In 2020, the

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for " Naughty" by Red Velvet's

Irene Irene is a name derived from εἰρήνη (eirēnē), the Greek for "peace". Irene, and related names, may refer to: * Irene (given name) Places * Irene, Gauteng, South Africa * Irene, South Dakota, United States * Irene, Texas, United Stat ...

and

Seulgi Seul-ki, also spelled Seul-gi or Sul-ki, is a Korean unisex given name, predominantly feminine. It was the 8th-most popular name for baby girls born in South Korea in 1990. Unlike most Korean names, it does not have any Sino-Korean roots, but is ...

featured a choreographed tutting performance.

References

Free and improvised dance {{Dance-stub