Two things changed this week: what you hear, and how far a dancer can bend.

A song for every style Until now Stickography had two songs of its own, and they were both K-Pop. A Latin routine to a K-Pop beat never felt right. So there are six new songs, all written by me and made with Suno:

  • Baila Baila for Latin and Zumba
  • Move Your Feet for Hip Hop, Breaking and Popping
  • The Other Side of Midnight for Party and Shuffle
  • Get Your Funk On for Funk and Popping
  • Swing Between the Lines for Jazz
  • Where Shadows Find Their Colors for Contemporary and Flow

K-Pop keeps "We Own the Stage" and "Three Hearts, One Fire". For every song the tempo, the first beat and the length of the intro are measured, so the counts on screen land exactly on the music.

In the Studio the music now follows your routine. Pick a first style or tap a style chip and the song of that style starts playing, until you choose a song yourself; from then on your choice wins. Gigs do the same: Latin Night now dances to Baila Baila.

A body that stays human The dancers in Stickography are stick figures, but they should move like people. When I looked closely, they often didn't: elbows that folded backwards, knees that turned sideways while upside down, hands planted behind the back at angles no shoulder can reach. And in rest pose their shoes floated a few centimetres above the stage.

To find all of that, the dancers got a test lab. It measures every joint in every frame of every move against the range of a trained dancer: how far an elbow folds and straightens, how far a hip, knee, wrist, neck or back can turn. At the first run only 308 of the 747 moves stayed within those limits.

Then came the repairs, move by move. The dancers now stand on their feet instead of hanging from their hips. Knees point over the toes. Upside down, in a headstand, handstand or airflare, the body turns over as a whole, so the knees bend towards the belly instead of folding backwards. The Windmill keeps its legs straight, the Flare whirls the whole body. In the Six-Step and Seven-Step the body turns around the hands, and in seated floorwork the elbows point out to the side instead of straight back.

The Move Lab follows the same rules: when you build your own move, every joint stops where a human dancer's would.

The result: 720 of the 747 moves now stay within a human body. The last 27 are mostly the short moment of getting into or out of a power move or freeze. They're next.

Put on Baila Baila, add a Cha-Cha Chasse, and watch: it finally sounds and moves like Latin.