More Than A Dancer

A new generation of street dancers are coming up. Many are in their teens to early twenties. If they're in school, they're juggling classes, relationships, family responsibilities, and work schedules. How can they find time to dance? If there's only so much time in the day, then something's got to give. At times, it seems like we choose dance over everything else in our lives. If you ask yourself who you are as a person, and the answer is "dance...and only dance," is that a problem?

It's a hard question. We all love dancing. It gives us an outlet to creatively express ourselves. When we dance, we feel free. It's our number one passion. And we want to share it with others who are equally passionate. Our community becomes filled with other dancers. And soon, we live our dance as a lifestyle, not as a physical exercise or a hobby. Dance becomes part of our identity.

There's so much good that can come out of this especially for those of us who are talented enough and find the right circumstances to pursue it as a profession. And there are many of us who have a healthy balance of work and school and pursue dance non-professionally. But what about the rest of us who aren't doing it professionally but are convinced that we should? What about the younger members of our community who are still in school, figuring out who they are and what their lives are all about? Anyone who has gone through their college years can tell you that it's one of the most exciting and confusing times in life. For all the dancers in that demographic, this is for you.

Please don't give up school, work, and your responsibilities. There's so much in our daily lives that can help us to grow in our character, persistence, humility, professionalism, and dedication. As much as dance is part of your life, you are more than a dancer. Yes, it's your passion. But what about when you don't dance? Who are you at your core? How would a friend describe your character? When facing failure, what is it about you as a person that drives you to overcome your struggles?

We're walking a very subtle line here. Clearly, there are extremely talented and fortunate young dancers who should make the transition from being a student to pursuing dance as a career. And there are those who embrace dance as part of their lives. They're content to not pursue it professionally. But there are many others who aren't being honest with themselves. They're choosing dance as the definitive statement of their lives without thinking through what that entails or taking the rigorous steps to build a livelihood on it. For them, dance is an escape from their daily reality. It's easy to practice with friends, enter contests, and take dance classes when we're financially supported by our families. It's much harder when you move into financial independence. We can spend a lifetime trying to figure out who we are as a person and what is the meaning of our lives. So it's easy to say "I'm a bboy" or "I'm a locker" or "I'm a popper" when we're subconsciously looking to fulfill our identities. Is this you? Are you searching for who you are and only filling in the blanks with your passion for dance?

One of the healthiest things you can do is take a step of humility and ask the opinion of a mentor at an older life stage. Ask that seasoned veteran for his or her advice on where you are with your dance. Listen carefully and let it sink in. Know who you are and be willing to discover more of yourself, even if it seems really scary. This mentor can provide a reflection of yourself when you really need to hear it. Hopefully, he or she has the life experience to share and the ability to articulate appropriate advice.

Perhaps this will become one of the most meaningful relationships in your life. When we're honest with ourselves, we know that we all need guidance, a helping hand, and someone to show us the way. We stumble blindly when we're afraid or too proud to listen. But we're not meant to walk alone on this journey. There is a desire within humanity to be relational and to live in community. No one should be forced to do so, but a choice should always be presented. There's always a choice that can be made.

The Need for Business Sense

How can we ensure that dancers have more opportunities in the entertainment industry?

We need greater business sense and strategy in our careers. Now is a time when there are more opportunities than ever to launch ourselves via reality television shows, national tours, stage performances, videos, and teaching master classes. This past weekend, We are Heroes won the title of America's Best Dance Crew on the aptly titled MTV show. For these five ladies, the next year could be a turning point in their professional lives. They'll have to make smart decisions on what gigs to take, what ones to pass on, and how to nurture a following that will support them financially for the long-term.

Professional dancing, especially for hip hop, has usually been seen as freelance. Unless you're skilled and lucky enough to land a teaching job, most hip hop dancers have to work from one gig to the next. They stay relevant and connected to opportunities through their personal network. Friends recommend friends who are on time and deliver the goods. This system will likely continue, but how can we add on top of that? Are there measures that we can take to build better support for the dance community?

Within the U.S. entertainment industry, especially in Los Angeles, dancers are unfortunately low on the totem pole. In film and television; writers, directors, actors, and producers dominate the creative roles and financial rewards. Unions such as the Writer's Guild of America (WGA) and the Screen Actor's Guild (SAG) wield great influence and have appeared in the public radar with highly televised strikes in recent years. In this universe, dancers aren't seen as providing the creative content or direction that governs film and television. Often, we're the special effects in a dance movie or playing backup to a pop singer on stage. Only in recent years have we seen dancers as personalities or reality TV cast members on shows like So You Think You Can Dance and America's Best Dance Crew. To a young generation, these dancers are celebrities worth following.

If dancers become media figures, then there are more opportunities to capitalize on that career path. Product endorsements can follow. Multi-platform media deals can be negotiated, especially if a dancer is talented in acting or singing. These dreams aren't new or unfamiliar. Can we see dancers being regarded in the same public spotlight as pop singers and musicians? We've seen indie musicians start their careers from self-promoting on Myspace. Singers have concerts. Can we see dance crews build a financially profitable stage show venture like the Groovaloos? If music makes people feel something that they want to feel again and again at concerts, then we should be able to do this with our dancing as well. One question to ponder - can a hip hop dance performance make you cry?

We have to show the public that the lives of dancers are worth hearing and seeing. Our stories are compelling so why not bring them to the masses? When dancers have more opportunities to share who they are, where they've been, and what they're going through, there will always be an audience who wants to listen. It's easy for an uninformed audience to see dancers as superhuman beings, but we're really human at our core. We face the same struggles, pressures, and failures that anyone else faces. One of the most successful Broadway shows of all time - "A Chorus Line" is proof. Whether it's conveying these stories through stage shows, documentary films, video blogs, or even books, we can make this a coherent movement.

We need to have business-minded dancers who know how to creatively promote, negotiate, and nurture a community that appreciate our art form and our stories. Dancers with business expertise or like-minded partners are key to this development. Elm Pizarro and his staff have done a terrific job launching the Boogiezone.com community in southern California and worldwide. Classes are regularly marketed and taught. Shows are promoted. Social connections are made. We need more of this and more business dialogue with the entertainment world outside of our dance community. We have to defend and fight for our earnings and creative roles in professional collaborations with writers, directors, producers, and actors. As dancers, we need support from folks who'll defend our best interests. If we cross over more into the entertainment field, we'll need writers, directors, producers, and actors who are on our side. The way dance is being regarded in the public eye is changing. Let's see if we can do something new and exciting with this.

We also have the Internet and social networking. These are democratic tools that we're already using to connect with each other. It will only take a few saavy minds to creatively use these tools to bring more opportunities to dancers. Can we use these tools to create platforms where dancers are more front and center in television shows, films, and stage performances? Having the right idea and organizing the right team is all we need. The money will come when the idea is rock solid. These social networking tools are especially useful for building an audience from a younger generation who is already communicating with Facebook, Twitter, Ustream, and blogs. We can use them to convince producers and investors that there is a legitimate paying audience for our work.

In the end, the most important thing for us to do is dream. To dream that opportunities we don't see now will be possible tomorrow. When we allow ourselves to freely dream, our minds open up to a future that may never have been imagined. Creative ideas spring from this freedom. And with this influx of new ideas, there may be a few winners that change the professional world for future dancers.

If The Whole World Danced...

Imagine everyone on this planet getting down. That would be one huge block party, wouldn't it? We'd need a dance floor that spanned continents for the biggest circle known to mankind. But seriously, dancing is part of the human experience. Moving your body to the music is wired into our soul. So why do some people see it as less than important in our present day global culture?

If we look at specific communities in world history, dance seems to have played a central role in community building. From the social balls of Victorian England to the celebration of Carnivale in Brazil to the fierce displays of Maori warriors in New Zealand, dance in its many forms united people. We felt a common bond through a shared musical experience that led us to groove together. We laughed, we mourned, we celebrated as one with dance. And we grew as a community.

Some might say that we are increasingly more isolated in today's technologically fast-paced global culture. Social networking, the Internet, and individualized lifestyles can lead us to pursue our own paths, often separate from a community. We can be independent, self-sufficient souls living among other independent, self-sufficient spirits. Even in a sprawling city like Los Angeles, it's entirely possible to live on your own, go to work, and never have any true human contact with another person for long periods of time. You travel alone, eat alone, and watch TV alone.

Somewhere along the way, we lost our sense of community. Spending time together has been redefined in context, whether it's IMing each other while we're on the go or checking up on our friends passively via Facebook status updates. What can we do to remedy this? Can the human race really sustain itself if we split off onto our individual paths, forsaking the value of community?

Now, it should be clarified that not all of us have chosen this path. There are plenty of community-builders and participants out there. But we can't deny that there are some of us who are isolated from community. If you'd like to change that, let's not see your current situation as an unchangeable fact. There is a community out there for you and there are people who want to know you and be known by you.

So, where does dance come into the equation? More and more, the value of dance as a performance art form should be elevated along with its value as a community-building force. Whether it's a cultural performance or a social gathering or a celebration of a friend's birthday, dance needs to be valued. We have to create a world where our children value it and embrace it for all that it can add to our lives. Dance education is powerful because it can introduce a child to creative self-expression, the value of training and discipline, a path for self-discovery, and a place in artistic history that helps to inform personal identity. Sometimes, we can discount the value of the arts when we don't foresee a professional career for our children in that field. But that doesn't mean that it shouldn't be a part of their lives.

We've all heard the call to support the arts. Why not also keep our eyes on community? Especially for teenagers and young adults, dance community is a second home for them. It has given them refuge and a place to be free from their troubles. It will be important for older mentors to guide these young souls when they're looking for direction. From there, relationships form, and from relationships we lay the foundation for community.

In the end, dance gives us a reason to celebrate. And we often want to share our joy with others. That's all the more reason to bring dance back into our lives and to make a true difference in another person's world.

Real-Time Web and Street Dance: Memory, Artificial Intelligence, and History

The real-time web is one of the most talked-about topics in technology circles today. We're moving towards real-time sharing of video, audio, still images, status updates, and personal experiences via Twitter, Ustream, and the upcoming Google Wave. For street dancers, we can either choose to embrace this technology or to reject it, especially in the areas of memory, artificial intelligence, and history.

Either way, there may be advantages and disadvantages. Previously, we viewed dance videos on Youtube, shared pictures on Flicker, or caught up on reviews of stage shows via blogger.com. We experienced the content of these sites after the event occurred. Now, with real-time web tools, what will it mean to have the constantly streaming material as part of our social dialogue? There will be so much more content online that we'll need to find ways to extract material that's relevant to us. Otherwise, we'll drown in the digital deluge.

For memory purposes, it may mean that we'll have even more unedited audio-visual content of hip hop culture in large quantities. We'll no longer be limited to videos of a short length depending on how much our camera's memory card can hold. Imagine witnessing an entire bboy competition from start to finish - every moment either compelling or boring. You'll have a window into that event, witnessing it from one angle or many angles edited together. Somehow, we'll have to figure out how to edit our experience of the event otherwise our memory will overload. We'll need editors, filmmakers, and narrative guides to help us experience the event in a concise way that's still bearable to watch. Any film or TV editor can tell you how draining it can be to watch through thousands of hours of dailies on a production.

However, it could make a person's daily life more visually personal. We can follow media celebrities and new Internet celebrities via their Twitter updates. Imagine following constant video streams or snippets of your favorite dancer if they strapped a small camera to their body. Would that be compelling or would it bore you to death? Privacy issues would be redefined, that's for sure. We would see more of an individual dancer's lifestyle if they chose to broadcast themselves. This was the case with Justin.tv a few years ago when the creator of the website broadcasted his life 24/7 using a small webcam and wireless feed.

As the amount of digital content increases through streaming, we may also see the rise of artificial intelligence online. Now, this is all hypothetical and it borders on the boundaries of science fiction. But what if we could collect a library of performances and dance moves from an established dancer via advanced motion capture technology? Could all that data be translated into a sentient being that would be like an A.I. version of that dancer? Would this "bot" be considered a legitimate teaching model of that dancer's style? Or as human street dancers, would we start to interact with dancing A.I. online especially with the rise of virtual worlds like Second Life? The heart and soul of dance is so inherently human that it's hard to imagine a future where we can interact real-time with robot dance partners. It's similar to classic arguments about robots being able to dream or being capable of creative acts like humans. Some of the greatest science fiction films and stories from Isaac Asimov to Phillip K. Dick have touched on these themes. But this is a future that may be coming soon.

History is a final area where we can see the real-time web having a significant impact. Actually, how we interpret history is the more relevant issue. With greater streaming of content comes greater quantities of historical records to interpret. We'll need scholars and documentarians with distinct viewpoints to share their perspectives on our times. As we moved out of the 20th century, we've seen documentary filmmakers like Ken Burns give us his spin on baseball, World War II, and American Jazz. We've seen photographers like Robert Frank give us his vision of a mournful, haunted America in his book "The Americans." History is often described as the narratives of those who wrote it. Our street dance history will be no different.

But one difference with the real-time web is that we all can play a role as those historians. Each one of us can choose to be the next Ken Burns or Robert Frank for our street dance culture. With the constant streaming of video, images, audio, and status update texts; the historical material is available for all of us to make useful for our specific purposes. We don't need to go to the Library of Congress to dig up old records on an event or to hunt down a personal source who has old photographs. We can track our own documentation of our culture. This is very empowering, considering that historical preservation is a hugely debated topic within hip hop culture.

Hopefully, history won't be given less value in our culture with the rise of the real-time web. Our attention span may be drawn to what's happening "right now" versus what happened days or years ago. In a faster paced world, we still need the passage of time to process our memories, feelings, and experiences in order to grow as individuals and a community. Real-time web and streaming technology can't do that for us.

So the rise of the real-time web could mean a more constant collection of personal experiences via media online. Think of it as a "collective consciousness" that's evolving. While it may not immediately change they way we dance, it could affect the way others experience our dance in visual, audio, and text form. Ultimately, it's a tool that we can either choose to use or to relinquish. It may make it harder for any developing underground dance culture to be "underground" as long as someone is documenting it. But it can also open up a culture to new voices who want to participate. With that in mind, the future is truly wide open.

Video Games Inspiring Dance

Can video games inspire dance moves?

Sure, why not? At the very least, it can be an experimental exercise to entertain. The story goes that skaters have played Tony Hawk video games and experimented with different move combinations inside the game world. They'd see cool combos and then try them out in their backyard. As street dancers, we don't have many examples of dance video games. But a few years ago, there was a title called "BBoy" that was released on the Sony Playstation 2 and PSP. The gameplay involved button combinations made on a controller leading to move combinations on screen. Poppers are known for seeking out inspiration in the world around them from robotic toys to aquatic fish to Bugs Bunny doing an Egyptian King Tut pose. We could look at gameplay interfaces as sources of interesting movement.

It wouldn't be surprising if extreme martial arts tricksters looked at the Street Fighter series for crazy kick and jump combos. Street Fighter is a worthwhile movement reference to look at since the postures, jumps, punches, and kicks could be reinterpreted into dance moves for bboys, poppers, and lockers. The challenge is to take these moves out of a fighting context from a game, and then reinvent it with our dance sensibilities. Perhaps it could lead to new types of dynamic moves we've never seen before. If you've ever heard bboys talk about power moves, it's like they're discussing the possibilities of putting a series of windmills, 90s, air flares, and hand hops into different combinations. Poppers could adopt a similar approach if they looked at moving between diverse styles like animation, tutting, waving, and boogaloo.

And what about melding or fusing bboy-inspired moves with popping-inspired moves? When we start looking at moves as isolated units, it's possible to start hybridizing. Yes, it's important to distinguish how these two dances are different from each other. But experimentation can be a free canvas where inquisitive minds are liberated to play. It's possible that a whole new genre of street dance can emerge from this kind of approach.

Video games are often playful as well. Sometimes, it's easy to forget the playfulness of Mario, Luigi, and Pac Man. But game animators have invested their talents in creating unique, personality-driven movements for these characters. We can draw from this playfulness and inject a new sense of fun into our dance.

If anything, video games are a reflection of modern day 21st century culture. They reveal how our visual vocabulary has been influenced by computerized, digitized, animated movement. And it's filtering into our dance sensibilities. Our communication landscape is changing so why can't our dance influences?

Moving Fashion Through Street Dance

Fashion has always been a part of our street dance culture.

Personal appearance is part of the lifestyle for bboys, poppers, lockers, and other street dancers. Whether it's going to the club or battling in a cypher, having a distinctive look is a choice we often make. Fashion may change over the years but it's true that we choose clothing, hats, shoes, and other accessories that can accent our appearance. The Converse sneakers of bboys, the lighter color shirts and hush puppies of poppers, and the striped socks of lockers are commonly seen at our gatherings. 

But can there be a fashion movement within the street dance world that spreads outward? Could we see independent fashion lines creating signature looks for dancers, which are later consumed by a non-dancer population? In the competitive business world of the X Games, we've seen extreme sports athletes become spokesmodels for products - from skateboards to clothing to video games. There are arguments against seeing something like this develop in the street dance world. It's hard to compare extreme sports athletes with dancers when there is actual gear that the athletes are using: skateboards, BMX bikes, helmets, etc. A sponsor can market a skateboard, a bike, or helmet appealing to the fact that you can use the same skateboard as Tony Hawk. Street dancers usually don't have that kind of gear, although we could use specific shoes, knee pads, or elbow pads. In many cases, we also don't have the money to spend on clothing as few of us have the opportunity to make a living from dance. Also, there are valid concerns that sponsors would change the dynamic of our culture. Commerce could change our motivations to dance in the first place. As the old adage goes, money changes everything.

But if we saw some kind of product marketed through dancers, it probably would be fashion. Clothing hangs well on our bodies and we can rock it with style. For teenagers and young adults, fashion is important for self-identity so clothing companies could market to that demographic. Now, this isn't a new development. We've seen many independent clothing lines making a successful business for themselves including Panic 39 and recent lines like Kallusive and The Other Duck. But have these lines been embraced by a demographic outside of the street dance world? That's a tougher call. 

The advantage of a fashion movement from our world is that there would be more financial gain for sponsored dancers. Michael Jordan has built a successful shoe line of Air Jordans with Nike, powered by his career and personality. Yes, he is an athlete and that term may not be preferred by some to be used for dancers. But dancers can have magnetic personalities. They can be influential cultural role models. And they can spark trends world-wide as part of their artistic statement. 

For dancers, perhaps we need a stronger media presence to promote our future products. Compared to extreme sports athletes, our lifestyles are not as visible on the pop culture radar. It's possible that many folks have only recently gotten a taste of the our world through dance reality-shows on TV. As street dancers become more visible in the public spotlight, we'll have more opportunities to be seen, to be emulated, and to be influential voices. Perhaps we don't need to depend on TV shows or films for exposure. We're capable of portraying ourselves and building a fanbase via Youtube and other social media networking. If there are kids in Iceland who are emulating the dance moves of the Jabbawockeez and Kaba Modern, they might even want to dress like them too. Maybe they'd want the hair styles of Quest Crew. Or the eclectic fashion sense of Fanny Pak (which seems in progress as they're marketing a line to a dedicated fanbase). But it also would be great to see fashion trends being popularized by street dancers independent of these TV shows. Perhaps we're seeing this with the skinny jeans of the jerking movement from LA. 

Now, this doesn't mean that dancers must be fashionable or that fashion is a necessary part of being a dancer. Far from it. This is just a hypothetical look at a commercial business venture that could benefit street dancers in the future. Sure, there have been many experiments over time and some have failed. But what different decisions do we need to make now to market ourselves if we choose to be part of a fashion movement? Is it a do-it-yourself aesthetic where we continue to create our own clothing lines and accessories and then spread them virally around the world? Or do we partner with companies outside of our culture to create a commercial product? Do we need to increase our media presence in the expanding world of the Internet, television, film, and mobile media technology? 

It's going to be amazing to see what sparks the next stage of this revolution. What we'll likely see is a handful of saavy innovators who bring the right circumstances and people together to create a breakthrough. And it will be done with style.

The Entertainment Value Effect

In the past few years, we've seen TV shows like Fox's "So You Think You Can Dance" and MTV's "America's Best Dance Crew" bring greater awareness to the street dance world. For many audience members who aren't directly involved with this culture, these shows were their first exposure to it. Along with these shows, there's also been a rise of online blogging and vlogging commenting on these shows and the dancers who perform on them.

It seems that many critiques/commentaries on these shows are based on the entertainment value of individual dancers or crews' performances. After all, they're performing on a TV show that is designed to entertain a broad audience. But is there a detrimental effect to this push for "entertainment value" on our dance culture? If online critics are judging street dancers based on how they "entertained" week by week but not on foundation, technique, musicality, etc., is that possibly leading an uninformed audience to see these styles in a superficial light? Or is "entertainment value" a broad enough term so that foundation, technique, musicality and other dance criteria should be considered part of it?

This is a tough call because everyone who is viewing, commenting, and participating in the dialogue around these media shows come from different backgrounds and have different standards. Perhaps that's why it's easier to judge a dancer or crew based on how they entertained an audience with a particular routine.

For street dancers, it's a hard game to enter. Every street dancer must know that if they compete on SYTYCD or ABDC, that it's not the same as entering a battle in a cypher or a judged contest. It's a whole different animal. You're participating on a televised show that means to entertain with weekly drama, narrative, and empathetic characters. For a TV show producer, the dancers are the cast. And they have to be compelling enough to bring in the ratings. Personality, charisma, on-screen presence, and an engaging story are part of this package. You are becoming part of a brand marketed through multiplatform media outlets.

We know that street dancers who participate in these shows can benefit from them. Opportunities to teach, perform, tour, become spokesmodels, and to build a following of fans are possible. But it will also become increasingly important for these street dancers to promote education and appreciation of their styles to a new audience. These dancers will become the public face of popping, bboying, locking, waacking, and other styles to the uninformed world. These future role models have the influence to point a new generation of dancers to the rich technique, history, and creativity of street styles. Their voices will carry greater weight for a new generation rather than online critics.

After all, a TV show will come to an end. But dancers live on. We danced before these TV shows existed and will continue to dance after they're gone. And it's up to us to educate and invest in a new, younger generation that is falling in love with these styles right now. "Entertainment value" isn't necessarily detrimental and it can be a good catalyst to bringing new dancers into the culture. But it's more important to keep conversing, teaching, and sharing about our styles in as many effective ways as possible. The spirit of these dances live on inside of us, and the stories of how they're transforming our lives will always be more influential than entertainment.

New Generation: Too Much, Too Fast?

Right now, there seems to be a group of street dancers within the new generation who are learning many styles at one time. Is this a case of too much, too fast? Or is it ADD? Often, these young men and women have only been dancing for a year or less. 

This isn't a new phenomenon. It's always happened even before our street dance world was complicated by online video. We always had some folks who would occasionally visit practice sessions, battles, and classes. They'd try a little popping, then a little locking, and maybe even a bit of bboying. They might consider their dance pursuits as a casual exercise and then later drop out. Understandly, we all face challenges outside of dance from our work, school, finances, relationships, etc. It's not easy to embrace street dance as a lifestyle. 

Today, it's easy to see how one might want to embrace several styles at once. Popping, locking, bboying, and whaacking are all developed styles that have been around for 30+ years or so. Foundation, vocabulary, and diverse sensibilities have evolved over time. If we're new to the street dance world, we'd be amazed by the skill level, creativity, and artistic expression going on within these styles. Anyone would want to try them as soon as possible!

But there are pitfalls if you want to advance in your training. If you embrace many styles without a focus, you could become a dilettante. You could be a practician of many styles but a master of none. There's only so much time in one day. And you may never get to relish the joy of failing and growing past your failures as you mature in one style. In his book "Outliers," Malcolm Gladwell discusses the theory of 10,000 hours of practicing a craft. He analyzed a few case studies and they all seemed to have this in common. Working at your craft at an average of around 10,000 hours led to success within that field. Can you imagine devoting yourself to 10,000 hours of bboying? Or popping? Or locking? An average 40-hour per week job multiplied by 52 weeks in a year equals 2,080 hours. A hypothetical approximation would be taking bboying as a job for around 5 years if it were a 40 hour per week job!

Of course, these are just numbers. But it can provide some context. And context is an aspect that could get lost in this current new generation of dancers. Information travels faster. So dance tutorials, performance videos, and the spread of dance knowledge are communicated often through online video. Although the idea of dance video education is promising, it would be lacking without actual in-person training from an established, knowledgeable mentor. Will this new generation fall into laziness or convenience by watching videos and not seeking out established mentors who can teach them? Will the current economic crisis lead us to cut back on attending dance classes? After all, viewing a tutorial on Youtube is free.

Youth can bring energy and fresh eyes to the table. Innovation can happen with this wave. But innovation can also happen with artists who study the masters, learn the rules, and then break the rules in a pioneering spirit. We see this historical precedent with painters such as Leonardo da Vinci, Claude Monet, and Pablo Picasso. The same can be said for dancers. Just look at Martha Graham. 

Perhaps the relevant question is who will guide this new generation? Who will take the responsibility to teach, educate, and uplift young minds in this ongoing dance journey? As you're reading this, is there something stirring inside of you to reach out to the future generation? If so, please don't ignore that small, quiet voice. 

Creating A New Vocabulary

What does it take to create a new dance? 

Can we add new movements to a current style? 

We're at the end of the first decade of the 21st century. And street dance is blossoming around the world. Instead of looking at current styles, let's explore how one can approach innovating with dance. These are just possibilities but they're intriguing to entertain.

First, what kind of music inspires you? Is there a genre that fires up your soul to passionately move? History has shown that new dances have sprung from changing musical cultures. The instrumentation, rhythms, and progressions of a burgeoning musical genre are the lifeblood for our bodies to move in new ways. We illustrate that music with our hands, feet, head, core, and every inch of our being.

Next, inspiration can be found in the world around us - in nature, in cities, even our homes. As a new music genre motivates us, we can see movement patterns and rhythms from our surroundings that we can make our own. Look at primal creatures moving in the wild. Or construction machinery in your neighborhood. Or how the video frames jerk when you scrub through a Quicktime movie on your laptop.

Bringing in other artistic forms can inspire new directions. What if we took the hybrid approach? Fusing spoken word with popping. Bring a narrative filmmaking approach to choreography. Or create musical rhythms and sounds from our body movements. The perspectives of other non-dance artists can give us new eyes for our dance. We might even create a new form of performance art. 

There seems to be a need to evolve in all of us. We want to grow. We want to become something more than we are. And our artistic journey is intertwined with this desire. To stay frozen in time and spirit seems antithetical to the human experience. We're explorers at heart. We love to discover and to delight in the discovery of something new.

So creating seems wired in our nature. As we preserve and appreciate what has been done before us, how do we unleash this deep need to create? Perhaps it will be found when we're able to speak out in our own artistic voices to the world. As artists, we can choose not to create or speak alone. When we express what's deep inside of us and share that with another, something magical happens. It's very real and tangible. We just might be responding to everything that we've been taking in. And somewhere in this back-and-forth dialogue, a new dance vocabulary or art form can be born.

Remembering "Place" on 9/11

Can a dance piece evoke memories of a physical place?

Common themes in pieces involve cultural ideas, characters, or narratives. Why not a physical location? What if the piece was performed at the place it was designed to evoke?

Today is September 11. We remember the attacks on American soil eight years ago. Artistic pieces themed on these events have sought meaning, healing, and understanding for those who suffered losses. New York is a renewed community years after 9/11. Thousands of stories have been told about the people. It's a place whose larger story will continue to unfold.

Why not tell this story through dance? After all, dance can powerfully remind us of the past in visual metaphors. It can create a picture to one voice or many voices that are involved in the story to be told. Perhaps easier than narrative film, dance can function on a symbolic level that is a form of visual poetry. Whether simple or complex, it moves us.

Today, we communicate faster and ingest information at rapid rates, but the idea of "place" should still have meaning for us. Our memories are often tied to a place: home, school, work, a vacation spot. When the artifacts of a place have disappeared with time - the physical stuff, buildings, trees, structures - we can still remember it vividly in the present through a performed art form like dance. Photographs capture a moment, but dance lets us see that moment in a poetic moving image.

Remembering, reflecting, and recalling are all part of healing. Even as our wounds heal with time, we need to find ways to deal with our memories. They allow us to give meaning to places that we've visited and what they mean to us today.

Connection & Reflection: Inspired by Culture Shock LA's iConnect Show

Last Friday night, Culture Shock LA's 2009-2010 team performed a second rendition of their annual benefit show "iConnect" at the Ford Amphitheatre in Hollywood. Great venue, energetic and entertaining show.

And a topical theme for our times. In a fast-paced technological world, is it harder for us to truly connect with other people? When was the last time we had a meaningful face-to-face conversation with another person? And when have we made time to process all the information and experiences that we encounter daily?

Culture Shock's show hit on some of these themes, especially the need for us to stay connected in meaningful ways to our family, friends, and loved ones. It is a human need to be connected. But it also takes a lot of ourselves to invest in relationships. Social networking technology may make it easier to be casually "in the know" of a friend's life, but it doesn't replace a face-to-face meeting or a phone call.

Are we losing the art of conversation? Some of the deepest joys in life come from conversations that transform and challenge us. They could be with teachers, colleagues, family members, or even acquaintances. There's something rhythmic and probing about in-person conversation that can't be replaced by IMs, text messages, or status updates.

So if we need to nurture our connections to others, what about reflection? The Internet, social networking, and mobile technology have brought the digital world to our fingertips. We're bombarded by so many images, signals, ideas, and parcels of information. It can be overwhelming. Where do we start? When do we end? If we kept consuming this avalanche of info without taking time to process, we'd be drowning in digital noise. Sometimes, unplugging is the best medicine. Walking away from that computer. Putting down the handheld device for another time. Taking a hike instead of checking Facebook status updates.

As humans, we need to reflect. We need time to search for and assign meaning to our experiences. That's how we deal with our memories. Events don't simply just happen to us as much as we perceive those events with our own lens. We give these events purpose and understanding, which adds to our ongoing narrative in our lives.

For an artist, reflection is key. It brings rest and refreshment to creative impulses that come from our daily existence. With reflection, we interpret, we decipher, we justify. For dancers, it's crucial because our art is based in emotion and connection with music. How we connect with musical rhythms can be affected by our mental and emotional well-being. When we reflect, we heal and persevere. We are molding the material which we'll later tell in our stories.

Actually, reflection sounds like a good thing to do right now. 'Til next time.

Financing Dance Education Worldwide

Imagine if street dancers worldwide could meet up more frequently.

If we're lucky, we may save up enough money to travel once every year or few years to a jam in a foreign country. Many active street dancers are in their teens or early to mid twenties. If they're in school or working, it's hard to have the finances to travel regardless of the current global economy.

So very few of us are lucky enough to travel. Oh, but it would be amazing if this wasn't the case - if more street dancers could meet up, session, and learn from each other. Think of the ideas that would be exchanged. Imagine the level of competition increasing in contests. And picture the wildly creative routines that they'd put together.

How do we make this happen? Do we need a scholarship program to get things started? If there were grants or funds allocated for students who apply, maybe this is a beginning. But the arts are often neglected in state and federal education budgets. Could there be private corporations sponsoring these grants? 

Micro-financing is an interesting concept. It's largely unexplored with dance education. There are examples of private organizations micro-financing small businesses in Third World countries. And some musicians have albums fully funded by donations from their fanbase. So what if donations were collected for a fund supporting dance teachers who teach worldwide? It's an uphill struggle but the possible outcome on the students would be tremendous. If a master popper was funded to teach kids in a Third World country, this might be the best opportunity for these youth to get a dance education. They might not have that chance elsewhere.

Right now, ideas and impressions about street dance styles are transmitted through online videos. This isn't the only way, but it's a popular method since it's accessible. But with the bigger picture in mind, there are millions of young men, women, and children who don't have access to the Internet. In that case, can we justify that dance education can benefit their lives? There are several non-profit organizations providing medical/dental health to people in need as well as basic education support for their children: UNICEF, Invisible Children, etc. Can art education be included in this movement? 

That's definitely part of a larger discussion. Art can empower a young person and give them a voice for their identity. It speaks to their soul. It can heal and bring understanding. We just need a place to start this discussion and move forward. 

Every Moment is a New Opportunity

One thing I've learned from freestyling is that every moment is a chance for a new opportunity.

That's probably one of the simplest life lessons that's hard to grasp. Admittedly, it's hard to get through a day with a clear head when you have so many things on your mind: school, work, finances, relationships. The list goes on. Our heads can get cluttered with things that we need to do and regrets about things we should've done. If you thought morning traffic was congested, we can take a look inside our heads and find an even more tangled landscape.

But how different would it be if we looked at life as a stream of moments waiting to be fully lived? If every moment is a chance for something new, a chance to bring change, then our daily experiences might be different.

I have to thank an OG popper Phantasm, from Mysterious Poppers, for giving me a great analogy when it comes to freestyle dance, and possibly life:

"Dancing is like surfing. You don't control the wave. You ride it. With music, ride it like a wave. Let it move through you and take you to new places."

These were his words, more or less paraphrased. I think Phantasm opened up a new window to dance for me as well as an attitude for life. Letting music guide me in dance freed me from self-consciousness, over-thinking, and worrying about what comes next. I used to get stuck in a moment.

Don't we all feel like that sometimes? Today is passing by before our eyes but we're mentally somewhere else - maybe yesterday, maybe in a memory from years ago. But if I can let go of the past and embrace the now, I can be more available and receptive to discovering something transforming in the present. It might even open up my creativity because I'm more willing to take a risk in the moment.

Really every moment that passes is a chance to make a different choice. We don't have to make the same repetitious choice especially if it leads to a life less fulfilling. 

That's amazing to comprehend. Today can be different from yesterday. It sounds familiar, but when we act on it...wow.

Preserving History

Why is history important? 

We may feel it's a burden to remember the past, especially when there's something new and exciting occupying us in the present. For poppers, lockers, bboys and other street dancers, knowing history is an important part of our journey.

After all, how can we know where we'll go if we don't know where we've been?

There was a time when it was difficult to study street dance and hip hop culture without having first-person access to the original generation of dancers, MCs, DJs, and graffiti writers. A true student would seek, pursue, and find these teachers, images, recordings, and personal stories. Now, information is more readily available through the Internet and social networking technology. Forums, blogs, Facebook pages, and Youtube channels are hot spots for us to find bits and pieces of hip hop culture and history.

Studying history - knowing and understanding it - builds a foundation from which we can grow and explore further. It shapes our personal and cultural identities. It gives us a connection to a larger story that was written before us. It's humbling to embrace history because it reveals how we are part of a bigger narrative that involves many others. When we learn about World War II in European History class, we understand we're living the legacy of that global conflict today. Our social and political environments have been formed by the aftermath of that war. And how we see ourselves as a nation and as a people is marked by this understanding of history.

Is this applicable to street dance and hip hop culture? Absolutely. Social history and peoples' lives were intertwined with the cultural birth of hip hop and the dances we celebrate today. We're adding to the larger narrative by participating as poppers, lockers, and bboys. Artistically, we bring fresh perspectives to the dance as well as our personal identities and sensibilities. We're laying the foundation for the next generation to experience a dance journey.

Isn't it amazing that we're part of history-making right now?