Wednesday, June 2, 2010

"HOMELAND" ... the late 2000s

From 2007-2009, Homeland saw a generational shift and new influences seeping into our community. Bboyin' sessions continued on Tuesday nights. Lockin' experienced a growth spurt. Waackin' had a rebirth in a new generation. And poppin' evolved into new forms inspiring debate among the old school and the new school. Meanwhile, Homeland was acknowledged by street dancers worldwide as a must-see spot in Los Angeles. The community center became a brand name as video-sharing online helped to broaden awareness of it.

Technology blasted the doors open to the hip hop scene in 2005. That year, the debut of Youtube was a turning point for us. No other visual technology has expanded the awareness of street dance more than online video sharing via Youtube. It's accessible format made it easy to post videos of yourself practicing in your garage, to search for clips of the latest battle, or to study your dance idols by mimicking their moves. Suddenly, you didn't need to spend days and weeks scouring for precious video footage of Popin' Pete, OG Skeeter Rabbit, or Flattop. All you had to do was type their name in Youtube's search engine and click your mouse. It changed everything. Anyone, anywhere with a computer and an Internet connection could become exposed to these dance styles.

Homeland experienced a generational shift with new faces entering from the collegiate choreo hip hop scene in 2007-2008. Many college students came from UC Irvine, CSU Fullerton, and CSU Long Beach. Many of them were also of Asian-American or Pacific Islander background, suggesting the growing movement of these demographic groups in hip hop. This was different from the earlier new school in the early-mid 2000s, who came from various backgrounds. But this late 2000s group would then set the stage for a more unified community in Homeland.

One crucial step in Homeland's community growth was the start of regular weekly classes in lockin' and waackin' taught by Tiffany "Jimini" Bong and Donna "Sunny D-lock" Arrogante. Dance education became synonymous with Homeland. These classes helped to attract the new generation emerging from the college scene. It made Homeland more accessible to a newcomer who wasn't used to learning in an open session environment. It also made many folks less intimidated to visit Homeland. Previously, some may have Homeland intimidating not because of safety issues but because there were so many high level dancers there. A dance class was a safe way to enter the environment. This brought a sense of institutional organization to Homeland's weekly sessions, which previously only had open session learning.

With these structured classes, there was a larger influx of women into Homeland's community. The Monday night sessions had always been diverse, but they were still male-dominated. Historically, the hip hop scene had been populated by more men than women. Now, from 2007 onward, a larger proportion of women at Homeland changed the weekly dynamic. Several of these young women, including Tiffany and Donna, took the initiative to build a sense of community at Homeland. We also saw more waackin' being done at Homeland, which can be traced to teachers like Angel and Kumari Suraj influencing Tiffany and Donna who then inspired dancers in their Homeland classes. The sharing of new information only helped to strengthen bonds between fellow dancers. With Iceman's blessing, Homeland became a place where you felt like other people cared about what you were going through. It wasn't just a place where you went to session. When you walked through those doors, you were part of a family. You belonged.

Lockin' also benefited from these structured classes and the influx from the collegiate crowd. Now, there were young lockers training at Homeland and bringing what they learned back into the collegiate scene. The lockin' community had always been smaller compared to poppin' and bboyin' in Los Angeles. But now, this new blood was appearing at contests and putting on showcases. We usually saw lockers from Monteal, Japan, Korea, and Taiwan representing hard at LA contests like How Tha West Was Won. But now, local new school lockers were training to enter contests. At the Homeland Jam 2009, several young lockers from the newly founded Noisy Crickets Crew entered, repping their name which was in honor of their lockin' teacher Tiffany "Jimini" Bong.

Homeland also witnessed the development of rivalries in the poppin' scene, especially between two crews: Machine Gone Funk (MGF) and Funny Bones Crew (FBC). Both crews had showcased their rivalry at Freestyle Session 2007 in the final crew-on-crew contest at the Hollywood Palladium Theatre (except that Funny Bones members were labeled as Team Kleenhouse at this event). This was a significant event in that there was an auditorium filled with bboys and bgirls from around the world watching two poppin' crews go at each other. Through the 2000s, bboyin' and poppin' were usually segregated, but now the poppers were taking center stage. Looking back at the MGF vs Team Kleenhouse contest, you could sense how dancers from both camps would go on to shape the poppin' scene for the next few years. Many of them emerged as the most competitive poppers in local and international contests, including Frantick, Kid Boogie, Bionic Man, J-Smooth, Johnny 5, Jet Li, Lobo, Tronick, and Slim Boogie.

New music influences also began shaping poppin' culture with the arrival of dubstep in the LA scene. Old school funk like Parliament, Zapp & Roger, and Cameo were usually played at contests from the early to mid 2000s. G-funk also was in heavy rotation. We also listened to drum n' bass, electro, and hard house as well, but they rarely got played at high profile contests. Around 2008, the warped out sounds of dubstep started tripping out our eardrums. Local events sponsored by new school heads were responsible for broadening the awareness of dubstep among poppers. Mr. Fantastic's backyard jam in January 2009 and Lobo's Memorial Day Weekend 2009 contest are prime examples of dubstep-filled events that got documented online via Youtube. With these new sounds, poppin' took on a more animated feel with highly detailed body control and isolations. Poppers experimented with combining the dance feel of Electric Boogaloo style with illusional styles like waving, tutting, and animation. Hitting the muscles also became more emphasized as poppers used their chest, legs, neck, various arm muscles and back muscles to create a monster-size hit effect. At Homeland, this evolution in popping was on display every Monday at the open sessions.

The late 2000s was also a time when it seemed possible to get on TV and make some money as a dancer. MTV's America's Best Dance Crew shined as the prime target for every crew to show up and throw their hat into the ring. Fox's So You Think You Can Dance was another target for solo dancers. While it seemed like a far-fetched dream in the early 2000s to make a living as a dancer, the picture had changed by 2008. Perhaps the greater awareness of street dance through Youtube helped to convince TV producers that there was talent out there. At the same time, the new school from the collegiate world were coming into Homeland subconsciously influenced by the new celebrity culture emerging around dancers who appeared on TV and who were making a name for themselves online. Suddenly, you would hear people at Homeland marveling, "Look! There's Robert Muraine. And that's Hiro from We Are Heroes!" In the early to mid 2000s, you would never hear that except maybe for Burst Rock who appeared in a Superbowl Levi's commercial.

So, by the end of the decade, Homeland had seen a generational shift in its community and we had stepped into a golden age of street dance in media. Seeds were being laid for the next decade in terms of a higher level of poppin' and lockin' in the LA scene. Now, the dance community was one of many faces, not a singular face. It had many sides, not just one facet. And while Homeland's communal face changed, it's spirit stayed true to its original conception. It was still a refuge for many dancers who wanted a little more than just a place to session. They wanted a place where they could be inspired, to belong, and to share their love for a living, breathing, organic dance that connected everyone who dared to groove.

Tuesday, June 1, 2010

"HOMELAND" ... the mid 2000s

By 2005, the poppin' and lockin' scene in Los Angeles was evolving. The scene felt like it was getting bigger by 2004, especially with the beginning of some mainstream media exposure through the film You Got Served in 2003. Regardless of what many thought of the film's quality, it did expose the general public to the idea of a "battle." We saw this idea carried over into TV on the UPN channel where Dance 360 pitted dancers from all styles in a face-off. For a while, a lot of folks were chanting like the audience "Head to head! Head to head!" when two dancers battled. Meanwhile, new faces were showing up at Homeland every Monday night. Some stayed. Some left and were never seen again. In the mid 2000s, Homeland's community was experiencing what our dance culture was going through as a whole during that time. It was a period of diverse growth and new personas emerging on the scene.

Style-wise in poppin', the Electric Boogaloo style (also known as boog style) remained dominant worldwide. The EBs continued to teach workshops and judge contests in Europe and Asia. But in LA, we were starting to see the emergence of other styles as represented by new school poppers. As a community, we were branching out. Tutting, waving, and animation were getting more attention. New school dancers who did these styles were getting better at their craft and showcasing them at events. And the term "pop-locking" was being used again by local LA OGs, such as OG Jeckle (from the Northeast LA area), who grew up using that label.We came to hear that "pop-locking" was a term uniquely used by some LA OGs in the 80s. They adopted this label and used it to describe their dance style while other groups may have simply seen it as poppin'.

The Annual Homeland Jam was started in 2005 by BBoy Iceman. And this event helped to bring further attention to poppers of different styles. It was a stage where we saw new poppers coming to their own. The event became a local gathering catering specifically to the poppin' and lockin' communities. Before the Homeland Jam, poppin' and lockin' contests were usually held as sideshows at bboy events. But now, here was one event that supported these dancers. Part of this momentum came from another event called How Tha West Was Won, started by Mr. Smooth and Gerardo in 2003-2004. While HTWWW came beforehand, the Homeland Jam was able to distinguish itself by its homegrown community feel and the perception that it wasn't affiliated with the Electric Boogaloos.

Around this time, two of the most prominent LA-centric poppin' crews began to emerge - Machine Gone Funk (MGF) and Funny Bones Crew (FBC). Both crews had members and some origins in other cities: MGF in the Bay Area and FBC later had some members in Phoenix, Arizona. Both crews would also develop a rivalry that would carry over into the late 2000s. It's worth mentioning both MGF and FBC because they each had members that would be talked about and studied at contests. MGF had Kid Boogie, Bionic Man, J-Smooth, Toshi, Nikodemus, Pharside, Boogaloo Pimp, Kana, Tapu, Jr Boogaloo, Tabo, Kazoo, Tony Styles and more. FBC had Burst Rock, Warlock, Frantick, Tronick, Jet Li, Lobo, Mr. Wizard, Johnny 5, BBoy Don and more. Several of these dancers went to Homeland on a regular basis while gaining notoriety in the competitive circuit. While MGF members based their foundation on the EB style, FBC members were very non-EB and embraced more of the pop-locking feel represented by some LA OGs. Their rivalry would later be seen by a larger audience at Freestyle Session 2007 at the Hollywood Palladium in a crew vs. crew battle, but we'll reserve that for a later installment.

The Homeland Jams in 2006 and 2007 helped to push poppin' and lockin' to a higher level in Los Angeles. The 2006 Homeland Jam was called the Skeeter Rabbit Getdown, in honor of Steven "Skeeter Rabbit" Nicholas who passed away in spring 2006. There was a 1-on-1 poppin' contest that year won by Breeze Lee. We also started to see the lockin' community grow as seen in the lockin' cypher held at this Homeland Jam. The seeds were being laid for the current new school lockin' community in LA. Many Homelanders from the early 2000s remember Gary, aka Lockin' Fossil - a gentle man in his 40s who was also a cancer survivor. He started dancing in 1978 and was often seen teaching lockin' to young kids at Homeland. He would also get down at clubs and the Choreographer's Carnival at the Key Club in Hollywood. Fossil is responsible for teaching some lockin' foundation to two young women who would affectionately be called "Fossil's Angels:" Tiffany "Jimini" Bong and Donna "Sunny D-lock" Arrogante. Both Jimini and Sunny D-lock would be responsible for teaching a new school lockin' generation in the mid to late 2000s via weekly classes at Homeland and through their affiliation with dance troupe Culture Shock Los Angeles. Unfortunately, Fossil wouldn't live to see this legacy. He passed away in 2007 when his cancer came out of remission.

Fossil's passing, along with Skeeter Rabbit and Tapu, hit home for many young new school poppers and lockers. It was the first time when many of us were experiencing real loss and grief over loved ones in the dance community. The frailty of life became a specter on our minds, reminding us that time was precious. Our relationships were valuable. And every opportunity to dance was a divine gift. Homeland reacted to these losses by having memorial cyphers where dancers would gather and celebrate the lives of lost souls. We saw cyphers for Tapu and Jr Boogaloo's son. And the 2007 Homeland Jam premiered a 1-on-1 lockin' contest in memory of Fossil.

The 2007 Homeland Jam also introduced a 2-on-2 poppin' contest that distinguished itself from the usual 1-on-1 contests year round. Most poppers were used to competing solo. But now, they were forced to come up with routines and work with partners. This contest prerequisite helped to push the overall creativity bar for poppers. We saw Pandora and Preying Mantas, Jrock and Funktion, and Frantick and Tronick facing off in a three-way battle at the 2007 Homeland Jam. New ideas were being introduced into what we knew as poppin' beyond what we'd seen from routines from the Electric Boogaloos or Bay Area struttin' groups like Demons of the Mind. A newer breed was interpreting poppin' with reinvigorated energy.

All of this activity was brewing in and around Homeland during the mid 2000s. We were seeing our dance home evolve as the world was changing around us. We'd also just started to share videos of ourselves dancing online via services like putfile.com and a then unheard of site called Youtube. None of us could have known how big of an influence the online world would have on our dance culture in the coming years.