Longevity Is Rare

Time is a fascinating phenomenon. We can't control it. We can't escape it. And for street dancers, it's a force that has an effect on our bodies as we age and heal. We often think of longevity as how long we can keep dancing. But we can also consider longevity as a needed quality in growing our community. In Los Angeles, there's very little that lasts for long stretches of time in our dance culture. Events come and go. Sessions get hot and then shut down due to lack of finances. Even star dancers have their run in the scene and then move on to other pursuits. Street dance culture has often been a thing that happens, not last in one state for a long time.

So how do we introduce longevity into street dance culture? There are few institutions that persevere and allow us to build upon. Sessions are one of the key aspects of building community. Currently, there are long-running sessions like Homeland and Groove Night that have lasted over 10 years or so in the greater Los Angeles area. Other sessions will pop up here and there, but they tend to last only for a period of time. Fortunately, street dancers are adaptable. We can be thrown out of a venue, but we'll eventually land somewhere else. Or we just dance on the concrete outside.

Longevity would take us in a different direction. If we could build on a communal foundation, it increases the chances for more opportunities to expand on our interests. There are more resources at our disposal. Partnerships form. Crews get together. And a greater degree of organization is likely to happen. When people become more relationally and financially invested in something, they are more likely to build on it in order to evolve. We need longevity in our street dance culture in order to build from the mistakes we've made in the past.

But longevity is hard to nurture. It takes dedication, commitment, and more than a herculean effort from passionate leaders to sacrifice daily. Do we love our dance culture enough that we would bleed for it? Maybe that's the key question that we all have to ask. Longevity may not be prevalent if we're not willing to give more than we take.