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?