Detroit Street Dance Series (DSDS)

One of the key lessons I learned while working at Breakthrough Urban Ministry in the West Side of Chicago is that to understand a culture, you've got to know the people. People make the community who make the culture of that community. For this reason, I traveled to Detroit as often as I could to meet and dance with members of the Detroit street dance community. I wanted to know what made Detroit unique. What I found was that the love the dancers have for their city, their craft, and their community is what makes Detroit unique.

  

My entry into the community really started at Motor City Street Dance Academy (MCSDA), a studio in the Southwest side of Detroit started by MavOne. I attended bi-weekly house sessions hosted by Trish, a dope female dancer who worked with MCSDA. Through these open house sessions, I met other incredible dancers including Charnell, Desmond, Gehrik, Kafani, Marcus, Mike, Sarah, Stringz, William, and many more. I also met talented DJs like DJ Shane T and DJ Legitimategroove (aka Yukiko). Dancing and learning with this group was incredible, but my favorite part was always when we were able to grab food together afterwards. Sitting down with people and exchanging stories and viewpoints really helped to bring the connection we made while dancing to another level. 

Eating at the Yemen Cafe after a house session, October 2018.

From the house sessions, I began to attend events throughout the year including cyphers at Motor City Wine and Marble Bar, Standing-O's B-day Bash, Forever Fly All-Styles Cypher and Showcase, Detroit Diggs Deeper, and Body Dissolve House Cypher Battle. Through each of these events, I met other incredible dancers from the Detroit house, jit, breaking, and krump communities. 

This semester, I decided to interview a few leaders from the Detroit street dance community for a class assignment. These individuals stood out to me because they were native Detroiters who are invested in educating the next generation of dancers. Not only were they exceptional individuals, they are supportive of one another's work and collaborate to push the Detroit dance culture forward. By no means is this group exclusive. There are many other leaders I want to interview but haven't gotten around to, and I'm sure there are numerous people in the community that are doing incredible work that I don't even know about. However, my goal for this assignment was simply to listen to each person's stories and share them so that others can hopefully be inspired by their lives, too. 

Performers from Detroit Diggs Deeper event hosted by Renegade

Going into this project, I acknowledge that I am a guest in the Detroit dance community and a guest in hip hop in general. While I have dedicated my professional and academic dance career to practicing, researching, and teaching various street dance forms, I acknowledge that I am still a “guest” in hip hop culture because I did not grow up in the context in which hip hop was born. Hip hop and street dance forms were created by disenfranchised youth from Black and Latinx communities. These dances were a rebellion and innovative response to systematic racism they faced and continue to face in housing, employment, policing, and more. As a Taiwanese American with immigrant parents, my experience with racism in America is very different from my Black and Latinx counterparts. I'm definitely still on a journey to discover my role in the greater hip hop community. However, in the meantime, I strive to be an ally with my Black and Brown brothers and sisters by using whatever platforms I'm given to elevate their voices and messages. This blog platform is just another extension of this partnership. Furthermore, I hope to continue this partnership through my MFA thesis project and beyond. 

So, without further ado, please enjoy the "Detroit Street Dance Series (DSDS)", interviews with leaders from the Detroit street dance community. 

Quick Link:

DSDS: Interview with Mary "Bgirl Mama" Mar Ra-Asheed

DSDS: Interview with Haleem "Stringz" Rasul

DSDS: Interview with Michael Smith

DSDS: Interview with Benito "MavOne" Vasquez