People can stand around and share movement with each other, whether it's professional or not. That's how it grows. That's what dance does. It's its own language.
Dance removes you from this construct of the world that you have, and it's a conversation that you're having with people. That's how dance grew, as an art form.
Without that thick skin and a clear vision of what it is you want to do, what it is you know you want to do, it can be really easy to get out here and get lost and swept away in whatever is going on. You really have to be steadfast in the mind for sure.
Dance is an art, so day by day, it's growing and there are new things that can be done.
As dancers, especially for myself, personally, dance constitutes a lot of the conversation that I have. While I'm not a ridiculous wordsmith and I can't clearly verbalize the things that I'm feeling sometimes, I'd say that I can emote how I feel by dancing, 100% of the time, and fearlessly at that.
Dancing makes people feel good whether they're doing it or watching it. It's something I think everybody can relate to whether it's just a simple two-step or a B-boy watching another B-boy go crazy in a circle. It makes you smile and without you even knowing it and it makes you rock to the beat as well.
It's been part of my signature to incorporate my humor with my dance, or even just how I'm feeling. If I'm feeling humorous, which I am, most of the day, I tend to incorporate that. If I'm dancing freestyle, if I feel like I've gotten too serious, while I'm moving, I'll think, "All right, it's time to lighten up a little bit," and I do. It just feels good.
The life of a dancer is not for everyone. You really have to have some thick skin. You really have to know what you're going into and how competitive the field is.
Dancing is still, for me, one of those things that no matter when I do it and it sounds corny and cliche, but time stands still. I could literally dance for hours and hours on end and not realize that I've been dancing for hours and hours on end. In the right setting, I could literally dance all day and have a blast. It seems like one moment to me. There's nothing else going on, and it's the ultimate release.
With dance, it's about education. I'm teaching a lot. I teach the foundations of hip-hop.
Dancing is so physical and so athletic. I think it rings to the boy that is in my soul because you get to run and jump and climb and act as aggressively as you'd like.
I'm a Gatorade athlete because dance is being recognized as a sport now. It always should have been, but now it is. It's very exciting.
I feel like I've always been in love with dance. When I was little kid I would always be the one who would be like, okay let's make up some dance routines.
Being a fan of dance and a dancer, I love my classic dance movies.
As far as the performance aspect, I'm going to be an actor. I still love performing, but I'm moving into more acting.
At some point in time, in the future, people are going to refer to the Step Up films as the films they grew up on. Hopefully, that inspires them to get in dance films that are being made.
Step Up doesn't have to hide anything. These are actually moves that people do. It just so happens that dancers are superheroes. People think there is a lot of wire work or camera tricks, but that's just not the case.
