Str8jacket Blog
Bay Area hip-hop dance groups fight for Black and Asian solidarity
A year after George Floyd’s murder, local hip-hop dancers look back on a year of uneven but hard-fought progress toward racial justice.
Cross post from Date Book, written by Erin Woo
Lindsay Eklund and others dance in Rocko Luciano’s choreography class in the Zentrum Motors parking lot on Seventh Street in West Oakland.
Photo: Scott Strazzante / The Chronicle
When George Floyd was murdered, the dancers at Full Out Studios didn’t want to stay silent.
The Oakland dance studio formed an informal board to discuss their options, sparked by a “base-level decent human reaction of being disgusted” by Floyd’s killing, said Full Out co-founder Rocko Luciano. But the staff — multiracial and led by three Asian American studio owners — was anxious about saying the wrong thing. For a few days, they waited to see if other studios would speak out, but they saw nothing on social media.
Four days later, Full Out posted a statement of solidarity with the Black community on Instagram. And then, Luciano said, “we put our money where our mouth was.”
Full Out raised more than $2,200 for organizations including Hip Hop for Change and the Black Lives Matter Global Network, hosted workshops to highlight Black dancers, and revised its policies to include specific anti-racism clauses. All this while struggling to stay open as a small business during a crippling pandemic and grappling with its position as an Asian-led group practicing an art form deeply rooted in African culture.
Full Out Studios’ Rocko Luciano teaches a choreography class in the parking lot next door.
Photo: Scott Strazzante / The Chronicle
In the year since Floyd’s murder, Full Out hasn’t been the only Bay Area dance organization reckoning with issues of race and appropriation. Teams and studios across the country have pledged to honor the history of hip-hop, make their own practices more inclusive and use their platforms to support Black-led community organizations. The resulting change has been hard-fought, uneven at times and necessary, dancers say.
“Before we start posting any black squares or videos, we need to start learning what we’re doing first, because that’s where the respect comes from,” said JC Caoile, the executive director and artistic director of Str8jacket, a predominantly Asian hip-hop team based in San Mateo.
Hip-hop emerged in the 1970s, created by Black and Latinx youth in a postindustrial Bronx scarred by gang violence and a cratering economy. It has five pillars, according to the New York hip-hop collective Zulu Nation: DJing, breaking, MCing, graffiti and knowledge.
But even from the beginning, Asian martial arts and kung fu movies helped influence break-dancing styles, said Khafre Jay, founder of Hip Hop for Change, an Oakland-based nonprofit that uses hip-hop education to advocate for social justice causes.
Nearly two decades later, Asian American college students who grew up steeped in hip-hop culture began forming collegiate dance teams tied to Asian cultural organizations at their schools. Then the success of groups like the Jabbawockeez, which originated in the Bay Area and won the first season of “America’s Best Dance Crew” in 2008, brought Asian hip-hop dancers to mainstream attention.
“The spirit of it was connected to providing a space where people have a sense of belonging, where people who grew up in hip-hop culture can come together and express that love,” said Arnel Calvario, who started Kaba Modern, the first of the groups, as a freshman at UC Irvine in 1992.
But as mostly Asian hip-hop groups sprouted up across the University of California system and beyond, dancers started using the now-disavowed term “urban dance,” and the ties to hip-hop’s cultural roots began to fray. “We were all of these Asian people doing hip-hop and there were no Black people,” said Sammay Dizon, who danced on UC Berkeley’s Main Stacks team from 2010 through 2014.
In the Bay Area, with Asian American dancers the majority on competitive dance teams, Black dancers reported microaggressions ranging from use of racial slurs by Asian dancers to a feeling of tokenization during routines. Those dynamics were compounded on college campuses like UC Berkeley, where Black students’ share of the population dropped from 7.8% of the entering class in 1997 — the last year UC schools were allowed to use race as a criteria in admissions — to 3% in the 2020-21 school year.
“I get uncomfortable because there’s a predominantly Asian community and then sometimes you guys are dancing to rap and hip-hop songs with the N-word in it and it’s not bleeped out,” said UC Berkeley student and Bearettes drill team member Cherie Hughes, a Black dancer who spoke at an October panel discussing anti-Blackness within the Berkeley dance community.
Last summer, the renewed cultural consciousness spurred by the resurgent Black Lives Matter movement cast those tensions into sharp relief. First to go was the term “urban dance,” with team after team posting the same message via social media apologizing for its “harmful racial implications.”
Dancers participate in a pre-pandemic class at Oakland dance studio Full Out.
Photo: Rocko Luciano
Danyel Moulton, a half-Black, half-Japanese dancer from Southern California who emerged as a leader in the dance community’s fight for social justice, led virtual conference calls with hundreds of participants to discuss anti-Black racism within the dance community and outlining concrete ways to improve.
In August, Dizon’s former Berkeley team, Main Stacks, issued a statement acknowledging that “after listening to previous members’ experiences, we realize that Main Stacks has not been a place where all BIPOC (Black, Indigenous and people of color) individuals have felt welcomed, included, and heard.”
The team pledged to increase its hip-hop education, require leadership to take an implicit bias test and include a zero-tolerance clause against racial bigotry in its contract. Over the summer, team members raised $855 for the Black Organizing Project, an Oakland grassroots community organization, through a series of workshops featuring Black artists. They also helped organize the October panel on anti-Blackness in the Berkeley dance community.
Full Out hosted classes to raise money for national and Bay Area Black activist organizations including the Black Trans Protesters Emergency Fund and So Oakland LLC. Internally, the studio educated its training team on the history and fundamentals of hip-hop and revamped its internal contract to include more specific clauses condemning racism and detailing a complaint and discipline procedure for future instances of harassment or discrimination.
Black staff members at Full Out said they’re proud of the work that the studio is doing.
“They are super supportive, and they have so many resources on their website,” said Raquel Tansier, a Black dancer who began teaching at Full Out last summer after leaving two other local dance studios because they weren’t showing support for Black Lives Matter.
Arayah Fleming, another Black teacher at Full Out, said the support the studio has shown her and other Black staff members has given her the confidence to be more assertive with friends in other aspects of her life. “I got used to non-Black POC not saying anything, but not here,” said Fleming. She and Tansier are two of seven Black leaders at the studio, making up roughly a fifth of the staff.
Str8jacket dancers Miky Chau, Janna Aspidov, Namaad Jackson and Lexi Nutkiewicz at Westfield Valley Fair for the mall’s Lunar New Year Celebration on Jan. 18, 2020.
Photo: Jho Vilar
Str8jacket, which has long incorporated education on the history of hip-hop into its curriculum, added an hour of conversation before its practices to discuss current events and social issues in the dance community, and raised $900 for organizations supporting Black Lives Matter over the past year.
Teams also united for big events. In August, dozens of organizations partnered with the 2020 Project, an Asian American voter mobilization organization, to host Dance to the Polls, a virtual dance workshop series to get out the vote and share dance community perspectives from Asian and Black performers. In November, Main Stacks turned Prelude NorCal, its annual national dance competition, into a two-day speaker series “to investigate the issue of cultural appropriation of hip-hop dance as a Black cultural art form, and our privilege as non-Black dancers.” And earlier this year, Main Stacks and Str8jacket were two of many sponsors of the Invitation, an event to discuss ongoing social issues within the community.
Hip Hop for Change founder Khafre Jay and Hip Hop for Change communications director Stephanie Liem.
Photo: Courtesy of Stephanie Liem
Over the past year, activism within the dance community has happened against a backdrop of ongoing police violence against Black Americans and escalating hate crimes, bigotry and violence against Asian Americans.
Outside of the competitive and studio scene, organizations like Hip Hop for Change are working to build solidarity between Black and Asian communities in the Bay Area, partnering with other community groups like the Chinese Progressive Association. They’ve hosted workshops for dance teams and schools to emphasize a history of Black and Asian community organizing as well as “hip-hop as a pathway for solidarity,” said Hip Hop for Change communications director Stephanie Liem.
Full Out is also continuing to host events to make an impact. On Friday, May 28, for instance, the studio is hosting classes, including one taught by Moulton, to raise money for Compassion in Oakland, a volunteer organization that provides chaperones to seniors in Oakland’s Chinatown.
The efforts show that Bay Area dance teams have sustained their activism, even if Moulton cautions that success stories like these aren’t the norm across every organization. In the 15th month of the pandemic, as many teams haven’t yet held in-person practices or performances, the true test of lasting change will depend on how well their new anti-racist practices translate to a post-COVID world.
“In the next couple months, as more things open up, we’ll see how the wider community has been changing altogether,” said Str8jacket co-director Kristie Lui. “But I think definitely for Str8jacket, we’re forever changed in our mentality.”
Full Out Studios presents “AAPI Fundraiser: Dance for a Cause”: 6, 7:30 and 9 p.m. Friday, May 28. $25 for one class or $60 for all three, with a portion of the proceeds going to Compassion in Oakland. Ciel Creative Space, 935 Carleton St., Berkeley. www.fulloutstudios.com/aapi
About this story
This story was produced in partnership with AAJA-SF Bay Area and Comcast California for Rising with the Tides, a storytelling project aimed at amplifying Asian American Pacific Islander stories and voices. AAJA-SF Bay Area is the local chapter for the Asian American Journalists Association, a nationwide nonprofit educational and professional organization based in San Francisco. www.aajasf.org/rising
Erin Woo
Erin Woo is a Bay Area freelance journalist and the editor in chief of the student-run Stanford Daily newspaper.
Exclusive Q&A with NBC World of Dance’s Str8Jacket
This hip-hop group burst onto the NBC World of Dance stage and spread their message of acceptance with their no-audition policy. Check out Str8Jacket’s division winning routine below and see what they were most nervous about before the Qualifiers in this exclusive Q&A with WOD Magazine.
This is a cross post, original post is from here
This hip-hop group burst onto the NBC World of Dance stage and spread their message of acceptance with their no-audition policy. Check out Str8Jacket’s division winning routine below and see what they were most nervous about before the Qualifiers in this exclusive Q&A with WOD Magazine.
WOD: HOW DID IT FEEL WHEN YOU FOUND OUT YOU’D BE ON SEASON 3?
SJ: A group of us were sitting in a giant van on the way back from a dance competition in LA and our Director, JC, got a phone call. We could only hear what he was saying, not the other end of the line but somehow we figured out it was WOD. Everyone started making frantic eye contact and whispering and JC kept motioning for us to be quiet. We could tell he was trying to contain his excitement. When JC got off the phone, he told us we would be on the show and we all started screaming!
WOD: WHAT STYLE ARE YOU PERFORMING, AND WHY?
SJ: We are performing hip hop. Our team believes that anyone who has the passion and drive can become a dancer. We are a no-audition based team from the Bay Area that keeps our doors open to anyone who wants to learn.
WOD: WHAT ARE YOU MOST EXCITED OR NERVOUS ABOUT BEING ON THE SHOW?
SJ: We are nervous about the outcome of the performance since one of our dancers, Alan Chung, sustained an injury during the filming but he pushed through and kept on going.
WOD: WHY DO YOU THINK DANCE IS IMPORTANT TO THE WORLD?
SJ: Because dance is an art that allows us to connect with people from all over the world regardless of race, language, culture, and background. Dancing also keeps us healthy both mentally and physically.
WOD: WHAT CAUSE IS CLOSE TO YOUR HEARTS?
SJ: We want more people around the world to be aware of and care about sustainability including the environment, agriculture, animal welfare, and more. We are still learning and trying to improve our habits as well.
Megan Feighery
Megan is a writer, animal lover, and coffee enthusiast with a passion for traveling and mystery novels.
Meet Str8jacket from NBC World of Dance Season 3
Str8jacket prides itself on being a no-audition dance crew, accepting anyone who is willing to put the time and effort in to becoming the best they can be. They strongly believe in providing the right tools for dancers and people as long as they have grit, discipline, and a positive attitude and are proactive in teaching the team about various topics in order to gain more skills outside of just dancing.
This is a cross post. Original post can be found here
Str8jacket prides itself on being a no-audition dance crew, accepting anyone who is willing to put the time and effort in to becoming the best they can be. They strongly believe in providing the right tools for dancers and people as long as they have grit, discipline, and a positive attitude and are proactive in teaching the team about various topics in order to gain more skills outside of just dancing. This welcoming approach has paid off as Str8jacket placed second in the 2018 World of Dance Championships and took first at the WOD Bay Area competition. Now they are here to win it all this season and show America that they have what it takes.
Hometown: San Mateo, CA
Members: 14
Ages: 18-30
Style: Hip-Hop
Division: Upper Team
Social: @str8jacket_ / @jc_str8jacket / @alanchung01 / @alisonbmerrill / @andreaguzayy / @darbear / @cat.uray / @_gussi_ / @hikaruurata / @kenbreezy_/ @angryjazzhands / @nattyyy_8 / @nic_not_nick / @stephanieeechen / @timothyxsimon / @jaelyn_koyama51
NBC World of Dance Season 3 begins Tuesday, February 26 at 9/8c with a 2 hour premiere and continues Sunday nights starting March 3. Watch as the best dancers in the world compete for a $1 million prize. Don’t miss exclusive interviews, performances, and more from the definitive source for all things World of Dance.
Elizabeth Spurbeck
Managing Editor
Elizabeth Spurbeck is a dance teacher, writer, and marketing professional who specializes in content + digital marketing and herding preschool-aged ballerinas.
What does the name "Str8jacket" mean? | Kristie Lui
Kicking off Str8jacket's blog series from the perspective of its diverse members. Here is a blog written by Kristie Lui, one of Str8jacket's directors, on where the name Str8jacket came from and what that means to her. Enjoy!
In a way, the intention of naming Str8jacket defines a couple of its core values of being creative and challenging standards. Fun fact! The name was actually originally spelled “straitjacket”, but one of the members at the time suggested using the “8” instead because it quote, unquote “sounded cooler”. So to really sum up the meaning of Str8jacket’s name, it was a way to self-define the team as creative and nonconforming while trying its best to be cool. Haha.
I find myself thinking a lot about the name Str8jacket recenty, especially because I ironically recently started working in the behavioral and mental health field, and in my work we actually discourage using terms that perpetuate the stigmatization of mental health illness and challenges. Of course the name Str8jacket tends to bring some images to mind of a “crazy” person locked up in an asylum. So I made an active choice to look at the name Str8jacket in more literal terms.
Literally, a straitjacket is something that restrains us. Oftentimes, we are much too caught up in our physical restraints i.e. weight, appearances, athleticism, etc, when in fact it is more of the mental restraints that we are really allowing to dictate our lives i.e. stress, fear, etc.
In best practice, it’s important we call out our mental restraints so that we can control them before they control us. Often we shy from our fears; avoiding them altogether, thinking that end result will somehow make us happy. But in my experience, true happiness comes from emotional freedom; knowing you have these mental restraints and recognizing that these feelings of fear, stress, and negative emotions make us as human as the positive ones. Because in truth without fear, we do not feel courage, without stress we do not feel peace, and without emotions -positive or negative, humans are just glorified water bags.
So to me this is what the name “Str8jacket” means. It’s a team that challenges its members' inner most fears and pushes them to face them head-on so that we're able to continually improve everyday. I rep the name Str8jacket with pride because it is my way of saying I am not allowing my mental restraints control the life I wish to lead.
Written by Kristie Lui, Str8jacket Member and Director
Author
Kristie Lui has been a member of Str8jacket since January 2013. Flash forward 4+ years and now the team's administrative manager, Kristie feels she owes so much of her self discovery and life opportunities to Str8jacket.
Aside from dance, Kristie is a passionate advocate for mental health and wellness. She also loves dogs, The Office, noodles, reading non-fiction, and dogs.