Check out the highlights of the Flo family and friends gettin’ down and funky at Retro night, Cal-Skate Milpitas!!! It was a blast to the past with the disco funk music, the feel of polyester and aromas of stale popcorn and sweaty feet. Thanks to all who came out to support wether it was your first time around the rink or you’re an OG on wheels. Stay tuned for the next Roller Disco Gathering……..

This Saturday May 30th 2009

House Dance Cypher 12:45pm – 1:45pm

Performance by “House Of Flo” 1:45pm
delicious beats by DJ Cecil – “the People” party Oakland
Hosted by Mindbodyflo.com for Soul Nubian

Seize the Time! The 9th Annual Malcolm X Jazz Arts Festival!
Saturday, May 30th, 11-7pm, San Antonio Park (18th Ave + Foothill Blvd)
EastSide’s 9th annual Malcolm X Jazz Arts Festival is one of the last free festivals in Oakland, so come and enjoy! One of the most important pieces of our festival are the community of local artists and food vendors.

Another one for the week – didn’t go to deep this week and sorry I was late getting this to everyone. The long memorial day weekend had me on auto pilot Hope you likey!

Right-Click on this link and “Save As” to download to your computer

Mix by Co FLO

Yo Danca Bunda:

Tired Little One (Yoruba Soul Vocal) – Bah Samba
Ye Yo Ma – Kerri Chandler
Come Fetch your Wife – DJ Pepsi feat. Magesh & Ben
Big Theme – Boddhi Satva
Never Figure Out (Stimming Remix) – Rasmus Faber feat. Emily McEwan
Pieces (Pablo’s Piano Trip Mix) – Logicalgroove Feat. Diana Waite
Any Love (Dimitri From Paris Classic Disco Mix) – DJ Meme Orchestra Feat. Rachel Claudio
Butterflies (Mr. V’s 96 Style Dub Mix) – Kaje feat. Sacha Williamson
Portuguese Love (Phil Asher’s Mix) – Bah Samba

The cypher is also known as the circle where dancers get down. Usually its started by the energy of one dancer ripping and a few individuals getting caught up in that energy. Once that dancer harness’s enough FLO and starts going off more people are drawn to this energy and other dancers continue that energy thus creating a cypher. There is a art to creating cyphers and a balance that needs to be maintain between creation and evaporation of cyphers.  Sometimes dancers aren’t really ripping hard, there are many reason they may be tired, music is wack, there just not inspired, just too damn drunk etc. At these times its best to let the cypher evaporate and give the space and energy back to the crowd or the party dies. Once the dj does his job a hot track comes back on the cypher will create itself. Remember its ok to let it go and start over everything comes in cycles especially cyphers.

Then there are other times the when the cypher is hot, the dj is throwing down slamming tracks. The music could be the inspiration or maybe a new dancer shows up and hes hella feeling it and your feeding off their energy . Or even some hot chick  starts watching and gets into it (yes I said it haha)  don’t hate I’m just keeping it real folks. At these times the energy in the cypher is flowing and hot. This is when the most people are attracted to that energy and tend to feed the cypher. Either as a dancer or a spectator shit is happening.  Clapping ,shouting, cheering, flipping, flying,  just moving to the beats. There are many things that can happen in these cyphers, dancers can be feeding off each other building off each others last sets and keep going, and going, and going. This is what we dancers thrive for, those few cyphers in the night that made going out all worth it. Unfortunatley at these times is also when the drunk people decide they want to be dancers. Now I’m all for sharing the floor and everyone dancing having a good time BUT when a group of people are in a hot cypher they are sharing their little piece of the dance floor to clear room for a cypher so they can go off. THIS IS NOT THE TIME TO JUMP IN!! You wouldn’t walk in on a basketball game grab the ball and start playing soccer with it would you? Your ass would get jumped and you know that. SO why the hell would you kill the momentum with your drunk ass and SPILL YOU FREAKING DRINK all over the one space that all these people were dancing on? Then wonder why everyones pissed and about to kill you?? This is basic dance floor ettiquette. With that being said dancers should let other people try to vibe and dance as long as there not being super disruptive of the energy, if there not that good well thats ok cause we were all wack once =)

Heres some easy to follow rules of thumb. Granted theres always exceptions to the rule depending on the energy and whats going on but generally speaking you can be safe with keeping these things in mind.

1. Don’t walk through the cypher and be mad that you get kicked in the face. Do you get mad at the car when you jaywalk and get hit? maybe you do, guess what SUCKS FOR YOU

CLUE if there are a bunch of people spinning and flipping around it might be a good idea to go AROUND THEM.

2. Don’t dance with a drink in the cypher your not that kool trust me your not.

3. Don’t cut someone off,  only dance more then one person at a time if their trying to vibe with you. I mean its one thing for 2 people to vibe off each other its another when your ass decided i’m going ot jump in and kick around like a idiot every time someone else goes in. ITS ANNOYING AS HELL QUIT THE DRUGS FOOL!!! You can easily tell cause if there looking at you all crazy then shit please just STOP!!

4. No half stepping. This is the phenomenon when dancers want to jump in but they just take half a step foward and so does everyone else and no one jumps in. This causes the cypher to shrink especially when everyones in a hot cypher hungry to get in and everyone just keeps half stepping and no ones throwing down big to make the circle grow larger. This is a rookie move so don’t kill your own cypher and complain about it just look behind you if you have room tell the people next to you to step back and BAM you got hella room.

Now i’m sure there are others with different rules and ideas but again there are exceptions to everyone rules. Good example maybe someone walks in and doesn’t realize they did that cause that happens. They bump into someone dancing but both people are kool and suddenly there dancing together and everyone one starts feeling it and cheering. Shit happens  its about energy in a cypher your usually not talking and discussing things, its just happening. So be aware and be kool. That goes for dancers and everyone else. We all trying to have fun and listen to some good music.

peace

ODie

Co Flo’s Track of the Week: Never Figure Out (Stimming Remix) – Rasmus Faber feat. Emily McEwan
This track is a winnnnnnarrr! This is one of those tracks that catches everybody’s attention. I heard this track on the Carlos Mena’s podcast and quickly picked it up. First time I played it @ Studio 50 FLO – there was a few of the FLO-ology family hanging out just practicing and everyone was like….damn what song is this. Thats how you know its good when every dancer in the room wants to know the name, artist and mix version! I’ll let the track speak for it self – go get it!

Here is the traxsource link for you to listen and check it out, make sure if your feelin’ it you buy it and support the beautiful music that these artist and putting out for us: http://www.traxsource.com/index.php?act=show&fc=tpage&cr=titles&cv=33688

From Traxsource:

“Keeping the releases flowing fast and furiously, May 11th marks the release of Rasmus Faber’s next single ‘Never Figure Out’ from his stunning debut album ‘Where We Belong’…

… – a sublime collection of melodic dance, edged with deep-house and upfront pop.

The single see’s a delightful collaboration with long term Rasmus Faber vocalist Emily McEwan (Ever After & Are You Ready) as Farplane are delighted to welcome debut remixes to the label from Stimming and fellow Swede Alf Tumble.

Stimming hails from Hamburg, Germany and is one of dance music’s most innovative producers right about now, having delivered stunning work for top labels such as Buzzin Fly & Freerange. He definitely doesn’t disappoint with his remixes of ‘Never Figure Out’. With his trade mark skips and intricate programming, Stimming takes you on an epic adventure of the deepest kind.

Alf Tumble’s Re-Dress chops and warps the vocal into a very pure electronic track complete with a superb breakdown to send the floor into complete euphoria. Alf, who is one half of the splendid Swedish outfits SUMO & Bangana is now producing his own solo material and gives us a real taste of what we have to look forward to with this remix.

Of course no Farplane release would be complete without another superb rework from the main man himself Rasmus Faber and yet again he comes up trumps with a dramatic main room filler that is set to be a huge favourite with discerning DJ’s across the global dancefloor, alongside the quirky and chilled-out original album edit.
This is one not to be missed!!!!”

Here’s a collection of footage of Tsunami gettin’ down in Los Angeles, New York, Amsterdam and Houston. Enjoy!

The first clip was a practice spot in SoCal – Youth Aflame, just playing with some footwork and having fun. Second Clip was a practice spot in NYC, this was a time I was diving into the vocabulary of bboying/bgirling yet I still just preferred to get loose and let the music take me where it needed me to be. The following couple of clips is me teaching a Culture Shock NYC class. Getting beginning/intermediate students to get the feel for some floor work. There are a couple bits of footage from the 30-day tour in Holland for a show called “BREAK! AN URBAN FUNK SPECTACULAR”…. A show I performed with Ivan- the Urban Action Figure, Angel Feliciano (The Movement -NYC), Crazy C (Backyard Funk – Florida), Locking ‘Q’ (Japan/NYC female popper & locker), Anointed S (Beatbox Prince -NYC) to name a few
The last clip is from BBoy Hodown, house dance preliminaries…a night I was beyond “feelin’ it”!!!!

Music credit: Quantic “Not So Blue”

FEATURED EVENT

Retro Night – Public Session at Cal-Skate Milpitas
Wednesday May 27th 7:30-10:00pm (All Ages)

Cal-Skate is located at 980 Los Coches Street, Milpitas
Admin: $6.50   Skate/Blade Rental:$3.00
Bring your own skates or rent

70’s/early 80’s attire is preferred!!

From Jon Chu comes what looks to be the dancer’s version of “Heroes” – titled LXD “The Legion of Extraordinary Dancers”. Although the series real Heroes has a crap story line, horrible acting and has been running for way too many seasons (just my opinion don’t get mad at me lol). This clever play on the amazing abilities that Dancers’ as a whole possess is dope! This trailer is a lead in to an all new original online series (now-a-days we call webisodes) – in which I can only imagine will have some of the dopest footage of urban social dance as we know it today. You know there will be some dope choreo, a lot of poppin’ and def some crazy bboy acrobatics. I am keeping my hopes alive that Mr. Chu will have some house dancing and make me feel good about my own amazing abilities … hahaha Check out the video!

http://thelxd.com

Where it all started! Best believe that! Tell me how many “grooves” you see in this vid that has a name or style in today’s time. This is where we all got it from, through generations of evolution and music progression – we see what is today’s Locking, Popping, House, and traditional Hip Hop movement/foundation. The next step is to start picking apart Soul Train and digging deeper on to what influenced the groove of the Soul Train dancers. Enjoy……

I’m always watching K’ Dope’s channel! He is always showing us what goes on in the daily life, in the studio, of Kenny Dope. This clip among many others is HOT! To watch more of his videos click on the little “Shows” button in the top right and peep game.