Was talking to a homie Alvyn, wanted to show the rest of you guys some thing in france they call Jazz Rock in japan and england they call it bebop. Alot of the same influences in foot work to house dance but there are differences of course. There might be difference between jazz rock and bebop but I dont fully understand if there is. I believe its all Jazz influenced and they may just call it these other names in these countries =).
Enjoy the clip though! Love the footwork!!
ODie

England Bebop

Japan Bebop

French Jazz Rock

FLO-ology will be performing at the Crucibles “Fire Arts Festival” in Oakland! We will be on site at 8pm and performing @ 10pm. Come check out the Bay Areas great creations from burning man exhibitions to fire tornados!!!
Tickets available online at the crucible website.

http://thecrucible.org/

I hear the question often are there any tall house dancers? lol YES THERE ARE PLENTY. So I figured I post some clips to inspire those who believe height is working against them.
Enjoy!
ODie

Heres a bunch of the french house dancers some the same height as you Alex!
ENJOY

Heres a clip of and OG Caleaf aka Big Leaf I believe hes around 6′5!

Another new clip from Hiro, Tatsuo and Hyrossi. Some reworked counts from their last show and lots of new stuff also.This is a clip from march this year 2009. 10 min routine with 3 guys pheeeww I know that’s a lot of work!!!
ENJOY
ODie

Back again for the second installment. Come learn from one of the OG’s of the house dance scene!!!

2 Workshops one footwork and one skating.

Last workshop sold out in 3 days get on it quick!!

http://sanfrancisco.going.com/briangreen (continue reading…)

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

Just had a phenomenal workshop with big teach  Brian “footwork” Green. House dance workshop and freestyle workshop with some great lessons in accents and picking apart the music 5 hours of damn I suck lol. I always have a very difficult time in his house class and never get any of the chreo but gain so much from fumbling around! Personally I’m a slow learner so I need time to sleep on things and think them over before I can attain new movements. The freestyle class was even more fulfilling it was a great lesson in different sounds and layers of accents that exist in songs and how to first recognize these sounds then to accent them. Then to TRY to show 2 accents with different body parts at the same time. Apparently there are humans that can do 4 to 6 accents at a time =O.  I’m glad most of the heads from our workshops came and got to experience the man we consider our teacher in this culture. I’m sure they got a kick out of watching us fumble around like idiots, lol humility is so good for you.

I guess some may not know that Brian does MANY STYLES yes even hip hop commercial choreography so i figured I’d share this link. Not even his own choreography but its important to always expose yourself to new things and always be learning no matter how good you are. =) another great lesson teach.
ODie

Another clip of Brian popping at Juste Debout 02 for those that didn’t know,  yah he can do that too along with jazz, tap, ballet, house, hiphop, locking, poppping, african, lindy ok my head hurts imma stop now

Hey party people this friday May 1st Marquess Wyatt will be spinning at Temple in SF. Come through get down with the FLO-ology. Its also going to be Jzon’s bday, OG FLO-ology member. We consider Jzon our Yoda, peep him in a cypher and watch him destroy floors and smash the beat and you will know why.

He was one of the founding members of a group called Jedi clan from san jose back in the early 90’s. Jedi clan eventually got so big they had to change their name to Mindtricks because George Lucas sent them a letter that they were about to release episode one and didn’t want any confusion. Mindtricks inspired many of the hiphop dance groups in the west coast today after they started getting marreid having kids they retired. Remaining members Gary Kendell, Randy, Kevin, Joe, and a few others wanted to continue dancing, went on and started Jabbawockees.

This is when Jzon made the decision to dedicate his energy to the house scene and  help build FLO-ology. For those of you new to the scene Jzon was the first and main chreographer for FLO back in when we first started doing shows in 2002 and a played the main role in getting us freestyle dancers on the stage. Personally he taught me how to count and many of his movements I still use today.

After years of paying dues in the dance scene and being invovled with great hiphop and house crews of the west coast Jzon is going to celerbate his Thirty some odd bday( its a question cause every year he lies more and more and now no one can actually remember how old Jzon is)

So sign up to the link below with Eric of Rocketscience on facebook his list is free b4 12. Dress to dance but don’t look like a thug with base ball cap and jerzee cause most likeley you won’t get in.

Unless your special like Paulie Boy haha

peace

ODie

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=185631725590&ref=ts