The Night Last Night – the Soulshifters

(featured shifters include: Coflo, Seth, Lucid, Aqua, Tsunami, Apple, Woes)

Part 1 (Song: Night Last Night by Mark Ronson)

Part 2 (Songs: Adaptacao Ft. Tita Lima-Ohmega Watts, Freak Out- Ohmega Watts, Feel that way-Gift of Gab mash-Tor/Sufjan Stevens)

Peace,
-Co FLO

Cruise Control by TomahawkBang

The concept of Adaptation.

* adapt: implies a modification according to changing circumstances
* adaptation: modification of an organism or its parts that makes it more fit for existence under the conditions of its environment

These definitions directly reflect the ideas of dance and movement. Music is technically a changing environment. Be it a single song or several blended and mixed, the layers of rhythms, beats, vocals, and instruments within the music become complex and intertwine… constantly moving, constantly changing. Music is never static, just as dance is a form of infinite movement.

Music is a story regardless of having words or not. Melodies create emotions, feelings and memories. The composer tells a personal story through a song. The story tends to have an introduction, a build up, a climax point and a conclusion. This can be related with many things such as art composition, even architecture. Using an architectural reference, if every room in a structure or element within a room is dynamic, then you would have to create an element even more dynamic to truly make an impact to the viewer/user. The viewer’s eye must adjust to the excessive-ness to the point where what WAS intended to be dynamic, is no longer dynamic. A space would basically lose the “element of surprise”. Now, if a space (similar as to the story concept) has an introductory space, an intermediate space with views or sneak peaks of a view, then into a space with a featured element…(painted wall, sculpture, skyline view, etc.) then that is dynamic! An impression is made and remembered. Spaces and shapes are not forced, but naturally developed.

I use this example because it defaults to the same principles of dance. If you see a dancer or artist with over-dynamic movements, the “look what I can do” mentality, their movements tend to look forced, unnatural and forgettable.

Typically it is noticeable when you see a person moving and restricting to only one “style”. Three songs of different genres could be played in a row and if a dancer is not becoming each individual song…or adapting to tell each story it would simply look as if they are only moving one to one song (you might as well turn off the music!)

When you see someone with movements that are controlled, expressive, dynamic and adapting to their environment (the music, the physical space etc) then you will be witness of a pure element of music, movement and light. The goal is to be able to adapt, reflect not just dance one way to all types of music.

The dancer interprets a story at a subconscious level and creates their own story through the complex blend of music and movement (this is where “being in it” or catchin’ the ghost begins..) Becoming the music is the key. As a principle expressed by Bruce Lee many years ago, “if you put water in a bowl, it becomes the bowl”. Let the music move you. Allow it to reflect outward from the subconscious. One song should not and will not move you as another song will… nor will it move you the same as another dancer. As I stated earlier, music is a changing environment. It is a transporter, a transporter of your soul to the past, present and future. Its your choice of what you feel is best, perhaps a song ties you to certain memories, or brings up a certain moment, a person, a place…. allow for the spiritual exploration. Be willing to change and shift.

-Tsunami, Soulshifters.

Come work on turning & spinning techniques to apply to your dance repertoire!!

Tsunami will be showing techniques and types of turns that can be utilized in any style of dance: floor spins, across the room & in place. Great for working on centering your core, balance, spotting and just good ol’ drilling!

Date: Tuesday, Feb. 2nd
Time: 7:00pm-8:30pm
Price: $8 for drop ins

Location: East Bay Arts High School- Dance Studio
20450 Royal Ave
Hayward, CA 94541
www.eastbayarts.com

Contact An Ta with any questions: 510.828.1491/ SuperAnTa@gmail.com

Schedule of Classes for Dec 6th:
2:30-3:30 pm: Hip-Hop w/ Allan (Beg/Int)
2:30-4pm: House w/ Tsunami (Int/Adv)
4-5pm: House w/ Tsunami (Beg/Int)
4-5:30pm Hip-Hop w/ Allan (Int/Adv)

$18/each or 2 for $30

About Tusnami:

As San Jose native, Tsunami has performed and shared her passion through dance and movement for over 25 years. Formally trained and national champion in classical ballet, lyrical, tap, and modern, today she embraces all aspects and styles of dance. Tsunami’s versatility for movement shines through in house, b-girling, hip hop, capoeira (brazilian martial art), as well as holding national and world titles in artistic roller skating.

In the early 90’s she began her journey into the underground House and Hip-Hop scenes in the San Francisco bay area. Here is where she began to blend and experiment her classical training with a more free and abstract range of movement. House music became a passion and a natural release of energy for her to express emotion through rhythm and dance. She performed for 4 years as a San Jose Saberkitten (Arena football league) and taught ballet, tap, jazz and urban dance at Dance Academy USA in Cupertino for children ages 3-16.

Tsunami left the Bay Area for about 10 years to seek an education in Architecture and explore the dance scenes of San Diego, Los Angeles and New York. She received her Bachelor of Architecture degree in 2004 from Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, New York. At this time she studied the dialogue of b-boying/b-girling, trained consistently in capoeira, performed and taught with Culture Shock NY and continued her growth within her own freestyle. Being solely independent from a young age she worked full-time through college and learned the true value of determination and setting goals. Her most important goal was to find and keep a balance between her two passions: Architecture and Dance. She has taught, competed and performed on both the West and East coast, danced in music videos for DJ Colette and The Pink Spiders as well as toured throughout the Netherlands.

In 2007 Tsunami returned to the Bay Area and is currently working as a Project Manager for a small Architecture firm in Los Altos designing custom homes and preparing for her exams to become a licensed architect. She is also currently working with FLO-olgy doing performances and event coordination for MindbodyFLO.com. She is looking forward to teaching classes at East Bay Arts High School to contribute and create an outlet for arts education, cultural unity and to educate the value of technique and self expression.

Each class will offer something new: focusing on musicality, versatility, use of space, rhythm and style. Tsunami believes that classic dance technique is a critical element for developing strength of the core, posture, poise and can be infused into today’s urban dance styles. Theory, history and vocabulary will be a part of each class.

So what are you waiting for!!!! Come check out a class!

$8 per class/$84 for all 12 classes

East Bay Arts – Dance Studio 3
20450 Royal Ave, Hayward, CA 94541
Contact: An Ta 510.317.4418 SuperAnTa@gmail.com

]]> http://mindbodyflo.com/dance/fusion-movement-class-by-tsunami/feed/ 1 http://mindbodyflo.com/dance/soulshifters-summit-nyc-2009-video-thunderbolts-feat-soulshifters-flo-ology/ http://mindbodyflo.com/dance/soulshifters-summit-nyc-2009-video-thunderbolts-feat-soulshifters-flo-ology/#comments Mon, 20 Jul 2009 18:35:24 +0000 Coflo http://mindbodyflo.com/?p=940 SoulShifters Summit NYC 2009 video teaser – “Thunderbolts” featuring dancers from SoulShifters / FLO-ology, SF Bay Area, LA, Boston, Miami.

This is a teaser for SoulShifter’s docu-dance coming out 2010 “Catchin’ the Ghost”.

For more info check out:
SoulShifters on Facebook
Catchin’ the Ghost on Facebook

Music By Ezel EzelMusic.com- Thunderbolts – GO BUY THE TRACK! – http://www.traxsource.com/index.php?act=show&fc=tpage&cr=titles&cv=35606

We are back and beat up! hahaha! I swear all of us are feelin the rough NY streets. Knees, ankles, black eyes, feet – you name it we are broken! This trip was certainly a great trip. I cannot speak for everyone but I can respectively speak for my self and my feeling about the trip and the scene/culture in New York.

Let me start by saying this trip wasn’t like my normal dance trip where I head out to become inspired and really open my eyes to other dancer’s concepts, style and emotion. This trip, at least for me, was to show the House Dance culture (as far in the world as it could reach) that what I exist as another of many, many dope dancers in the world. I wasn’t setting out bent to battle, upstage or MURDER any other dancers out there- just simply put my name out in the scene. I have been dancing (with and without style) for approx 12 years now (6 almost 7 years with style); I have always been dancing in the Bay Area scene even prior to legal clubbing age. Where am I going with this? Okay – here it is:

Dancing for me has always been something I looked at seriously, at first for fun, then for work, then for popularity. I realized as I tried to achieve these particular milestones in my dance the only one that seemed to really make me feel good was dancing for fun. Dancing for fun? Fun is described and felt differently according to the person you talk to. It had gotten to the point over the last couple of years that dancing wasn’t as much “fun” as it used to be. I wasn’t learning anything new, I wasn’t feeling more accomplished, physically I was feeling older – my normal routine of dance aside for partying in the club wasn’t “fun” for me. I then decided to revisit the pure feelings of when I started to dance and see if I could find that “fun” in dancing. Long story short, I did – what was it that I discovered?

I had discovered: history, culture, people, music and a purpose.

Aside from my main purpose to – put on a show at HDI; I went to New York so I could breathe the same air, walk on the same streets, dance in the same clubs that the originators of House Music culture had once done. The House Music culture in New York is INSANE! People love house music in SF, no doubt, but do they really love the music/culture? I have met many of the older SF “House Heads” in my days clubbing here in the city and any conversation that you have with them they will tell you an incredible story about clubbing in New York. Not to say we don’t have great DJs, producers and club patrons (and Dancers can’t forget the Dancers) – but SF seems almost infant in respect to what New York has done with their scene. Let me give you a small example: We had a group of about 20-25 West Coasters rolling through the streets of Manhattan, bumping TeN’s boombox, playing some FLO Radio mixes (ahhh gheyeaaa!) – just about every group of people on the street or in any park we visited that heard our music would let us know that its dope. They would do this by instantly joining our House marching vibe, dancing, or even just simply blurting out “WOOOOO! Okayyyyy!”. This is the type of reaction that you do not get here in the Bay Area, House music (shit man….music in general) just seems to be felt in a more evolved way out in NY.

After learning so much of the history of House culture in New York I am blown away with where it seems to have gone. From parties on docking piers where the average age is 40+ to parties in Fort Green Park for “Soul Summit” where the dance floor is half a football field of wall to wall people just grooving – House music culture is alive and growing! I only wish I could have spent more time and gone to more (I know I have just scratched the surface). The music alone at every single event I went to was beyond my expectations: grown, tasteful, beautiful house music was the music of choice mixed in thick with old funk, jazz, soul and afro beat. Yes their was electronic sounding music – but not during “groove sessions” type parties. You could see the look on peoples faces, the movement in their bodies – the smell of their hair (hahahaha); the music was really touching their soul – they were all coming together to enjoy this music we call House Music.

The cyphers….well the cyphers weren’t what I expected. Im sure that the parties I went to were not the norm, reason being we went to parties that everyone visiting, Europe, America, Japan were all attending because of the HDI event. The cyphers were filled with good vibes but from what I felt were not natural or inviting. In general the OG’s didn’t show up to as many of the cyphers as I would have liked to witness, but I did get a good feel for their vibe. For the most part the cyphers with the OG’s were very competitive, the energy was raw and to the point, no nonsense – no bullshit. It wasn’t about sharing the experience of the music and the exchange of emotion – more about “dope mufucka’s only”. With that being said I may have read the vibe wrong, but looks on people’s faces seem to tell the story all to well. Not to say I don’t feel like going hard and keeping the cypher raw and bull shit free – it just wasn’t what I expected considering the MASS adoption of house music culture throughout New York. In any case, I respectfully and thankfully have to say – it was incredible to see any and all OGs do their thang….thank you.

My purpose: I have realized that I want to be a name that is associated with House music culture in the Bay Area for years to come. I want to give back twice as much as I receive. I want more people in the Bay Area to experience and feel the same way I do about this culture and music. The more I practice the more I can give back, the more I learn about music, culture, history, theory – the more I can give back. The more places I travel, visit, experience, the more I can give back. The more music I listen to – the more I can give back. I want to dance and represent the beautiful feeling that music, specifically House Music, provides to me. I went to New York to complete in HDI and do well – represent and show people that even with a younger less influenced culture in San Francisco their is still love, passion and desire to feed the same scene world wide. I have accomplished that immediate goal, but the ultimate promise to my self will never end, I am going to keep dancing and keep moving.

Among all the drama with the actual HDI event, there were alot of people with us on this that have inspired me to keep moving – let their names and locations be known, thank you all – lets dance!

FLO-ology Collective (San Francisco), SoulShifters (USA), ODie, TeN of Quad, Tsunami, Slim, Gaby ‘Aqua’, Free, Seth, Orb, Orb’s girl (i forgot her name), Steve Rhythmz, Shade, GraVIDy, Oj, Gerald, Jihnee, Victor, We:Whum, Angelo, Julie, Manny, Cam, Jason, Larry, Raquel, Open House LA, Texas Dancers, Steve Motion, Noi, Corey, Jimbo (congrats on the experimental win!), Tine Machine, Nicole, Dan, Ndu, Eric ‘Ranger’, Zane Danger 45, Carlos, ATM Crew, Erico, Sammy (Boston), Dan from France.

If I missed you let me know – I didn’t mean too, but I want to make sure you are on this post cause it means something to me

Congrats to all the dancers that entered and competed in HDI, all catagories – you have inspired someone out their, at the very least me. Thanks to Pang Lo for supplying the cuts during our battles. Thanks to Ejoe and Red for not shutting me down when I for sure registered and should have been able to compete (drama haha).

A very personal thank you to Shade and my family (FLO-ology / SoulShifters) for being my hype men/women pushing me forward in the competition. I hope I made you all proud (clearing my throat) PARTY ON THE TRAIN, PARTY ON THE TRAIN!

I danced every round for my grandmother Rosalind Smith, I love you.

Till the next trip, peace my music luvin’ peoples.

p.s. stay tuned for pictures, video and other good stuff from the event of the next week as we will be updating soon

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”

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hw-VYZpRDSA[/youtube]