Eddy entered an old dance hall, much darker and dirtier than the usual ballet studio that he goes to.
"Um, is this the right place for the dance workshop?"
A shorter man with dark hair turned around. He was dressed in baggy tracksuit sweat pants and a hoodie.
"Well, I just got here myself but I think we are in the right place."
"Hi, I'm Eddy."
"Brett. Ballet?"
"Yeah. You can tell, huh?"
Eddy shifted in his loose fitting yoga pants and gym T-shirt. He thought he dressed "unlike" a ballet dancer today but couldn't fool the guy in front of him.
"Yeah, just your posture. I don't get to meet that many dancers from different genres, this is going to be interesting."
"What's your dance genre, Brett?"
"Hip-hop with break, pop and lock. And I do some other bits and pieces as well.."
"OMG. I don't think I'd recognise half of the stuff you do."
Brett grinned.
"Like I said, I hope this gets iNtErEsTiNg."
Eddy and Brett were enjoying some light-hearted chit-chat as more people arrived. Then they heard a voice asking for everyone's attention.
"Okay, can we all gather up please?"
The workshop facilitator introduced himself as John.
"This particular workshop will have you working on dance skits with variations of all sorts. A ballet interpretation of something from a completely different genre of music for example. I've got a collection of songs prepared and I hope you will find it interesting to see how different dancers would move with the music.
So, may I have you guys separate into .... Say three groups. Classically trained, ballet dancers on this side, contemporary dancers stay in the middle, then the more out-there ones like hip-hop on the opposite side."
"Well, nice knowing ya Eddy, I'm afraid we're gonna go our separate ways."
Brett smiled and waved as he walked away from Eddy.
Eddy returned a shy smile as he headed in the opposite direction, where he met 4 people who stood tall in a very similar way. It really was obvious when ballet dancers were standing around.
Once they were separated into 3 groups, John called out.
"Ok, let's all gather up again in the centre to get warmed up. Who would like to do the honours ?"
Eddy glanced at the walls of the studio. The walls did have barre handrails installed. But while he thought the ballet and contemporary dancers could do barre exercises, he couldn't imagine Brett, the hip hop dancer, doing barre work.
"I'll do it. So my usual warm up is okay, yeah ?"
It was Brett who spoke up.
"Great. You got your own music ?"
"Sure do."
Brett whipped out his phone and portable speaker from his backpack and started playing a pop tune that Eddy would have never picked in a million years as music to warm up to. It was some strange pop genre with a very strong bass beat with a lot of rapping and shouting. The other hip-hop dancers cheered but the other contemporary and ballet dancers looked puzzled.
Following the initial slow stretching movements of neck and arms and legs, Brett instructed everyone to do isolation exercises. The first part was fine, Brett was moving his hips side to side, back to front, accenting the movement with the beat of the music. Eddy assumed the next move would be to rotate the hips but instead, Brett instructed them to move their hips to the right, back to the centre, forward, back to the centre, left, back to the centre, back, back to centre. To Eddy, these movements felt pretty weird but doable. Next Brett's instructions were to slowly gyrate the hips clockwise 4 rotations, followed by anti-clockwise 4 rotations. Eddy thought Brett's technique looked relaxed and freestyled, compared to his fellow ballet dancers whom all 5 moved in sync, matching almost every single angle of their hip joint.
Then Brett called out;
"Change to upper body isolations, after 5,6,7,8..!"
When the movement changed to the upper body, Brett stood with his legs shoulder-width apart as he skilfully isolated the movement from the waist up. His shoulders stayed parallel to the floor as he shifted them first to the right then back to the centre, then puffed his chest out, then back in, to the left, back to the centre, then finally he pushed his chest in so his torso moved backwards, then back to the centre. Eddy had no idea how Brett could shift his torso backwards....! Eddy watched in awe as each movement Brett made was exaggerated with his hand, casually pointing to the shoulders as they shifted sideways or placing his hand on this chest to show how it went in and out. This was when the ballet dancers were tossed out of their comfort zone. Eddy was so used to keeping his upper body straight and centred, almost at all cost, so the movement of the upper body away from its centre axis was very foreign and difficult.
Once the warmups were over, John the facilitator returned to the front as he thanked Brett who returned to his group.
"Okay, first exercise, somewhat cliché perhaps, but let's try the scene from Dirty Dancing. Does anyone know the lift scene?"
It was a dance scene involving a lift, from an iconic movie in the late 80's by a classically trained male dancer and an amateur female dancer. All the ballet and contemporary dancers groaned.
"Oh my god the number of times we did that. Or at least attempted it badly...!"
Eddy noticed none of the hip hop dancers had responded. John noticed too and chuckled as he gave instructions;
"Have a quick look on Youtube guys, just search for the lift scene. They're dancing to 'the time of my life.' We'll have a ballet dancer do the lifts, may I have 1 from each group to be lifted ?"
Eddy saw Brett watching the video clip with his phone, surrounded by 4 other b-boys peering over his shoulder. Eddy smiled as he saw the B-boys all cringe then look at each other. The 4 boys surrounding Brett all pointed at him and laughed. Brett shrugged.
"I think I'm it. I'm the lightest."
Brett stepped forward. A petite girl stepped out from the contemporary group and a slender ballerina also stepped forward.
"OK, who's doing the lifts ?"
"I can."
It was Eddy.
"OK, let's start with the ballet dancers together."
The music played and the ballerina trotted a few steps before she leapt, fully trusting that she will be lifted.
Eddy confidently placed his hands on her hips and lifted her with such ease, it looked as if she was weightless. They held their pose in the letter T.
Brett watched in awe. Not only was Eddy incredibly strong, but the girl also must've had killer core muscles to keep her upper body parallel to the floor when she was lifted at the hips. Brett wondered whether he could actually pull it off.
Eddy gently placed the ballerina back on the floor as a round of applause erupted in the studio.
It was the contemporary dancer's turn next.
"I've never done one of these before. I was only picked because I'm the lightest ."
The music started and they attempted the lift a few times. They ended up ignoring the music but were eventually successful with the lift after having spotters for her arms and legs.
It was Brett's turn.
"Sorry Eddy, no B-girls today so I'm it."
"Heh, that's okay. I think I'll need a few spotters though."
"Yeah, sorry I'll probably weigh more than those girls. Look, if I get too heavy just throw me over your head, yeah?"
"What ? I can't do that!! You're fall head first."
"I know how to land, just make sure you let go of me and I'll be fine"
"Oh my god so I can just drop you ?"
"Well I'd actually prefer a bit of momentum but if I don't get any I'll just end up sliding down your back and rub my face into your ass I suppose."
Eddy cringed.
"I'm kidding, I'll be okay. So where should I leap?"
Eddy marked the spot with his pointed foot and Brett nodded.
The music started to play and Brett took his steps with the beat.
As Brett leapt, Eddy placed his palms on the sides of Brett's hips and lifted him. It surprised Eddy how their timing was matched so well that he managed to get Brett fully elevated with almost no help from the spotters and Brett was able to hold the pose, surprisingly stable, considering he had no ballet training, or rather ballerina training.
"OK, Eddy, you can chuck me behind you if you like."
"No, I'm good, you're so stable."
Eddy managed to put Brett back on the floor without dropping him.
Brett was beaming with excitement.
"Wow, thanks Eddy, now that was a new experience!!! We should try to incorporate it into one of our B-boy routines, hey?"
Brett beamed to his B-boy group.
"Well, then would you care to demonstrate? I'd be interested in your interpretation."
It was John who overheard what Brett had said to his fellow B-boys.
"Um, yeah, sure. May we have 10 seconds ?
Brett's group gathered up and literally had a very short 10 second discussion.
Brett was going to be lifted again. Their group selected a short and stocky guy to be the main lifter with one leg spotter and one chest spotter.
Though not as seamless as Eddy's lift, Brett managed another successful lift, followed by the 3 lifters throwing Brett and much to the horror of the other spectators, he went diving headfirst from the lift.
Eddy could not believe his eyes when he saw that Brett had somehow managed to safely go into a forward roll and land back up onto his feet followed by a few beats worth of dance steps for embellishment.
The spectators gave out a round of applause as the B-boys took a bow.
Eddy called out to Brett;
"How did you do that landing ???"
Brett smiled.
"That was from my stunt and martial arts training."
"Wow, that was amazing"
"Thanks"
"What were you guys discussing beforehand ?"
Brett grinned.
"I just spent 10 seconds convincing the guys that I could handle being thrown forward."
To be continued...