Today I'm starting a new feature titled Fail Fridays. FF's is supposed to show that life is not always grits and gravy. Setbacks will happen and no matter how hard you try, disappointments will happen too. What I'm setting out to do is use myself as mirror for failures because a lot of people have this impression that i have an awesome life. The fact of the matter is that I'm constantly let down but i use the setbacks as more fuel for my fire to make it happen. Real hustlers don't stop Hustling. We just refine the game.
And on to the post we go....
Earlier this year i was asked by some producers (come to find out they were a PA) of a new dance reality show to audition with my "Crew". Not only did they want me to audition but they also wanted me to make a skateboard dance. The reason being is that they saw one of my skateboard vids on YouTube which makes sense. Everyone knows that my ass skates. Me being me, i cant just do something. I made a "Squirrel Dance for christ sake! No one wants mediocre so i thought of ways to make a real Skate Dance while being true to both forms. Upon hearing the news that they wanted me to make a skate dance I grabbed my "Crew" and we hit the streets to work on some material. The very first thing i did was teach the dancers the coordination's of certain skate tricks so that the dance was authentic. Technically i have been skating longer than i have been dancing and its very important for me to do them both justice. It would be too easy to be cheesy.
Long story short after working for 2 weeks on a 90 second dance we took it to LA for the auditions. Once we got in line with girls no older than 12 with stage Moms carrying all the props around in 2oo hundred dollar jeans we instantly knew that this was not gonna end well. As the camera crews were passing by trying to get group shots and interviews with the dancers in line we shunned the cameras and hid back while everyone else were screaming all of the fake screams that would get them on TV.
Any who, Once we did the audition for the judges i was very happy with my "Crew" because we had never danced the piece so well not too mention we had a great time. I landed all of the tricks that were supposed to go down and the partnering work was great to. Oh, all of this was on a skateboard mind you. After we had finished the dance one Judge stood up clapping. The other looked over at us and said "I see where you are going with this but its not gonna work out for the show". I had no problems with that until she went on to say " I think that you guys should go back and work on your technique". Lets see here...... One of my dancers got accepted to that Paris Opera School and shes an American. Currently shes working with Alonzo King getting ready to go dance in Monaco. The other will be onstage tonight dancing a principle part for a new Xmas show that is getting great reviews. Me i was on a fucking skateboard like they had asked! After her remark she looked at me as i was huffing and puffing and asked "did i have anything to say?" because i was silent. I said "No" "you asked us to make a skate dance and that's what i did" then walked out. No need to waste my breath with a response. After hearing her comments about technique i knew that she had no fucking idea what dance is aside from tricks and tricks with poor technique. Why would i waste my time trying to work in that arena? The whole experience was a huge epic Failure because i was going for instant glory. That's the truth of the matter. Fame and money was my motivation. Instead all i got was an epic FAILURE.
What i had learned from the whole experience was to stay true to yourself. Still to this day I'm pleased and happy with the dancers for the work that they put in and also the dance itself which was something that i wanted to do for the past 10 years anyways. This whole experience was a good kick start to finally make me do it and i did good job with the choreography. Now I want to expand it and go further but first we need to jump into to some classes:)
Here's the draft version of the Skate dance titled Push through it. I cleaned up the rough spots and transitions.
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